This may have been our fifth or sixth visit to Akaroa over the years, but today we did something we’d not yet done, (and we still haven’t run out of ways to spend our days in the pretty little (fewer than 750 residents) town.
Because I didn’t set an alarm last night, when I finally awoke, G was already out of the cabin (he gets at least 90 minutes more sleep than I do every night because he doesn’t write a blog post, and his nighttime ablutions take five minutes, while mine require at least 20). I took a chance and went down to the Concerto Dining Room, and the greeter and headwaiter Francesco pointed me in his direction.
The Majestic Princess may have a buffet that is twice the size of the buffet on the Ruby Princess, but it hasn’t turned us into buffet people... yet. I haven’t given up hope, though.
I’m still hooked on my fruit plate and smoked salmon for breakfast, and I’m adding a piece of Christmas stollen as long as it is offered. Oh, and coffee. OMG the coffee is good on this ship. Soooooo good. I was rarely drinking it on the Ruby Princess but I don’t miss it on the Majestic.
It didn’t take me long to eat, and we gathered up our coats and went to the Harmony Restaurant to get priority tender tickets (for Elites and Suite guests) and we were immediately ushered down to the tender platform on Deck 3. I had forgotten how easy that is on this class of ship. A double wide stairway down to the tender platform, no gap between the tender boot and the pontoon, and the boats are huge, fast and comfortable. We were ashore in no time.
Once there, we weren’t sure what to do but a tour to the city of Christchurch sold on the pier appealed to us today. We had not yet been, and, frankly, Akaroa is billed as the port town for Christchurch, though there is much to do right there. Actually, prior to the horrible earthquake in February 2011, most cruise ships used Lyttleton as the gateway to Christchurch. However, Lyttleton was also badly damaged in that earthquake, and the harbor became shallower as a result of it. Rebuilding and dredging that harbor is almost complete, and cruise ships are scheduled to return to Lyttleton next season. Although Akaroa’s cruise ship visits will drop as a result, there are still nearly 70 cruise ships scheduled to stop there next year, too.
Our comfortable mini bus first followed the same road we had taken on our morning tour with Paul and Marlene in October, up to the hilltop views overlooking Akaroa Harbour. Thankfully, the weather today was better than we had experienced then, but it was still largely overcast, especially this morning.
The beautiful Akaroa Harbour
The Majestic Princess is in the far right
Hillsides covered with sheep
The road to Christchurch from Akaroa is twisty turny, especially for the first hour or so (so plan ahead if you get carsick). We stopped in the tiny village of Little River for a bathroom break, and I bought some mints at a small shop there, and they helped. The scenery was stunning during the first part of the 90 minute drive, reminding me a lot of the Shenandoah valley. For the last part of the trip, the terrain reminded me more of North and South Dakota as we drove through the Canterbury plains. Two hours after we left Akaroa, we arrived in Christchurch.
As we drove to the city center, our tour guide, Ron, told us about the five earthquakes that struck Christchurch and the entire South Island from September 2010 to the end of 2011. Though the first one was the highest magnitude (7.1), the earthquake that occurred on February 22, 2011 (magnitude 6.2) caused far more damage. It occurred only 3 miles below the surface (half the depth of the earlier quake), its epicenter was closer to the center of Christchurch, and buildings were already weakened by the earlier quake. Of Christchurch’s 18 high-rise buildings at the time of the quake, only two survive today.
I have never been in a serious earthquake, and the thought of one terrifies claustrophobic me. Rob dropped us off for a couple of hours to explore the city on our own with a final warning: if we started to feel an earthquake, we should run away from any tall objects that might fall on us. Ooooookay.
Even now, nearly nine years after that quake, Christchurch reminded me a great deal of when I visited East Berlin before the Berlin Wall came down. Forty years after WW2, bombing damage was still evident everywhere. Despite the significant rebuilding that has taken place, Christchurch still resembles a war zone. Many buildings are fenced or walled off, and huge steel beams have been erected on their exteriors to prevent further collapse. Ron told us that insurance issues have severely slowed the tear down and rebuilding efforts. 95% of the city’s buildings, including residences, required repairs. Electricity was out from a few weeks to several months. Water and sewage were disrupted for months. Still, despite a population decrease as a result of the earthquake, Christchurch remains the third largest city in New Zealand.
Christchurch tram
It’s not all gloom and doom. The city center is still home to parks and pedestrian streets full of restaurants and bars and markets. Much of the city has been rebuilt, especially housing. We walked on a path along the river and had lunch at an outdoor cafe (chilly, but we were dressed for it).
Christchurch Cathedral is still in ruins
Its future was tied up in court cases for years, but the building will be restored
The walls fencing off unsafe buildings are covered with artwork.
The Post and Telegraph Office
There are lots of gravel parking lots like this over all around the city where buildings used to be.
Canterbury Provincial Council building
Ron picked us up about 2pm, and drove us to some other sites around the city. One of our stops was at a memorial designed by a Japanese artist (after New Zealand, Japan had the greatest number of casualties, as the Canterbury TV Building, housing an English language school, completely collapsed. 115 people in the building died). Each white chair represents a person who died in the quake.
Each chair represents one of the 185 people killed in the earthquake of 2011. Seeing the car seat choked me up.
The Catholic Cathedral
On the drive back to Akaroa, Ron talked about where he had been when the quake hit. He ran a tour company at that time, too, and his entire business, including all his vehicles, was located in the city’s Red Zone. Nothing but emergency services was allowed in that zone for months. Even now, he pointed out red and yellow signs posted on many buildings, indicating the building was unsafe and had to be razed, or unsafe but could be saved. Unsurprisingly (because G has told me this forever), the most valuable thing to have after the quake was not water, nor food, but cash. Credit cards were useless, and ATM machines didn’t work because there was no power.
In the end, we were glad we had spent the day in Christchurch. It’s a very popular destination for cruise ship passengers. Some people we’ve talked with were familiar with the city before the quake and can’t get over the damage it suffered. I found it heartening to see the city’s fighting spirit. The damage the earthquake caused is so much worse than that caused by a tornado or hurricane because the city’s underground infrastructure was devastated and roads were left buckled (Ron drive us down an unrepaired road to show us how bumpy it was).
We were returned to the tender pier at 4:30pm. Luckily, with those large tender boats, despite the fact that the last tender was scheduled for 5pm, we waited only a few minutes to be on a boat back to the ship. We returned to the cabin just to drop off our jackets and plug in our exhausted iPhones, and went directly to dinner in the Concerto Dining Room. The stellar service continues, though G misses the menus being trialed on the Ruby Princess that featured good beef entrees nearly every day.
Tonight’s Princess Theater entertainment was Elton John tribute artist Greg Andrew back for a different show. As he said, he could play just Elton’s greatest hits and the show would have to last hours. I didn’t have the energy to get to his late show...but I sure wanted to.
Cruise Director Andrew told us in the show’s outro that the Majestic Princess will offer five different New Year’s Eve parties tomorrow night. New Year’s Eve? How did that get here so quickly? We are going to pace ourselves tomorrow in Port Chalmers to increase our odds of lasting until midnight at one of them.