Ōtautahi / Christchurch Daily Photo

Every couple of weeks my partner Bruce and I venture into the central city for our ‘cordon walk’. That’s where we walk around the perimeter of the ‘red zone’ of the central city. There can be dramatic changes even in just a few weeks between visits, with new and weird vistas becoming available to us as buildings are removed. For example, if you stand in Victoria Square and look east, you can now see part of the New Regent Street buildings. We focused on Victoria Street today – going up the street and then into Victoria Park and then eventually along Durham Street up to the Re-Start Mall.

We decided to do our bit to help support the businesses on Victoria Street. We had lunch at The Coffee Club and later got some fruit, vegies and meat for dinner at Gordon Smith & Sons.

This is the bridge by the Town Hall that goes over the Avon River on Colombo Street. We viewed it from the path that runs along the river by Victoria Square. The sight of the buckling at the other end is quite impressive – a reminder of the awesome force of mother nature.

Victoria Square is both a beautiful and weird place to be right now. With many of the buildings demolished on Colombo Street and very few people around, it really has a post-apocalyptic feel to it. Yet, the gardens are being tended to and as you can see in the photo above, we are still very much the garden city.

Had to take a snap of this sign on Durham Street. So true, wherever you live, please slow down going through road works.

Oxford Terrace – Clarendon Towers and the historic façade it had are now just a memory.