Christchurch

We spent our last full day in New Zealand walking around Christchurch. This was Christchurch a week before the major earthquake that hit on 22nd February, 10 days after we left. The quake itself was not as severe as one that had hit the city the previous year in September, and they’d had another one on Boxing Day 2010 as well.

I think as you look through these pictures, the poignant ones are of the cathedral and the flower festival that had only just begun on the day we visited. It’ll be a long time before a similar event will be held there.

We liked the Botanical Gardens a lot, wonderful to stroll through them and enjoy an early autumnal day. We popped into an exhibition of Sir Walter Scott’s fateful polar expedition that had left from Christchurch 100 years before.

You can also see the photos here, rather than as a slideshow.