Kaikoura and Christchurch: Saturday, 8/1

We departed Nelson around 7am this morning and stopped at Kaikoura on our way to Christchurch. This is going to sound repetitive from my last post, but the scenery here is ridiculous. It feels like I'm looking at photo-edited mountaintops, beaches, and rolling hills rather than seeing them with my own eyes. In Kaikoura we had fish and chips at the second-best rated place in all of New Zealand! Then we did a peninsula walk to admire more of the views, and along this walk we passed hundreds of seals and baby seal pups. They're so adorable! But it's important to stay at least 10 meters away because seals are surprisingly fast and vicious and can outrun a human, even though that's hard to believe looking at their bodies.

After leaving Kaikoura we arrived in Christchurch; this part of the trip was pretty sombering. In 2010 and 2011, the city was hit by massive earthquakes that eliminated the entire central business district and took hundreds of lives. The earthquakes were completely unexpected because the fault line in the area was previously undiscovered. The city has yet to recover, and there is not much around currently in terms of cityscape. (There was a Deloitte building though, making it the 4th NZ city I've spotted one.) Christchurch isn't expected to be fully rebuilt until 2025. As we passed memorials and the original cathedral in Christchurch, built in the 1800s, in shambles, it was draining on my emotions and overall a pretty big shock. Lana tried to put it into perspective for us by telling us to imagine our own country's second-largest city being destroyed and ripped apart by an unexpected earthquake. What used to be a city full of skyscrapers and life has turned into one of abandoned buildings and construction on its way to rebirth. We only had time to walk around for about an hour before it got dark, but me and Jen return to Christchurch for 2 days before flying back to the States so I will have more to talk about after that! Tomorrow we leave for Fox Glacier!