Adventure Trails

Not sure you got the text, which was a ms word document, so I am sending this out to a few of you. Thor:



12:51 O’clock on 02/22/2011 Christchurch, New Zealand: The Christchurch Earthquake As Experienced by Thor Sigstedt, a Santa Fe County resident there for a wedding and then a small fishing adventure

12:51 pm-I mussed with the fishing lines and set up and mussed some more and finally got the tackle and reel the way it needed to be and began fishing in earnest, perfecting my casting and reeling style. A few minutes passed and I was inching myself closer to the creek which was down a bank about 2 or 3 feet and then a tiny shelf of grass and dirt and then it looked like a continued shelf about 2 feet wide, but, upon inspection, it was a swampy zone, quite unsure of footing and one step from falling into the river which was 3 or 4 feet deep, mostly full of weeds about a foot or so down and clear and full. I got no bites from the first cast to the last and I was trying to stretch the rod and line as far out as possible so as to make it easier to bring the line back in without snagging the bank and I did not, of course, have waders. I was inching my way closer to the stream and leaning forward precariously when , all of a sudden, I felt the world shake itself , like a huge dog shaking off water, and the water moved somehow and I felt like I was going to be thrown into the drink. I lurched up to the next level and dove under the electric fence and scambled a few feet more onto the gravel road. It was the type of maneuver one sees in the movies as the people scramble and rush away from the pending explosion of a grenade or a car and then there I was; alone and the world was moving up and down and sideways in such a way that I felt like it was coming to an end. I was hugging something that had absolutely no interest in that and was, in fact, trying to shake this little ant off of it and, frankly, scare the daylights out of it/me. That was the beginning of this saga of the damaging earthquake of 02/22/2011, Christchurch, New Zealand. I think I know now why the fish weren’t biting.

12:00 pm: I had taken a bus out to Belfast, which is the first real sign of rural countryside a few miles north of Christchurch, after having bought a one day fishing license downtown and left them my email address (on the form) and laughingly said that they could contact my family just in case I drowned in the river. He nervously laughed and out I walked to wait for the #16 bus to Belfast. Right in Belfast I was talking to the bus driver, as we have learned to do to avoid big mistakes, and they said they don’t go past this stop and dumped me off to wait for the “Northern star”, the “Blue Bus” (can’t miss it) and I eventually saw one coming my way and flagged it down and got in and stated my destination, but it turned out to be the wrong blue bus; they said, “look for the powder blue bus” and I stepped off onto the walk and waited for the blue bus which eventually came along. I talked to the bus driver and she did not know where Dickie Road was but thought it might be up ahead. We pulled over and discussed it and I thought about going on to the big river and bridge, but decided on going for the road I had scoped out online and with the fishing people, etc. I walked down the road and found the creek instantly and stopped at the bridge and found my way down to the field and creek which was about 3 ½ meters, more or less from an electric fence with just one wire about 18” off the ground. I was interested in the electric fence because I had read in my early research about New Zealand that they had invented the electric fence, so it was quite appropriate to see one here on this farm.

Times of shocks: 12:51-6.3(Richter Scale) then 12:56-4.9 then 1:04-5.7 then 2:50-5.9 with other smaller shocks in between.

From 12:51 on I was in shock, but was not fully aware of it. I knew that something very scary had happened that I was terrified and that I would never see the world the same again. I had a cellphone, Phillip’s, wrapped up in a zip lock bag so as not to get too wet even if I or it fell into the river. It rang somewhere around then and I could not unwrap it quickly enough and lost the call. It rang again and it was Agate, saying that they had experienced it too and that it was, maybe, 5.0 on the Richter Scale (it turned out to be 6.3 on the scale and the most devastating one in all of New Zealand history). I remember saying that I did not think it was an aftershock. Not when the world just acted like a huge engine that had just thrown a rod or the driveshaft had separated at the ujoint or the car had just hit a huge batch of potholes. So I stood there and then another one hit and I hit the ground again. Now, in retrospect, I realize I was in shock because I made the decision to continue fishing for a while and try to make my way up towards the big river, above, the “Waimakariri”, better known as the “Wymack”. I was on the southern branch/tributary of the Wymack, just above and to the west of the Styx River (not the real one, of course). So, I tossed my bobber into the now murky, brown grey waters, standing back a good distance and on a better location. I watched as the river rose and darkened and weeds and twigs were rolling around showing themselves from top to bottom. The fish were still not biting and I was not thinking clearly. I saw a gate on the road above me and saw that the only way to keep going was to go into the bush right by the creek and decided to go home. As I was walking back I began to notice cracks in the road, about ½” or a little more across and long. Hmm….. And so then I was thinking that maybe this was sort of the epicenter or something or I was on some specially vulnerable spot and the earth could open up and swallow me at any moment. Then I saw a crack going the other way where it looked like some sort of grey creamy stuff had briefly squirted out and made a little grey line of wetness across the road. More eerie puzzlement and I crept off the farm. I did notice that the cows across the river in the next field barely had batted an eyelash and were back busily chewing the field. No stampede? No, nothing.

I walked way down to the bus stop on the other side of the road, meaning on the left side of the road which is the side that the traffic was going away from me on, this being a former British colony as it were and keeping the driver’s wheel, etc. on the right side of the car. I waited there for quite a while and then a powder blue bus came by and picked me up. There were only about 5 people on the bus including an older white haired woman across the aisle from me and morbidly obese woman with a pleasant face and a man sitting near the driver and the driver, a young Samoan as it turns out (because we got to know each other some as the day unfolded). I began, after a while, to describe my fishing trip (above) to the passengers and how I almost got thrown into the drink. They began to talk some and then it was unfolding before us; the devastation of the earthquake, which was not local but widespread. First it was little unreinforced cinder block walls for property edge just flattened summarily on the side walk, then whole walls or pieces of them down and in rubble status. People were nervously trying to flag down the bus and acting and looking strange but his route ended back in Belfast and he could not (and would not) pick up any more passengers. So it was this boat we were on and then talk that there were no other busses to be seen and then the driver said his radio was out and then we started to see the sides and fronts and whole buildings down or more damage to previously damaged buildings. Now people were all over the streets and walking up and down the walks in droves and there was the signs of flooding; the same grey stuff everywhere and it was clear this material was oozing from every pore the earth could allow and forming little volcanoey cratery structures or just oozing around. Now it was clear that Christchurch was in crisis; that devastation was the word to describe churches devastated, brick buildings of all sorts shattered and showing the private innards of their interiors in a raw sort of way as if they were architectural sections created by a mad person. At various intervals, say every 30 minutes or so the bus would start to violently rock back and forth as if it had just been hit by a truck or a bomb. The driver decided to take me to Bealey Avenue and our motel area as it was not on his route but probably was on the way to his home and his family that he, too, wished to be with. There was some discussion about God and how the scientists knew nothing and could predict nothing and the scriptures were the only truth, with a few nods by now from the elderly but spry woman and myself. Between ourselves, though, we agreed that this was all about nature and not much more. It was not really a time for religious debate. Oddly enough I had already made up my mind after the earthquake in Haiti, without the slightest clue that I would soon be a part of a deadly one myself. There is deep irony that many of the buildings that were the most damaged in Christchurch were numerous old brick and stone churches, what with their spires and tall structures reaching to the sky and wanting to be the tallest thing around; now their facades were exposed with the wooden lathe from the interiors only showing, stripped of their stateliness. It became clear also that I had managed to catch the last possible bus from Dickey’s Road into town, as all the other buses had stopped service and were either parked or had gone “home” and this was, in fact, one of the only functioning busses around, if you could call this functioning; inching forward in a deadly traffic jam and emergency vehicles screaming by using the grass and treed median as their only pathway. Eventually the driver decided to try to take a side road and let us off. I walked with the older woman to my motel and then showed her on the map where she might walk and offered to go with her, but she insisted on going on alone. She was probably in shock, but fearless, as she admitted that she, frankly, had lived long enough and did not care for life anymore anyway. I, despite great fear, ventured upstairs to our room to get a few things to take with me, noticing that everything was tossed onto the floor except for my laptop which was low to the table and with good rubber feet. I determined to walk out across the central part of town and over to Lincoln/Halswell road where Belle was with her daughter. I must be with my loved one for many reasons.



I set out with a loaded backpack and small camera that I always carry everywhere and a bottle of L and P lemonaid. I decided to take the first cross road that did not look absolutely devastated and not heading right through the heart of town. Because we were taking the Metro busses everywhere earlier, I had already familiarized myself with the city as that was the only way to catch a bus and know where you were going to get to. I headed across through the traffic and onto Barbadoes Street. I continued to record the buildings that were down and watch carefully the people as I began to understand that it was their behavior and appearance that was the most important aspect. I was kind of amazed that they seemed sort of cool and determined in their walking and not expressing much emotion, perhaps talking to each other quietly if they were coupled. There were sirens everywhere, emergency vehicles, water trucks, army vehicles, whistles and helicopters with long cables carrying water tanks to put out the fires. The air was full of smoke and people were covering their noses and mouth with clothing to protect their lungs from the heavy smoke. I stopped a few times to talk to people who were not moving and to inspect the little silt/sand/volcano shaped mounds with water puddle at the top and fine lines of water finding their way down off the mound. They were mesmerizing in their ugliness and their beauty at the same time. I talked about them for quite a while with a young man on a bicycle and who worked as a chef at a Japanese restaurant and he was worried about his job under these circumstances. I was directed not to cross a large bridge due to its instability and walked further to the next one and not seeing anyone telling me not to, crossed it. I noticed people down below who must have been afraid to cross it and were tentatively making their way across the tracks. On the bridge the streetlight was decapitated; the head and bulb and a part of the huge stem lying on the walkway, shattered. As I completed the crossing a huge rumble sounded from the vast ocean of corrugated tin roofs of the warehouse buildings below and I bolted off the bridge like a scared rabbit. I continued walking on Columbo Street for a few miles, the damage being lesser as I entered the newer suburbs with one story brick buildings. After quite a long walk I began to realize that my mind had played a trick on me and that I had taken the wrong street thinking that it was the only street for me, as I had been on it the day before. I realized I had made a huge mistake in navigation. I talked to a few people and reset my course for Lincoln which was probably miles away. It was getting late, towards dark. I was now in a deadly contest with my will and my energy to get me where I wanted to go. I walked through a cemetery and zigged and zagged until I finally reached a place where I had, a few minutes earlier, agreed to meet my relatives in their car. I had not even thought of calling them. Once they picked me up and went into a store for water and I sat slumped with exhaustion in the back seat, I began to realize for the first time that I was in shock and had been for some time now and that, now that I was safer, could acknowledge it to myself, and, eventually, to them. I realized that there was a huge chasm of difference, I thought, between them and me. They were in denial about what was happening to their town and I had just experienced it first hand. It was like you either were there or you weren’t and the place for some shock, like their form, was a sort of denial. I did not have that luxury as there had been too much proof of the damage and the very real crisis. That gulf was never crossed. It turned out the father of the groom, George, had also been right on the city center next to the Cathedral whose spire had fallen to the square and many people had been killed inside. He also had walked here from town.

The water was out and the house was shaking with aftershocks every 45 minutes or so, all through the night and into the next day, in fact till we had boarded the plane. I helped them tap into the gutter system to collect water as it had started to rain. Of course the rain was also a disaster as I had seen many people straining to carry couches, chairs and bedding out of their buildings with an intent of sleeping outside and not in their death trap houses. Now they were sleeping in the rain. This seemed like adding insult to injury; a cruel final joke on the populous. After all, other than the quake in September there had been nothing recorded since 1888! As we slept on mats on the floor of the living room we would be awakened by more shocks and the building shaking. After a while it was sort of commonplace, like a big 18 wheeler had just roared by and shook the house.

We drove into the town the next day, carefully plotting the course to take to avoid the problem areas and picked up the rest of our stuff from the motel. The owners spoke no English and so it was difficult to communicate details but we managed to try to attempt to leave our credit card information and we smiled at each other and held our hands together in prayer gestures and departed. We spoke with everyone we met about our experiences and how we and they were and the people were gracious and kind. It was clear that their lives would be affected for many weeks as they waited to find out if they could continue to school or work and occupy the buildings that must be carefully inspected. We loaded our plane to Melbourne and flew away from Christchurch, the only tremors being the occasional shuddering from hitting some “rough air” up in the sky.

So what I learned was a lot about shock. Mine, theirs, how shock and denial are close cousins, how both are defense and survival mechanisms, how people can get a sort of hollow look as their minds and bodies try to carry them forward to whatever they have to do, how shock to the body and mind are related to the earth itself as it shakes and creates aftershocks, and how they do not even know what causes these earthquakes as they are not right on the big faults out on the ocean shelf and they do not follow the obvious fault lines on the island. It seems odd that the land just continues to shake and does not settle down as it seems to in other places most of the time. It seems odd that such a beautiful place can get so “violent” with such “trouble in paradise”, and the gift is all of the above, as we place the events of our lives and upheavals and disturbances in perspective and learn to carry on and to “love as if we had never been hurt”, but, at least in my case, never forget either. I have a strong memory of a young boy, perhaps 11 years old loitering on a suburban road by himself and gazing curiously at a large crack in the asphalt and him telling me that he had volunteered to help somehow and they put him there with nonone around to help out somehow. He looking sort of lost and I felt lost and I felt like he should have a ribbon or something to wear to show that he was there to help. And I remember passing by a person with her young child in hand and the child glanced up at me with deep blue questioning eyes, begging for an explanation and me winking at her with my reciprocally begging eyes as I passed by …into the uncertain future.



To be continued