Earthquake Part 5

Then (22 February)

Standing on the corner of Armagh and Rolleston regathering our strength following a scary aftershock, we were so grateful to a woman who gave us a drink. A doctor who lived in Armagh Street with a husband teaching at Christ College, she was walking along with a bottle of soft drink and glasses and very kindly poured us a drink to share. This renewed our energy to the point where we could keep walking up towards the Gardens car park. This part of Hagley Park was being set up for the Ellerslie Flower Show, and official-looking people were directing the lost to a fenced-in compound. We wondered, slightly irrationally, if perhaps the entrance to the compound was one-way and that M, J and L2 had gone in and not been allowed to leave. A huge willow tree had fallen over onto the fence around part of the Flower Show grounds. (Note that the above picture is not the actual tree, but a much smaller gum tree that fell in the September quake.)

We found our missing friends sitting on the grass inside the compound, surrounded by displaced people many of whom were from overseas or out of town, and some of whom had left their possessions in hotels when they escaped. I think our friends had arrived somewhere that felt safe and run out of energy to do anything else. They reported that the portaloos had been closed so they had to pretend they were tramping. We sat for a while, girding up our strength to tackle an attempt to drive home towards the south west.

Now

This morning, I had my first shower since Sunday morning. It was and is lovely to feel clean after several days getting increasingly sticky and smelly.