What a cool time to go back to Christchurch, so many new developments where under-way, from Justice and Emergency Services Precinct to the new Bus Terminal and this time round things seemed far more established and less on edge. While remaining well-known buildings such as the Catholic Cathedral, former Forsyth Barr, Rydges Hotel and many buildings along Hereford street which we managed to explore, still remained, some old favourites (old Bus terminal, Library, Oaks to name a few) were long gone to make way for the future. The Re:START mall had grown extensively. I really fell for Christchurch this time, spending 80% of my stay Urban Exploring and the other 20% making friends with the locals and sleeping on their sofas, eating weet bix and muesli bars while hitting abandos with whoever was keen the next day.
This time around I got to visit alot of more places thanks to a young local explorer who is also right into his street art, I'm really quite fond of graffiti and have some friends in Auckland who like to go out and paint, so spending long days and late nights out with this dude was just up my ally and was lots of fun and together we pushed each others boundaries of what we both enjoyed and were capable of, we'll I think so anyway. Photo below are his.
Spending much of my time in Sumner, one of the worst hit areas, I never got to experience Sumner last time. I found a few places that hadn't been overly explored/lottied which was quite exciting.
Hiding away up upon some of Christchurch's highest roof's late at night
But my highlight really was sleeping a night in the abandoned apartments out by the Casino, said to myself if I came back to Christchurch I'd sleep it rough, but it was way to cold this time round. Catching up with the lady I made friends with at the backpackers last year was awesome, she's a real character, she really made my last trip to Christchurch a good laugh and I wasn't going to leave her off my inventory for a decent catch up over her midweek wines.
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