Christchurch Part 2

These pics were taken on our day off after the chess comp in Christchurch.
We made the decision that we would do some extra fundraising so that we could take a day to explore the city. Last year we were in a hurry and had no spare money, so we finished the chess and were straight back in the van for a 13 hour drive. Not fun.

This time we had time to go exploring the city at night, take in a movie and have a meal and then had a whole day with a hire car to get out of town. We headed south to the Port Hills. These are the site of a huge volcanic eruption some considerable time ago. I am quite pleased with the picture of the lamb surveying the city. Over to the west we had uninterrupted views of the entire range of the Southern Alps all covered in snow.

After a bit of a walk we headed off to the port town of Akaroa. This was originally settled by the French and it cultivates a french atmosphere that certainly does it no harm as a tourist attraction. Lots of brightly coloured wooden houses and other buildings. Tres beau n'est pas? I was showing off my rusty French to the Chess Team and pretending that I was French, when one of them pointed out that I was wearing my England T-shirt!

We flew back home on the Tuesdy morning and had a leisurely drive back north.

Eric was on the B-team this year and he has become quite obsessed about chess. He is very keen to make the A-team and to go on a similar jaunt next year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

These pics were taken in Christchurch.
The group photo on the steps shows the three Northland school teams that competed in the Interschools Finals. Kaitaia College at the back, Taipa Area School in the middle and Whau Valley School at the front. Whau Valley did best out of the three, coming about halfway in their field. The Taipa School team had the best team strip - check out the berets! It was their first year and they found it tough. Taipa and Kaitaia supported each other during the comp and will hopefully have some joint training sessions in future.

We went to an Indian restaurant in Riccarton on the Sunday night and had a very pleasant meal.

The top picture shows a building that was flattened by the quake. It was weird to see a single shop knocked down whilst its neighbours were intact. The whole earthquake is hugely expensive with something like 30,000 homes suffering damage. They had a 5.0 magnitude aftershock today that got everyone back out on the streets and all worried again.