Avonside Drive in Christchurch.

This is part of the area we drove around in Christchurch, Avonside Drive, so many homes have just vanished leaving vast empty spaces. This just one of the many areas that have been ruined by the earthquake, some never to be built on again ever as the land is too unstable now.

Thanks to the Press Newspaper for the photo.

New Brighton Christchurch

We drove around  the suburbs looking at the ruined homes of people who have already left the district , where there are just empty paddock in which whole communities lived and loved in homes that just don't exist any more or if they are still standing they have been vandalized and sit vacant and abandoned and/or flooded; a sorry sight.
 So on to a slightly run-down New Brighton and the lovely beach with its nice new Pier, rebuilt since the quake which brought it down. We did some shopping and talked to locals who wish the town could become the 'place to be' again that it was several years ago  when it was the only town in the district that was open for business on the weekends. Maybe it could too, now is the time for change.

New Regent Street Christchurch

 New Regent Street with its old fashioned, very English, tiny crammed together small shops, is seemingly little changed from the past, but it was damaged and quickly repaired and back in business. We stopped here for coffee, I lounged around on the huge oversize lounge suite just for fun so I could chat to passers by. And we ran into the Wizard holding  Court now in this street instead of the Square, he gave us a wave as we past by and no he didn't ankle tap us or trip us with his long staff.