Travis wetland to the hills

Looking across Travis Wetland towards Banks Peninsula. partly cloudy day, rather windy! The wetland is a tiny part of what Christchurch was built on, swampland, which has been shown in full reality by the terrible damage caused by the earthquake - even in this picture, you can see the seat is tipped and there are cracks on either side of it where the ground has moved.

The swamp seems very wet for this time of year too, and at least one of the roads around it was covered by water after the quake, and all the roads around it were damaged.

It is home to a number of native, introduced and endemic birds, and has a lovely walk all the way around ti which takes around 45 mins. Can't do it at the moment as a bridge is damaged, or it was last time I tired to go round!

There is also a tree planting programme with native trees, but for some it will be 500 years till they reach maturity, so people doing this are really planting for the future.