Two Aussies in the Shaky Isles

[By Chris Haldane in New Zealand] Recently, Liz Steel and I had a memorable holiday driving around the south east corner of New Zealand, which has been nicknamed ‘The Shaky Isles’ by Aussies because of its frequent seismic activity.

You can imagine the chats we had! It was wonderful to travel with someone who doesn’t think you’re weird when you say things like, ‘Do you think that sky is cerulean or ultra?” or “Is there a touch of yellow in that cloud?”

Our trip began in Christchurch, where a huge earthquake caused massive damage in 2011. Nothing had prepared us for the devastation that is still evident in the city six years after the event. Life is gradually returning to the central business district, but it was actually in lockdown for a year after the quake.

There are still many buildings boarded up, vacant lots where damaged buildings have been razed to the ground, and shipping containers still used to prop up facades and protect pedestrians. That’s earthquake-damaged Christchurch Cathedral at the top which lost its spire, part of its tower, and its western wall, which collapsed in the 2011 quake.

Shipping containers propping up an historic facade

A complete contrast was my visit to Breedenbroek Gardens, just outside Christchurch, a truly delightful spot that seemed worlds away from the earthquake damage.

Breedenbroek Gardens

Heading south we stopped in Oamaru, a small historical town that retains its Victorian character. We enjoyed drawing the beautiful limestone warehouses, despite bitter winds and freezing rain which were truly a test of our urban sketchers’ grit and determination to sketch on location!

Grains and Seed Merchants Store doorway, Oamaru

Further down the coast we called into fascinating Curio Bay with its remains of a fossil forest that they say dates back to the Jurassic period. We were lucky to be there at low tide, when the stumps of the trees rise above water level, creating a unique landscape indeed.

Fossil forest at Curio Bay

That afternoon gave us a good laugh as we looked for the town of Haldane that I’d seen on two maps, and thought MUST be named after someone from my family. Well… it seems that these days it is more like just a bus shelter for one, a house and a couple of shearing sheds. That’s it! But at least I got to paint one of my favourite subjects: a rusty shearing shed.

Old barn at Haldane

I wanted to go to the port of Bluff on the southernmost tip of the South Island, despite the driving rain and wind that had really whipped up, with the cold sweeping up from Antarctica across the eerie grey-green seas, and the forecast saying ‘feels like 4 degrees’… Yes, that’s midsummer in New Zealand!

Looking south past Bluff Lighthouse to Stewart Island and Antarctica

Our last few days on the South Island were spent in Akaroa, nestled in the heart of an ancient volcano. We soaked up its relaxing holiday atmosphere while we sat with our sketchbooks, enjoying the chats with locals who stopped to talk about what we were doing. Travel sketching is such a great way of making connections, isn’t it?

Akaroa

And finally to the North Island and Auckland, whose skyline is dominated by the 328m Sky Tower, the highest manmade structure in the Southern Hemisphere, which they say will remain standing even in an 8.0 magnitude earthquake within 20km. I guess time will tell.

Auckland’s Sky Tower

Our tour guide that day was Murray Dewhurst, sketcher extraordinaire in Auckland, and it was so special to affirm once more the wonderful connection that sketchers around the world have with each other!

Chris Haldane is organiser of USK Sydney and an artist in her other life! You can see more of this trip and her other sketches on Facebook and on Flickr.