Well... What can we say?
Glad to be alive? Yes!
Lucky? Yes
Shaken? Yes
Feel like we were guided by angels throughout the whole time? Definitely yes!
Those of you that would read this blog already know that we were in our unit on Colombo St in the city centre, when the earthquake hit.
Our unit in Colombo St
We had spent the morning driving around, first we went out to New Brighton to pick up Mum's belongings from the place she had been staying. Then we went to the beach (New Brighton), had a walk along the pier and did our first big grocery shop. We then went through Bexley where Mum had stayed for a few months last year with her friend Ruth.
When we got back to our unit, we unpacked all our groceries and brought all Mum's stuff into the house and some of it upstairs to her room. Mum and I were about to head off to Briscoe's (homewares store) just around the corner, but decided to have some lunch first. I had just sat down to eat my sandwich when we heard a very loud rumbling. To me it sounded like a truck that was waaaay too close and about to hit the building. The ground was vibrating and next thing it was violently shaking from side to side. I tried to make it to the doorway right behind me but couldn't even make it there. Mum was on the couch and Ben had reacted instantly and gone straight to a doorway.
Our whole kitchen ended up on the floor (except the tray of eggs? Go figure??) the TV fell off it's cabinet, the heaters all fell over. Upstairs the mirrors had fallen and smashed and the furniture was thrown around.
We went outside and saw a lot of bewildered people, looked down the street to a big cloud of dust and realised that two houses up there was a broken gas pipe that was gushing out gas. We immediately went and got shoes on, a warm jacket and a bottle of water and walked away from that gas pipe. We saw only a fraction of the devastation and didn't realise the extent of the quake until much later.
After sitting around (outside!) for a while, just letting it all sink in while we hoped the aftershocks would simmer down and our next steps would become clear to us, we decided that we would at least get out of the city for a couple of days. So we all went inside and packed just one case each of warm, comfortable clothes, plenty of undies, important documents, some blankets, a bit of food and all our bottled water.
Since our unit was at the north end of the city, we decided to get in Mum's car and head north and find a motel or something. Even an open field would have been okay and we would sleep in the car, we just didn't want to be near buildings in Christchurch.
Our 'escape' could not have been more perfectly timed. Immediately after the quake and for a few hours our road was jammed with traffic heading away from the city and there were quite a few drivers that were driving way too fast and with not enough care for dazed and confused pedestrians. By the time we left (just before 4pm, approx 3 hours after the quake), the roads were clear, wardens were manning all the major intersections (no lights were working) and we made it out of the city very quickly. We already had half a tank of petrol so didn't need to fill up until we were well out of Christchurch.
Mum rang ahead to a hotel in Kaikoura and booked us accommodation so we knew we had a bed when we got there. Kaikoura is about two and a half hours north of Christchurch and a well known tourist spot on the east coast. Whale watching is a major attraction of Kaikoura and tourists go out on boats to see them up close.
It wasn't until we got into the hotel that we started to appreciate the size of what we had just escaped. We got out because we figured we'd have no water for a few days and being out would mean we wouldn't put a strain on local resources. It wasn't until later that night that we found out we would have been evacuated anyway because our unit is inside the 'four avenues' cordon.
While many in our area were sleeping in tents in the park on a cold and wet night, we had lovely warm beds, showers, toilets and food.
Blessed? I don't think even that word describes it properly.
Map shows the drive from Christchurch to Kaikoura.
