Ha, I never knew that about the Blue Pearl in Akaroa. . . . you learn something new everyday!
Glad you're enjoying the series on NZ Johnnie, it's kind of funny hearing you trying to make sense of the Kiwi customs and culture . . I never thought us Kiwis have any accent at all lol, but re the ChCh earthquakes . . until you've gone through something like that disaster, you really have no idea how life changing it can be. And some folks in ChCh were 'untouched' by the quakes, but then other folks had years and years of stress and worry, battling with insurance companies that just refused to pay out and tried every dirty trick in the book!!
Don't get me started . . I'll go on for hours grrrrr.
The city was divided down the middle, the East side and the city centre . . devastated. The West side, basically no damage to housing or infrastructure.
I personally was on the East side, I was red-zoned and had to go. That's why I now live 50kms west of ChCh, in a small town called Darfield, a farming community. I love it. It's peaceful, quiet, no crime, leave your house unlocked no problems, everyone knows their neighbours and there's a sense of security here . . . unlike crime ridden ChCh, with all it's problems and now with the Mosque massacre, the uncertainty of terror occurring again and if so, when?
Don't get me wrong, I love NZ, just not the current crop of problems we are facing daily.
Starting with the earthquakes of 2010 and 2011. Sad to see how much of the city is yet to be rebuilt.
