After following the alpine rivers to the coast, it was a case of retracing our steps back to the city of Christchurch. We’ll concentrate a bit on Christchurch here. Few people can visit this city in 2018 and emerge unmoved.

On Tuesday, 22nd of February, 2011, the city was hit by a 6.2 earthquake whose centre was a mere 7km from the CBD. This was after 7.1 earthquake hit the area some 5 months before. What resulted was utter devastation, and though we visited almost 8 years after the earthquake, what happened in 2011 was still all around in the vacant lots that were waiting to be rebuilt.

But I don’t want to dwell solely on the tragedies, because I think it’s the creative and vibrant ways that the locals found to get back on their feet – things that can be found around almost every corner – that really made our visit. I’ll write about some of these little things in this series.