Caution Wide Load

One night around 10pm we came across a 4x4 with some flashing lights and a "Wide Load" sign. Following closely behind was a truck carrying a house. I'm guessing this maybe fairly common in New Zealand but we found it unusual. The quality of the photos isn't great but you can make out that its a house thats just passed us on the road.

Caution Wide Load - House approaching!

Did a house just pass us?

Christchurch

After a week on the South Island we made our way back to Picton for the ferry to Wellington. En route we stopped off in Christchurch for a few hours, the city was deserted. The city centre was devastated by the earth quake in February and most of the area is still blocked off.
Some areas of the city had very visible evidence of the earthquake, others had small reminders such as repaired cracks in the walls of buildings and other parts remained untouched. Throughout all of the city there was one constant reminder that something bad had happened and this was the lack of people. Everywhere was deserted. Empty shops, empty restaurants, empty car parks.

A deserted car park in Christchurch

On the outskirts of town away from the red zone we came across a small shopping centre. Out of approximately 20 stores only one remained open this was a small Dominos Pizza takeaway. The rest of the buildings in the complex had cracks on the walls, in some cases you could see the foundations of the buildings. As well as this the car park was destroy by cracks in the ground.

Earthquake damage in Christchurch