NZ trip: Day 4, Christchurch | CHAUVET Professional

Written by Mike Graham, product manager for CHAUVET Professional

After getting settled in the hotel and getting a good night’s rest we are off to breakfast. It is also Waitangi Day. Waitangi Day is the anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi between the Maori and the settlers. Depending on which side you are on, you can see this as a holiday or not. Since I got hit with a 15% Waitangi Day surcharge for breakfast, you can probably guess what side I am on. We took a walk around the downtown area of Christchurch.

Me and Annie, photo by Connor Graham

Photo of Annie and Connor sitting in a chair carved from a tree trunk.

Christchurch is the third largest city in New Zealand and is the largest city on the South Island. It was recently rocked with a 7.1 earthquake and has had over 4,000 aftershocks since then. As you can imagine, there was quite a bit of property damage.

Many of the stone buildings around Christchurch have seen massive damage to them from the earthquakes. This is one of the buildings at the Arts Center that is being repaired.

So anyway, back to the story. After our walk around town, we took a ride out to see the family. The 18-hour time difference was crushing Connor. He fell asleep early which was a good thing as he and Annie were on their way to Sydney, Australia for the next two days to visit her brother Anthony. I was also going away the next morning to Auckland to visit two rental houses and one architectural lighting design firm.