New Zealand - Mar 2 - Christchurch / Littleton

POL:

Christchurch / Littleton was rocked by earthquakes in 2010 and 2011.  They registered 7.1 and 6.3 points on the Rector scale respectivelty.  The last earthquake flattened some 8000 buildings and put thousands of families out in their homes.  Miraculously only 185 people perished in the last quake.

After the quakes the local governments condemned entire neighborhoods, bought the land from the owners, razed and removed the houses, and left the land empty.  They now have neighborhood after neighborhood void of any houses.  This makes up many square miles of homes.  All that is left of the neighborhoods are the streets.  You can still see where the property lines might have been as the trees and shrubs have been left as well.  It was told that the reason was that the ground was too unstable and replacing the infrastructure would be too difficult.

Our tour guide shared a photo with us that was taken six seconds after the last quake.  The 'cloud' is actually the dust that was thrown into the air by the collapsing buildings.
After making a tour around town we stopped at the Mona Vale gardens.  There were quite a few flowers and a pathway next to a small stream.  It was very relaxing.  The flowers were very well kept and pretty.

We stopped for lunch at a central point of the city.  We had lunch at a local McDonald's (of course).  This particular location had no interesting menu items like many overseas locations do.  Still quite good though.

Our last stop was at the Antartic center.  While there we got to ride in the back of a Haaguard vehicle.  This is the kind of vehicle that is used to transport people and equipment across the frozen landscape of Antarctica.  The ride was noisy, very bumpy, and not at all comfortable.

They also served as a blue penguin rescue site.  They had maybe a dozen or so blue penguins.
And perhaps the most interesting experience was a 'storm room'.  The room was kept at a balmy 17 degrees farenheit.  After you had been in the cold room for about five minutes they turned on the fans that simulated a 26 mile per hour wind.  The wind chill dropped to a cool -1 degree F.  The storm ran for another five minutes.  Yes, it was really cold.  When we left the cold room our glasses fogged up and stayed that way for about ten minutes.

So as our adventure in town winds down we make our way back to the ship.








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