Heading North

After leaving Queenstown I headed up North to the town of Ashburton, on the east coast of the South Island. While watching the television at the hostel, a news flash came on saying that there had been a 4.6 earthquake in Wellington. I texted Jon, who I had stayed with the previous month and he texted back that it was enough of a jolt to make them run for the door jam. He stated that the girls hadn't even woken up.

The next day I hopped on an inter-city bus and headed to Kaikoura, a beautiful ocean-side town further up the east coast. In order to get there I had to exchange buses in Christchurch. As soon as we entered the city you could see the devastation all around. We passed a church where the whole front side had collapsed away and the stained glass windows still lay in pieces in the rubble. There were many buildings completely destroyed and others with obvious damage. It was a surreal sight as army personnel were everywhere, controlling access to the city center. Everywhere you looked people were wearing dust masks and after several hours waiting for the bus we all understood why. Large trucks would come by and spray the roads in an attempt to control the dust but due to strong winds that day, your eyes were burning and your nose became clogged very fast. As we waited for the bus to arrive, there was a pharmacy directly across from us that was mostly collapsed. Due to the continuing gales, the roof kept lifting up off of what was left of the structure and then crashing down again. After about an hour, police officers told us to move down to the end of the next block as the building was coming down. Most of us thought they meant it was about to collapse. About a half hour after we had all moved behind a new tape line, a large machine arrived and the building was torn down in minutes.

I couldn't help wonder how the city center must look and I thought, who might have been in that pharmacy when the earthquake struck. Was it some girl working behind the counter, or a husband picking up medication for his wife. You watch the news and see how some people were on the top floor of a five story building that completely collapsed and they walked out with minor injuries and then you see a funeral for a young man who stepped out of a tattoo parlor and was crushed in the rubble. These things are always so random and senseless and incredibly sad.