Upon arrival we were met by Deb and Dean, Gemma's cousin and her youngest son. They gave us a great welcome, let us stay in their house and quickly introduced us to the rest of the clan that moved over to NZ from Nottingham in the 70's.
It quickly became apparent that the family had been through some really tough times during the two massive earthquakes that struck Christchurch and the surrounding area.
Like hundreds of other christchurch residents, Deb's sister Audrey and her family are still waiting 2 years on to find out if the insurance company will tear down their house or repair it. Their stories of what it was like to live through the quakes, how they would hide under beds until the shaking stopped and then phone each other to make sure that they were ok, we're very powerful.
The DVD of the quake that they showed us, really brought home how powerful the quake was and the devastation it caused to downtown Christchurch was immense. We visited the centre of town which 2 years on still looked like a war zone with buildings still bring demolished and cleared and huge fenced off "red zones" that we're still unsafe to approach.
There are lots of signs of the Kiwi's resilience however. There is the Restart mall, a large shopping mall made out of storage containers, huge cleared areas of land on the outskirts of town where new buildings are being built and the general attitude of all who live in the area is one of optimism.
After a few days of being well fed and looked after it was time to hire a car and leave Christchurch for a month long trip around the South Island, first stop Geraldine and the Peel Forest home of the Rangitata river, the location of Helms Deep and the weirdest cinema we have ever been to, then onto Lake Tekapo and Mount Cook.
More stories to come!
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