Postcard from Christchurch....

.....Colour in the city.

I had a wonderful day walking around the city with Flying. There was a very cold wind blowing but at least the sun was smiling down at us. There were some lovely colourful sights to brighten up our day.

There was so much to see and I took so many photos it was hard to decide on a theme for my postcard. In the end what stood out the most seemed to be colour.

The mural in the shot Bottom Right was done a few years ago and may at some stage disappear behind a building to be found again in future years. The colourful shipping containers you see is our Re:Start Mall
which is an outdoor retail space consisting of temporary buildings made from shipping containers. Opened in October 2011, Re:START has been steadily growing to approximately 40 retailers, a number of food caravans and a market on the weekend.

The pink tower you can see has just gone up and there is three of the them in the CBD. They are Tourist Information Towers. These towers are designed to help tourists orient themselves towards major city attractions. They are in response to feedback the City Council was receiving that tourists were frequently getting lost. Each of the towers is a different colour and had relevant images, street names, a map and key destinations with walking times on them. They are landmarks easily seen from a distance so people could visually refer to them as they navigated around the central city.

Since the earthquakes Christchurch has lost 1200 commercial buildings, which is about 80 per cent of the central business district. With many of the landmark buildings having now been demolished, finding your way around the central city can be disorientating, even for locals.
For more information on the Towers.