Ride, Boldly Ride

I knew the city would look different in the daylight, but I could not have imagined how different.

My first visit was brief, simply an overnight stop on the way to a new adventure. It was dark when I jumped off the bus. It always seemed to be dark when I arrived somewhere new.

It was no different to walking around Auckland or Napier at night, except this time I didn’t know where I was going and I had no map. I did all the right things. I walked around parks rather than through them, and I avoided any streets that weren’t lit.

Still I felt uneasy.

There were no small groups or gangs gathered in the shadows causing the uncomfortable atmosphere though. The streets were eerily quiet and I didn’t see many people at all. Even the roads were quiet.

What I did see were the dark silhouettes of partially collapsed buildings. The harsh orange light of street lamps reflected off the metal fences that surrounded them. Buildings waited their turn for demolition.

Cranes, silent in the darkness, stood sentinel across the damaged city. I didn’t get as far as the Red Zone, the heart of the city where the 2011 earthquake had done most of its damage, but I saw enough. It was a sobering sight, and I felt uncomfortable being there, as if I was intruding while the city mourned and tried to heal.

On my next visit, three months later, I saw a city with spirit.

The centre of the city, around Cathedral Square, lay in ruins. Plots of land stood bare where buildings had already been demolished and others were still waiting to be knocked down. Trams lines criss-crossed the city, running under the barrier protecting the Red Zone and disappeared into the ruins, but there were no trams in the city now.

A temporary shopping precinct had been built from brightly painted shipping containers. The containers had been given a new lease of life. Large sections of wall had been replaced with glass, and the insides had been completely refurbished. It wasn’t long before you forgot they were shipping containers at all.

It was a clever and stylish way to quickly restore a commercial heart to the damaged city, and it attracted the tourists.

The contrast between the broken centre and the fringes of the Red Zone was incredible. Sometimes just a road’s width separated a crumbling ruin from an untouched building.

The scars were difficult to ignore, but the city was bouncing back with a sense of resilience and rejuvenation.