Another sunny morning, and this time much warmer than we have had since the Cooks. After breakfast we were at 18C. We headed into downtown Christchurch to see what was open and what was not due to the earthquake damage. On the drive in there was little to no indication of any damage. It wasn’t until we got to the centre of the city that there was any problems. There are still large parts of the city centre that are closed due to unstable buildings and rebuilding work.
The city have made great use of transport containers, both for housing cafes and shops as well as using them as barriers to protect streets from further building collapse.
Containers as Stores
For those of you that have been to Christchurch, this map shows the remaining “red zone” the area that is still considered unsafe.
Red Zone
From downtown we headed out to the Willowbank wildlife reserve which housed a number of New Zealand wildlife species, plus the occasional foreign animal thrown in for good measure. It was here that we finally saw the elusive kiwi. It was in a darkened out enclosure, with very low level lighting as the birds are nocturnal. We were just about to leave when we saw one foraging around. After watching it for a few minutes it came towards us, it was then that we found that a second kiwi had been sitting less than 2ft from us!
As it was spring time, the animals were a little “frisky”, this was particularly true for one of the peacocks.
- From this…….
….To This
Close Up
There was a female relentlessly teasing the male by walking back and forth in front of him. As this happened, the male would shake the “fan” making it vibrate very quickly with a rattling noise.
From the wildlife park we headed out to an old Air Force station at Wigram to visit the Aviation Museum. This has a small collection of aircraft from the WW1 through to the late 20th century. There is a new hangar being built to expand number of exhibits.