I wouldn't normally post a gallery this size but this one's a bit of a special case for me.
The authorities have opened up a walkway along Colombo St from Cashel Mall to Cathedral Square. This is still within the cordoned-off red zone in the CBD and I was surprised to see them suddenly announce this out of the blue a few weeks ago. They are limiting the number of people in the area at any one time, and there are signs up giving warnings that it is not 100% safe in there. They tell you to carry ID on your person (ie not in a bag) so if a large aftershock hits and you're crushed by falling debris it's much easier to formally identify your body. Sounds a bit morbid but one must be practical in the circumstances. They are also limiting it to weekends only and they have people patrolling the other side of the fence to make sure nobody goes further than they should. The fences are fairly restrictive and we were limited to quite a small area in the centre of the square. Anyway, we went in last Sunday to have a look. It's only a small part of the red zone but Cathedral Square is the centre of our city and the Cathedral itself is our iconic landmark. So I think it's important to a lot of people to have this opportunity to get in and see it for real after being locked out for 9 months. Taking photos was a bit of a struggle because I had to stretch to reach over the wire fences and still see the viewfinder. Those people with small point & shoot cameras were easily able to poke their little lenses through the wire fence :) It was quite moving being in there and seeing it all up close. I've seen so many photos showing the state of various buildings but it just doesn't compare to seeing it in person. As such I will probably go on one of the bus tours to see more of the red zone. I've tried to annotate the photos with as much info about the fate of the various buildings as I can remember. And, at long last, the link :) http://www.multi.net.nz/cbd-dec-2011/ Cheers, Dave -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
