Ōtautahi / Christchurch Daily Photo

I went for a walk around Sumner today, mainly because I really needed some fresh sea air and figured the smell of the ocean would be good for me. And it certainly was, the beach is still as beautiful as ever, but a few things have certainly changed. I didn’t get a photo of Shag Rock as it was too hard to stop (the road is practically one lane in places), but it’s fair to say it is ‘munted’. Cave Rock is still standing however, but has large sections that have fallen away – you couldn’t pay me enough money to go into it.

The building I have photographed was the Sumner Borough Council building at some point (that’s what it says at the top in the masonry), not sure what it is or was now. But as you can see it has some rather large containers in front of it, so I’m guessing it’s not expected to keep standing if we get another decent shake. There were a lot of shipping containers around Sumner – many of them line the roads as a protection against the cliff faces. I’m amazed now at how I can mentally calculate the ‘drop zone’ of a falling hazard and think yeah… that’s enough protection. I also do put a lot of faith in the engineers who work these things out. But having said that, I did not get too close to the clock tower that is remarkably still standing and looking very undamaged.

I’ll post more photos of my walk around the beach-side suburb tomorrow.