There’s a hole in my bucket list

www.news.com.au, September 2011 –

For many people, travel is an endless quest to tick off the world’s latest and greatest experiences. But if any of the following are on your list, cross them off – you’re too late.

Inner city blues

There it stood in the Square, the icon of New Zealand’s Garden City, the model for fridge magnets and backdrop for tourist snaps.

Christchurch Cathedral was built in the Gothic Revival style and consecrated in 1881, the year in which an earthquake dislodged a stone from its finial cap.

Over the next 130 years it would take many more shakes in its stride before suffering a devastating blow on February 22nd 2011, in the 6.3 magnitude earthquake that killed 182 people.

The ruined Cathedral remains behind the ‘Red Zone’ cordon, where demolition crews continue to bring down scores of buildings in the heart of the city. The Cathedral may yet be one of them.

[Update April 2012: and so it was…]

[Extract (c) Bennett & Slater, 2011]

Read the full story here.