Shipping containers, gap-fillers and Other Things: UnZud part 3

Ode to Shipping Containers

Oh lovely shipping container, your chunky form delights.

Your squat and solid bottom planted firmly on the ground

Withstands the wrath of Nature, holds boulders at bay

Shoring up the crumbling cliffs and hiding the hills

Your long snaking wall along the Sumner coast

Offers art space

And can, with the help of a legion of New Zealand knitters, be quite cosy.

You are the embodiment of kia kaha* in broken Christchurch

I wonder if your ships miss you while you work so hard on land?

 

*Maori phrase  meaning be strong

Gap-fillers

So many gaps… Half of Christchurch, it seems, is a car-park. A razed rubble wasteland, grey and gloomy. Enterprising Cantabrians, refusing to take it lying down, have taken to filling the gaps with quirky installations – like these: 

 Dad and I went grocery shopping yesterday, and didn't even feel the 4.8 earthquake that rattled the city. Now, 4.8 is a sizeable shake, and it lasted about twenty seconds. Admittedly, the supermarket was noisy enough for us not to hear anything rattling, but I was surprised not to have felt anything. It made me think about the ridiculous and alarmist travel advisory put out by my own government, which was in yesterday's The Press.Oh dear, oh dear...

A dip in the (hot) pool. UnZud Holiday Part 2.

Hanmer Springs is a resort town about 120 or so kms from Christchurch. Look:

Brrrrrr. Yes, there were piles of snow here and there on the ground, refusing to melt. Look!

 
Perfect day for a dip in the pool - the thermal pool, that is. The fine misty rain that has dogged this holiday kept finely misting all over us, but the temperature in the thermal pool was 42C! Just like a hot bath, but with a farty sulphurous pong. It was very very difficult to get out and scurry through the freezing air, in wet cozzies (or in my case, flapping wet t-shirt and boardies) to the change room.

What a great day! We sang It's Now or Never very raucously in a gift shop, while the proprietor accompanied us on her pianola. We ate delicious food in Mumbles cafe, surrounded by a big Harley-Davidson and a million Pukeko pics (the chunky chilli vegetable soup was to die for) and wandered through some foresty bits that Chris and Ingrid had planted when they were in the Conservation Corps. We drove back past Seal Rock, which looks just like a seal (surprise surprise) and Frog Rock, which looks just like an enormous squatting frog (bet you didn;t see that one coming!) and then stopped at Brew Moon on the way home, for some of their very fine, er, brew. The mulled wine was a delicious way to round off the day.

You know when you're getting closer to Christchurch because the roads suddenly turn to poo and long strips of road cones materialise.

'Must be high tide', murmurs Ingrid as we drive through the flooded streets that are a new feature of Christchurch, post-quake. At high tide, water rises out of the drains, rather than flowing down them.  Something else that residents have taken in their stride as the 'new normal'.

Tomorrow: Sumner, and a tribute to the humble shipping container.