Viewing the Earthquake Damage...

On 14th November 2016, I was rudely awakened just after midnight by an earthquake. Not just any earthquake, but by the massive 7.8 that was felt over the whole of New Zealand. I stood in the door frame absolutely terrified as it went on and on and on for just over two minutes. It was the longest two minutes in my life.  I thought I was going to lose my house.

Miraculously only two people died, and while there was much damage, it could have been a whole lot worse. 21 faults were ruptured in this earthquake, making it the most complex quake ever. While the epicentre was in Culverden, it was felt most strongly north of that, particularly where I was, and in Wellington. Consequently, a number of buildings in Wellington have had to be pulled down.

I dread what the casualties would have been had it happened just after noon instead of just after midnight. The massive slips that came down onto our main highway, would have possibly buried many tourists and locals going about their daily business and we would have seen much higher casualty rates.

As the reports came in, we found that the sea bed had risen by between 1 and 6 metres all along the coast from Just south of Blenheim (where I live), to Goose Bay - south of Kaikoura - approximately 150km in length. 

I had been meaning to go out and look at the changes for ages, but today was the first day that I could finally go. Together my friend Kate and I went exploring with our cameras.

First stop was Ward Beach. The main Highway 1 was pretty smooth until about 10k north of Ward, when we started getting uneven surfaces, and we could see where the cracks had been patched with new tar that snaked across the road in places.What was very striking was the fact there was no traffic. Highway 1 is usually fairly busy - but we only saw one or two cars, and the odd truck that was hauling earth from the massive slips down Kaikoura way.

I was shocked at what I saw at Ward Beach. Where once you saw very few rocks and mainly water, rocks had now been exposed...

You can now  see where the new high waterline is compared to the old.  The green shows the new high line, the white is the dead seaweed, and barnaces that used to be below the water.

And the rocks go for miles down the beach, which was once just beach..

In the next image, you can clearly see the new  high tide line - where the seaweed (kelp) lies in the first third of the image. The old high tide line is up where the white rocks at the bottom of the hill are. 

and The top of the hill has had a massive slip..

Dead seaweed and dead barnacles.  You can still smell the rotting vegetation.

This is what the seaweed should look like, not the dead bleached above.

Everywhere there was brown or green stagnant rockpools...

Breeding Mosquitoes and their larvae (Yes I got bitten taking these photos!)

This used to be a rockpool about 4 metres from the low tide. The rockpool had dried out and the mussels died.

Those mussels above are where Kate is resting her hand, and where she is standing is now high and dry, which shows how far the seabed has risen.

Uncovered rocks as far as one can see..

In the following image, I'm standing where the High Tide mark used to be, and the new high tide mark is where all the seaweed is - far below me.

The stick standing is is the old High Tide Marker.

Looking up the coast....

In September 2015, we had a camera club trip out there, and fellow photographer Sarah Kerr took this image which clearly shows.... only a few rocks out of the water.

The coast is still pretty though...

After the beach we carried down the highway to see how far we could get. We came across road damage...

A train tunnel is at the right, and the road had collapsed above it. Workers were there on a break and they explained the tunnel had twisted a bit, and they were there fixing it.

Every bridge we went across had come away at each end from the bank, and each one had been patched.

But Clarence River still looks beautiful.

Over the Bridge over the Clarence, and we come across this lovely crack in the road.  Quite deep. And that was as far as we could go - the road was closed from there on until Kaikoura and won't be open until Christmas time. Massive slips are blocking the highway, so sluicing the tonnes of rockfall out is going to take quite some time.

We decided to go inland for a bit of an exploration from Clarence. We found a beautiful counry road that was easy driving...

We also found a wild apple tree on the side of the road and I now have a bag of apples to stew up.

This next image shows Clarence's newest Lake, formed because of the slips in the river.

We then headed back, stopped for lunch at Seddon and called into Denise's for a cuppa afterwards.

And while I was writing this up, I felt my first earthquake I had felt for a while - a moderate 4.8 that was centred in Wellington.

Just mother nature reminding us who is in charge!

Insurance Woes

I've been trying to sort out an insurance problem nicely. Via email. I'm not getting anywhere, so it's time that a little social media is used to speed the process along. This is a story of three companies in New Zealand. IAG insurance (NZI), Noel Leeming, and Electrolux New Zealand. IAG have always seen me through properly, and I recommend them as an insurer, but I'm not happy with the current status, which may not be their fault. However they do hold the key to solve this. Noel Leeming is a New Zealand owned department store - They also hold the key to resolve this. Electrolux also have the power to right things by explaining to insurance company that a mistake has been made and I have the wrong vacuum cleaner. 

I'll backtrack a little. It started back in January 2016 when my solar hot water pump decided to fail. It spurted water all over the carpet and flooded my hot water cupboard, the hallways, and one bedroom. That was all sorted quite quickly. However, sitting in the hot water cupboard was my Electrolux Ultraflex vacuum cleaner. Only about a year old, I had paid $900 for it and I had chosen it carefully to suit me. Note that it is Orange and grey, has a turbo nozzle, and it also has a handle - one of the reasons I bought it as vacuum cleaners can give me a sore back where I broke it may years ago.

The vacuum cleaner was found totally wet, after having water spurted on it several hours at least, and we all know that electronics and water don't really mix. I pulled it out and put it out to dry on my deck in the warm Marlborough sun for three days. The amount of water that came out of it was probably enough to fill a small ocean! Three days later I turned it on and surprise surprise it worked. However it never sucked that well after that. It used to be very sucky, and once it picked up hair and cat fur, but after it's 'swim' it no longer did. The insurance company sent an electrician around and he confirmed that while it worked, it would probably get worse over time. But that's okay - I have replacement insurance and it's all part the claim, so I went ahead and made a claim for a new replacement. Replacement insurance means having things replaced like for like.

Noel Leeming duly rang me a few days later to say there was one that I could pick up from Dunedin - a nine hour drive away, and after a little persuasion I got them to send it to the Blenheim store. It was picked up and the day I got it, I put it together and tested it out. Okay - it was a different colour- perhaps the model had changed a bit. But it didn't have a handle either which was annoying. So as soon as I could, I took the box back into Noel Leeming to say there was a part missing. On investigation they told me I had been given the WRONG model. Had I used it? Yes - once to test it out. They couldn't take it back because it had been used,  so contact your insurance company. It has been confirmed by Noel Leeming I have the wrong model. 

Back to the insurance company. They are being told by Electrolux that I have the correct model but until Electrolux admits their mistake, they can't do anything about it.  I've researched it carefully using the Electrolux website and I can see clearly that I definitely have the wrong model, it's cheaper by at least $200, it's smaller, has NO handle and is uncomfortable to use, and no turbo nozzle. Hardly like to like replacement. This is the model I have been given instead. And this is what it looks like...

I choose my appliances very carefully and I insure them for a reason.

So what do I want? 

I want this sorted out. I want someone with the balls to stand up and say - yes - a mistake has been made and we will rectify it. 

It's THAT simple.

Fire at Northbank - Onamalutu.

I awoke this morning to the smell of smoke. I picked up my iPad to find messages to ask if I were okay and wondered what the fuss was. The fuss was bigger than I thought. Just 2km away from a fire was raging out of control at Northbank. Clouds of smoke billowed into the sky, some white, some black, and some pink.

We've had no rain for weeks, the driest summer in 40 years in this region.

I decided to stay at home and monitor the situation, but then RW from the Camera Club wanted to take photos, so I picked him up from the Renwick Takeaways and down to Northbank we went. These are some of the photos I got from the day.

Using my Sigma 120-400mm I took this from the road. A short while later one of the vineyard tractors towing a water truck dampened down this flare up.

Helicopters carring monsoon buckets were flying right over us, and the big zoom lens meant I couldn't get everthing in!

Another one of the flare up getting out of control.

Where there's smoke, there's fire.

This little patch of fire quickly got out of control and raced up the hill. Everything is tinder dry as we've had no rain for weeks.

We were taking photos at the section where the road was closed, but further up the road the fire was much worse and raging out of control.

We were wearing hi-vis vests, so when some officials came up talked to the road block people, we cheekily asked if we could get a ride up to the action. I didn't expect the answer to be yes, but it was!

This is where all the helicopters were starting up from, getting their monsoon buckets, and swapping around crew.

And off he goes to join the others.

We were only allowed to stay in that area for a very short while, and then we were taken back to the road block. This was taken out the window while we were heading back, which is the reason it's not quite as in focus as the others.

However, the driver stopped to let us take this one.

After that, we headed back into my car and drove to the otherside of the river we hoped to get images of the helicopters picking up the water from the river.

Monsoon bucket dropping into the water. I should have had my wide angle lens on. In fact I changed it in the hope another one would come in close, but they started filling up from another water hole rather than this one. Probably because there were simply too many people on the bank, and there had already been one helicopter crash this morning filling up the monsoon buckets. Apparently a gust of wind got the helicopter and it lost control.

I did put my wide angle lens on for a short while, and here you can see the extent of the fire and the smoke filled sky.

We bumped into two other Camera Club members, and they told us of a place further down the stopbank, so we headed down there and walked down to the river. This was with my 400mm Lens, so we were not close to the whirly birds at all, and we didn't venture closer as we didn't want to interfere with their work.

The last image I took - two helicopters flying off with full monsoon bucket, and a third one in the distance on it's way back.

As of the time writing this, the fire is still raging out of control although the wind has died down so hopefuly we'll see the last of it soon.