Christchurch: Storm in a Tea Cup, Sunshine, History, and more Pickle!
- Two's Company
- Oct 24, 2025
- 2 min read
We started our Wednesday in Christchurch expecting to be stuck inside. With schools closed, transport cancelled and sights to be seen not open, another storm approached New Zealand and we thought we'd be confined to our accommodation. However, after making use of the laundry, Two's Company decided to head out and luckily after a few light spots of rain, the clouds began to break.
The city quickly transformed. We took a lovely stroll and found ourselves at Hagley Oval, the cricket ground where England's T20 team had recently defeated New Zealand.
James was less than impressed by the stadium's setup, finding a lack of excitement, but a plaque nearby caught our attention, Sir Richard Hadley opens Canterbury Cricket Umpires & Scorers Association building, in October 1991, 34 Years ago and Helen was overjoyed as she knew his name!
We continued to the Avon River. While the inclement weather meant no punting tours were running, the views along the riverbanks were still stunning.
Our walk brought us to the sombre yet beautiful memorial for those who lost their lives in the devastating 2011 earthquake. The structure features elegant Italian Carrara marble panels, each inscribed with the names of the victims.
To learn more, we visited the Quake City exhibition, which proved to be very informative. It was amazing to see the sheer scale of the ongoing restoration work throughout the city, particularly the painstaking efforts to bring the historic Christchurch Cathedral back to its former glory.
Enjoying the evening sunshine and a stiff, brisk wind, we took a leisurely walk back through the city, along the river and headed back to relax before our train journey on Thursday.
Then came the email: Train Cancelled!
You could not make it up, but they had. This led to a scramble for a Plan B: a hire car to Greymouth, where we would pick up our original pre-booked rental to continue to Franz Josef.
A short time later, another bombshell: Road Closed!
Plan C...? Stay tuned!
Well the saga of missing trains and closed roads continues. 😬..the weather in New Zealand sounds familiar. 🙄😄. The terrible toll of the earthquake of 2011 in Christchurch sounds to be very evident and ongoing even now..we had no idea that people and buildings are still trying to recover..how quickly other events take precidence..and the news move on..but it looks like a beautiful place....and as for the saga...has a plan C been found we wonder. 🤔😬😊 Where Ohhh Where can they be? 🤔PS. I'm sure Two's Company knows that the clocks go back an hour over here tonight..we gain an hour. So it's now 11.00pm here. 😃 Love the blog. 😁 T & G