Wetlands Grove in Bexley Red Zone and nothing on library website. I couldn’t find out much information about this street and the houses that were here possibly had been built in the 1990s. There were a couple of articles online about the earthquakes. The street runs off Anzac Drive and it isn’t blocked off so I was able to drive along it and park up. I parked near the entrance to Harold Henry Park. At the end of the street there was a walkway that led to the walkway that follows the river. All the houses have been demolished here but I couldn’t get over how many campervans were parked up on the street. They were everywhere. I think that the name of the street is a big clue as to why the land was so badly damaged in the earthquakes.
Lytteltonwitch's Walking the streets of Christchurch Project 
it was a beautiful street to live in. I had a cousin visit me though from Auckland. he said that building on swamp was a bad idea and suggested developers were lucky to get resource consent. The houses were all new builds with nice cladding. Power ran underground so no ugly power poles. I must have had a flash of instinct as I left the area and the country 6 months before the quake. I still have recurring dreams about the house I used to live in. It was beautiful. Seeing that nature has reclaimed the area is also beautiful. It seems very appropriate
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I was living in England when the earthquakes happened thanks to a grandfather who had jumped ship in New Zealand and I was able to get the 5 year ancestry visa. It is interesting walking red zoned streets and to realise that people lived there. When the earthquakes happened it was the only time I was homesick for NZ. I enjoy walking around the streets of Christchurch and learning the history of them. – Lesley
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There are parts of Christchurch that are just familiar feeling for some reason. Some places are outright eerie. That picture above is surreal. At the end of the street to the left was a little park. At the very end a walkway over the wetlands. Across from where I lived was a lovely Muslim family with a huge house lots of lawn, the kids were always playing football. Across the roadway, was farmland and a BMX track. The old homestead of the farm before it got subdivided remained. Now that area felt eerie to be honest. And I recall sitting there one day seeing a plane flying and having am epiphany about man and nature. How we design things after much effort using much resource for an end result that will only ever pale ultimately in comparison. I had been given the heart sutra to meditate on by a friend. ” Emptiness is the form and the form I’d emptiness “. Looking at fog rising from swamp, a lonely cow and an aeroplane it all seemed to fall into place. That was a 26 year old me then. Thanks for sharing these photos. It was a sad time in my life when I left and I still return to that house in my dreams. So seeing the place reclaimed by nature is somehow fitting. Take care and enjoy your stay.
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