Tuesday 13 August 2013

Double-decker delight



13 August 2013

What did I forget yesterday?

Oh, yes. One of the stories we heard at Quake City. This one was told by a cop. He was on duty at the court house and had got into one of his occasional cleaning modes and had just finished getting the staff canteen spotless when the earthquake hit. He stood in the doorway and watched as a tin of coffee flew across the room scattering its contents all over his nice clean floor, along with all the dishes and everything else. Then he, and the one other policeman on duty had to decide what to do. Most of the prisoners had already been taken to the prison, but there were still a couple to be shipped out and some on remand. There were about six in total. One was a woman, one was a youth who’d been remanded into the cells over lunch for being lippy to the judge, and one of the men had been separated into special detention to keep him separated from the other inmates.

So, what were they going to do with these prisoners, who were understandably frantic to get out of the small cells with only a tiny window in the door? They couldn’t leave them as the cells were underground. Not only underground, but also under the waterline and water was coming in through the cracks. So they got a lot of handcuffs, cuffed the inmates together in Indian file and walked them through the building.

Now, normal practise is to load prisoners into prison vans and drive them out of the courthouse through two sets of roller doors, but with no power the doors weren’t rolling. So they marched the prisoners outside to where the rest of the courthouse staff were waiting. A couple of the prisoners were already remanded for prison, but the others hadn’t been before a judge yet. So the cop found a judge and they processed them in front of the courthouse in the middle of an earthquake scene. By all accounts they were mighty pleased to be taken to the ‘safety’ of jail.

Two of the prisoners had to have bail hearings and the cop didn’t oppose bail in one case, so he got a scrap of paper, the only piece anyone had, and made up some bail conditions and wrote them on that, before getting the judge and the prisoner to sign that bit of paper. He was convinced that at that point the guy would have signed over his house just to get out of there. As soon as bail was approved and he was un-handcuffed, he was gone.

These are the types of things that you don’t think about where you hear of these disasters.

Another story we heard was, after the 22 February earthquake, a lady was in town. As the population of Christchurch was wont to do after the September 4th quake she’d asked a lady sitting on a seat: “What was that?” meaning, what magnitude?

The lady on the seat, obviously a tourist, responded with: “That – was – an – earthquake!”

Another recounted how, as she was in the CBD, she became aware of the smell of gas. She passed two ladies having an argument. One wanted to have a cigarette and there was no way the other was going to let her light it while there was a chance of gas about. The story teller said she kept on going so that she wouldn’t be anywhere nearby if there was an explosion.

Right, today.

It could have started out very interestingly. I went into the toilet here in the motel and heard a ‘chink’ sound. Thinking that something must have dropped to the floor, but not knowing what, I looked around. Then I looked in the toilet.

There was my bone carving eternal friendship necklace that D.C. had given me.

Fortunately I hadn’t used the convenience at that point, so I fished it out, but I’ve given it more of a wash that Grandpa did with his specs once.

Okay, so this tale has nothing to do with Christchurch or earthquakes. We were staying at our bach on Rangitoto Island. There were some interesting clouds, possibly lenticular, that were heading towards us from Achilles Point and D.C. and I were watching them when we heard Grandpa go: “Oh, damn and blast it.” We went outside and found him coming down the path from the long drop without his spectacles. He’d been, eh hem, using the facilities when a mosquito had buzzed about his head. He’d taken a swipe at it, as you do, and had knocked his specs off his face and down the hole.

I hope you’re not eating at this point.

D.C. got a torch and together the pair of them peered down the hole to find the AWOL spectacles. “There they are!” exclaimed Grandpa. “On a pile of….”

I’m sure you’ve got the picture.

So we got a length of good ol’ Kiwi Number Eight wire, fashioned it into a hook, and managed to pull them out. D.C., being prepared like a good Girl Guide, had a bucket of disinfectant ready to soak them in. Grandpa grabbed his glasses, gave them a quick swirl about in the disinfectant, and stuck them on his face!

Ewwww.

Back to 2013; not 1993 or thereabouts.

Needless to say, my necklace is going to be cleaned a bit more than that before I wear it next. Once it’s dry it’s going to have a good going over with hand sanitiser.

We headed into town, retracing last night’s footsteps so that we could try to find the things we’d photographed last night.









The vacant section in the background was the site of the CTV building where 115 people lost their lives.
The new cardboard cathedral costs the Anglican Church $600 per day to run and they were requesting a donation of $5 per entrant (Turn off the lights at night and see how much money you’ll save.) We refused to give them anything, except to save the old cathedral. Not that we stayed in the new one for long. Just long enough to get a couple of photos.


I thought I’d seen a man on a roof yesterday…

They are real people standing behind him.


We had lunch in the same place as yesterday. I had a Bombay chicken burger, which was nice.


Even the toilets are housed in containers

Refreshing the topiary
We got some photos of the Bridge of Remembrance and the scene we’d photographed two years ago when down there with Pen. Hopefully you'll be able to use the attached links.

2011
2013

2011
2013
Then we managed to find the museum and the local i-SITE / Information Centre and bought tickets for the Double-decked sight-seeing tour. We could have bought the one hour ride or the three hour one. We decided to splash out on the three hour one. ($69 for me, $65 for D.C. – except the ticket said Adult $69, Child $65.)











The bus was an old 1967 Routemaster RML that had finished service in England in 2004. When we arrived and gave Carl our ticket, we were the only one on board. This was great because it meant we were able to get upstairs and have a front seat each. Then a family with several boys got on and I shifted next to D.C. so they could enjoy a front seat view. Only one of the boys sat there. After another family with young children had boarded we were off.

We travelled along many streets that we’d already seen, but it was interesting to hear the stories behind them. Except that the boy in the other front seat seemed to get bored, and the other family’s youngest had a tendency to squeal for no reason and then that family all got bored and the started playing music and singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Thank heavens the bus had a good sound system and we could still hear what Carl was saying.

After once around the CBD both families got off *Yay!* and only D.C. and I were left.

I reclaimed the other front seat.

Carl came up to ask if we could hear it all okay. He’d been aware of the kids and had been talking louder than usual to make sure he could be heard over them.

Then he reclaimed his seat and we set off on our double-decker bus tour. Where else could you hire a chauffeur-driven vehicle for two hours for only $134?

“Drive on, Parker… I mean Carl.”

Our first stop was Mona Vale gardens. We didn’t have long here, just long enough to walk through. We found the old tea rooms, where we remember lunching back in 1992. It’s looking in much worse shape now.

Crocusesssss

Modelled on the Treaty House

We had lunch here back in 1992

The old gardener's cottage

Next stop was The Sign of the Takahe. I think we had scones here back in ’92. But now it too is closed, although Carl said that he thought it was okay and would reopen. From here, up in the Cashmere Hills, we could see out over a rather damp-looking Christchurch.

The Sign of the Takahe



Christchurch CBD

Tower Junction
Back into the Routemaster and out to Sumner Beach. Once again there were plenty of shipping containers evident. This time to stop cliffs from collapsing onto the road and squashing pedestrians. When you see all the damage both here and in the main city, you wonder how it was that more people weren’t killed.







Carl was telling us how the September 4th quake had a rolling motion, but that the February 22nd one, having a vertical motion, was more like an explosion. He’d been listening to a new CD when it happened and things, like the TV, were thrown across the room at him. He went outside and his neighbour was there trying to retrieve her dog who had slipped his leash. Every time they caught the dog and tried to re-collar him, he’d slip out again. They lived by the tide and the water was coming up higher and higher, until it was waist height and it receded again. He spent over the next six weeks without water, electricity and sewerage, and since then he’s tried to play that CD, but can’t bring himself to listen.

But he did enjoy his steaks on the BBQ and the free beers that the supermarket were giving away because they couldn’t sell it.

He also had to go for miles to get petrol for his car because they had to shut all the service stations to stop petrol leaking everywhere.

We enjoyed the tour, especially the last two hours, and commented to Carl once it was over, that now we had to walk ‘home’. He asked where we were staying and when we said Bealey Ave, said he could drop us off close to the motel. So we had a longer ride in the double-decker than most, riding shotgun behind Carl.

Thank you, Carl.

Time to find something for tea again.

The motel had recommended a nearby Thai place that was operating out of a container. I’d seen it on our lift home, so we decided to go there after dumping all our gear.

Fortunately it was only four blocks away. Unfortunately it was only a takeaway, or eat outside on picnic tables. We decided to takeaway, until one of the other customers started smoking and then another joined her.

There may not have been gas about, but we went in search of something else.

The motelier had said that there was a Speights Ale House two minutes in the other direction from the motel, so we hunted that out and ate there. We both had filo packet chicken (very nice), but didn’t realise how big they were and D.C. ordered two – one is currently residing in the fridge here at the motel. We had an apple crumble for dessert that was very artistic. D.C.’s got photos on her camera, but she’s asleep at the moment so I’m not going to download it.

I’m just going to upload mine!

Girl Guides National Headquarters - Herrick House


Do they mean the concrete's lifted, or the leaf needs to be?

A bookstore - 2011 diaries


Cafe - just as it was when the customers ran out of it on February 22nd 2011




But they are trying to beautify the place.



Container protection in case the building collapses


"Daisy"

Cherry tree close to the Bridge of Remembrance




Guarding the art gallery

The former Canterbury University and latterly the arts centre.




Part of the John Britten memorial


Penguin alert!

Pallet pavilion

The bricks fell, but the wooden structure remains standing. There is a saying in Christchurch now: "Wood is good."

No comments:

Post a Comment