Bexley 7
Articles, UC QuakeStudies
Caption reads: "No, I don’t think they deliver the mail everyday. Not anymore."
Caption reads: "No, I don’t think they deliver the mail everyday. Not anymore."
A photograph captioned, "So it's been an eventful couple of years. I think the first earthquake, it was just so totally unexpected. You went to bed one night and when you woke up - in just a few seconds- everything was different than it had been before".
A photograph captioned, "I miss living here, right by the river. I'd been there for quite a long time, 12 years or so. I realize now I took it for granted a bit. I used to get a bit bored with having a big old house that was cold, difficult to clean, and perhaps hard to keep warm. But now, when I go back there, I miss living in a big house by the river with an open fire and a big lounge and everything. I had the park there on the other side of the river. And there was a little bridge down there where you could walk over to it. There was actually a circuit you could do, up to the New Brighton Bridge and back. Yeah, it was beautiful".
A photograph captioned, "Lovely big weeds, they're pretty aren't they. Amongst all this".
A photograph captioned, "It feels like it has been a really on-going process. We weren't in the head space for it really, because when you retire, you think you're in your retirement home and you're there to stay. You don't expect to have to move on. To do all this".
A photograph captioned, "We went to Nigel's place for breakfast and stayed for three months".
A photograph captioned, "In the 1930s the traffic in Gayhurst Road was so light that I can remember playing hockey and cricket with apple boxes for wickets. If a car or cart came along there was plenty of time to shift the boxes to let them past".
A photograph captioned, "My daughter grew up in this house. She's 10 now. She is going to miss it - and Dallington. It's where she's grown up, what she knows. She'll miss it alright. Me too".
Caption reads: "Yeah yeah, I know, but you’ve got to look. It’s incredible what’s happened to these places. It’s not something you see everyday and once it’s gone, it’s gone forever."
Caption reads: "You can’t do a thing about it but I can’t be bothered going house hunting. I’ll just live each day as best I can. I keep thinking it could change again. The dust here doesn’t bother me, the noise doesn’t bother me. When they start pulling down houses the vibrations don’t bother me. Nothing bothers me. We’re all like that. That’s how you have to be when you can’t do a thing about it."
Caption reads: "At the moment we’re trying to carry on like everything is normal. It’s not easy. It’s hard sometimes to remember what things were like before the earthquake."
A photograph showing the damaged streetscape of Dallington, following the series of earthquakes in Christchurch.
A digital photograph in PDF format. Image taken from within the Horseshoe Lake Reserve, of the local wildlife.
A digital photograph in PDF format with caption. Image looking East, on Kingsford St. Memorial Day remembrance flowers, on the side of the street.
A photograph captioned, "Nobody’s trained for this, you go to your lawyer and they can’t give you an answer because they've never faced this before, so yeah, even they are scratching around trying to find out".
Caption reads: "It used to be lovely. We would go out walking all the time and we always went through the wetlands. There was all the beautiful flax and bushes that were around the track, and now it’s gone. All gone."
Caption reads: "There’s nothing we can do about what we’ve lost. We just keep hoping for the best."
Caption reads: "At night we light up the house like a Christmas tree so that people know we’re here."
A photograph captioned, "The government's not stupid, they'll put three houses on each of these sections".
Its 12 years of accumulated stuff and I was thinking I was just going to get rid of everything. I had the feeling I didn't want to hang onto anything. We tried to get rid of a lot of stuff in a garage sale. Some of it went, some of it didn't. It's a long process".
A photograph captioned, "We get the young fellas to come in and do the upkeep on the government houses that have been sold. They cut down all the long grass and just tidy up all the fire risk sections. This one's easier cos the house is gone. If you keep it tidy it looks tidy from the road. There's people living here, and there's nothing worse than looking over your house and seeing grass this high".
A photograph showing St Paul's School's damage in Dallington, following the series of earthquakes in Christchurch.
Caption reads: "We were the only people around here for a long time. All of our neighbours moved out. It wont be long until Bexley is empty, and after that it will be gone."
A digital photograph in PDF format with caption. Image looks south down Kingsford street. Port hills on the horizon with potholes in the foreground that progressively got worse after the Feburary 2011 earthquake.
A digital photograph in PDF format with an image showing where one of the first demolished, Horseshoe Lake homes once stood. Looking West.
A digital photograph in PDF format with caption. Image showing an empty lot. The house stood right alongside the Horseshoe Lake reserve.
A digital photograph in a PDF format with caption. Image showing one of the spectators on the Avondale bridge, a few minutes before the 2012 Earthquake Memorial, looking North-East.
Caption reads: "We made lifelong friends in Bexley. We never had a thought of living anywhere else until now."
A digital photograph in a PDF format with caption. Image showing the view of the Avondale bridge during the 2012 Earthquake Memorial, looking East.
Caption reads: "When we came to Bexley we were ready for a new life. We slowed down and started to enjoy ourselves. Before we moved to the area we never realised such a perfect place existed."