– Defyd Williams – 19/12/96
When 1999 tries to tick over to the year 2000 will computers die a digital death, or will we enter a brave new millennium of virtual reality? Either way Christchurch, New Zealand, is the place to be. Crowds will cram into Cathedral Square to be among the first in the world to witness the dawn of the 21st century. Christchurch’s name refers to the 2,000 year old Christian calendar, and for this reason it can be seen as one of the few places on Earth which the Millennium celebrates.
Christchurch is one of the greenest cities in the world. It is referred to as the “Garden City” or the “City that Shines”, and you would swear from the high vantage point of an inner city hotel that its buildings were surrounded by a forest of trees. The city is backed by the majestic Southern Alps and flanked by the rounded curves of the extinct volcanic Port Hills.
City Hall is already planning big celebrations around a sport and recreation theme in their Turning Point 2000 project. Hagley Park, like Central Park, New York, and Hyde Park, London, is the central city’s great green lung. Tens of thousand of kids play organised sport there during the weekends and mid-week, including rugby, football, field hockey, netball (an outdoor adaption of basketball), softball(a baseball adaption), cricket, tennis, and rugby league. Its sprawling hectares are probably the biggest playing fields in the world.
Christchurch has been at the heart of many important national and even international innovations. The Great Exhibition, held in Hagley Park at the start of this century (1906-07), was attended by nearly 2 million visitors and celebrated many of New Zealand’s achievements – the world’s first trade unions,and the first nation to grant women the vote (in 1893). In this age of technology, a New Zealander may have flown before the Wright brothers –
100m before crashing into a tree!. A student at Canterbury University (Christchurch) became the father of the nuclear age by “splitting” the atom. Find out more about these Magic Cantabrians in a free heritage map of the city by E-mailing the author of this piece.
Defyd Williams, who is the editor of Millenium News, is keen to make links with organisations focused on the future in the next three years. He has already hotlinked Canada 2000 and the millennium project in Greenwich.
E-mail defyd@lynx.co.nz with your Internet plans for the third millennium.
