Christchurch is about half way down the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand. As we had to check out of our Wellington Hotel at 6.30am to catch a ferry across the Cook Straight to Picton and then hire a car for a 4 hour drive, we were stealing ourselves for another long, tiring travel day. Generally travel-days have been the least enjoyable parts of this trip – its being in the interesting places and having a chance to explore them that’s fun.
But this time we were wrong. OK, the day didn’t start too well – getting up at 6am is not our idea of fun, and we had a freezing 30 minute walk along Wellington harbour to get to the ferry. But at least the reflections of sunrise on the water were pretty. Unfortunately the ferry ride itself wasn’t so great. The boat was just too cold! Imagine a freezing, crisp, clear morning on a boat with no heating and all doors held permanently open. I spent the entire time shivering like crazy – even Gary found it cold towards the end. Luckily the coffee bar people took some pity on me and gave me cups of hot water to hold as hand-warmers! The café did serve BLTs but, unluckily for Gary, only at lunchtimes…
So we got into Picton a bit tired and disgruntled and migrated to Ace Rentals to pick up our hire car. This was funny – they gave us a Nissan Sunny practically identical to Gary’s car back home – only a newer, cleaner model, with a manual gearbox and power-steering! So he was delegated the driving seat for day (on grounds of Nissan experience) and after a moment working out how to use a gear-stick again he zoomed us off south towards Christchurch.
Here the travels became much more fun. New Zealand is beautiful. We have seen lots of pretty places, idyllic scenes, and dramatic views on this trip, but they are usually at least slightly spaced out. Most countries have boring bits – industrialised planes, sprawling suburbs, etc. New Zealand doesn’t. It has consistently amazing scenery that continuously changes. So we started by driving through vineyard-filled valleys flanked by green forested mountains, before swiftly hitting the most stunning coast I’ve ever seen. Volcanic mountains slopping towards black-sand beaches, long curving bays – or other areas where sheer cliffs descended straight into the water and the road was forced to twist through a series of tunnels. And best of all, halfway down the coast at Ohau Point was a colony of seals, apparently the largest group on the South Island. There were dozens of them! Lolling on the rocks, sunning them selves, or occasionally getting up and flopping over to the sea for a swim. Beautiful!
Anyway, getting to Christchurch was stunning, so it’s just as well the town itself was pretty or it would have been a bit of a letdown! Actually, surreal is probably the best word I could use. Christchurch is actually named after the Oxford College, and so you might expect a bit of an English atmosphere. But we didn’t expect the punting! They have a very shallow river running through the centre of town that looks as if it belongs in either Oxford or Cambridge. As we walked along the river through the lovely botanical gardens and watch tourists being punted, we found it hard to believe we were the other side of the world from Cambridge, with a 13 hour time difference! Really weird!
While we were in Christchurch as well as exploring the worryingly familiar centre of town we ventured on a drive along the nearby Portland hills. Actually this was a bit unexpected. We had a few hours to spare in the evening on a really nice day when I’d just twisted my ankle falling down a broken drain… so we thought we might as well go for a drive recommended in our Rough Guide. It turned out to be (perhaps predictably) spectacular. The summit road gave stunning views in both directions – back over Christchurch and the surrounding planes stretching back to distant mountains, and onward to a volcanic crater lake connecting with the sea. But the barren mountain-top itself was even more familiar to me than punting – fields and fields of sheep – just like Wales! As it’s spring here there were loads of pretty lambs around too, looking a great deal sweeter and fluffier than their mums.
Anyway, now we will move onward again, further South to Dunedin – the ‘Edinburgh’ of the South! And for the first time this trip we’re actually looking forward to the trip more than arriving…
But this time we were wrong. OK, the day didn’t start too well – getting up at 6am is not our idea of fun, and we had a freezing 30 minute walk along Wellington harbour to get to the ferry. But at least the reflections of sunrise on the water were pretty. Unfortunately the ferry ride itself wasn’t so great. The boat was just too cold! Imagine a freezing, crisp, clear morning on a boat with no heating and all doors held permanently open. I spent the entire time shivering like crazy – even Gary found it cold towards the end. Luckily the coffee bar people took some pity on me and gave me cups of hot water to hold as hand-warmers! The café did serve BLTs but, unluckily for Gary, only at lunchtimes…
So we got into Picton a bit tired and disgruntled and migrated to Ace Rentals to pick up our hire car. This was funny – they gave us a Nissan Sunny practically identical to Gary’s car back home – only a newer, cleaner model, with a manual gearbox and power-steering! So he was delegated the driving seat for day (on grounds of Nissan experience) and after a moment working out how to use a gear-stick again he zoomed us off south towards Christchurch.
Here the travels became much more fun. New Zealand is beautiful. We have seen lots of pretty places, idyllic scenes, and dramatic views on this trip, but they are usually at least slightly spaced out. Most countries have boring bits – industrialised planes, sprawling suburbs, etc. New Zealand doesn’t. It has consistently amazing scenery that continuously changes. So we started by driving through vineyard-filled valleys flanked by green forested mountains, before swiftly hitting the most stunning coast I’ve ever seen. Volcanic mountains slopping towards black-sand beaches, long curving bays – or other areas where sheer cliffs descended straight into the water and the road was forced to twist through a series of tunnels. And best of all, halfway down the coast at Ohau Point was a colony of seals, apparently the largest group on the South Island. There were dozens of them! Lolling on the rocks, sunning them selves, or occasionally getting up and flopping over to the sea for a swim. Beautiful!
Anyway, getting to Christchurch was stunning, so it’s just as well the town itself was pretty or it would have been a bit of a letdown! Actually, surreal is probably the best word I could use. Christchurch is actually named after the Oxford College, and so you might expect a bit of an English atmosphere. But we didn’t expect the punting! They have a very shallow river running through the centre of town that looks as if it belongs in either Oxford or Cambridge. As we walked along the river through the lovely botanical gardens and watch tourists being punted, we found it hard to believe we were the other side of the world from Cambridge, with a 13 hour time difference! Really weird!
While we were in Christchurch as well as exploring the worryingly familiar centre of town we ventured on a drive along the nearby Portland hills. Actually this was a bit unexpected. We had a few hours to spare in the evening on a really nice day when I’d just twisted my ankle falling down a broken drain… so we thought we might as well go for a drive recommended in our Rough Guide. It turned out to be (perhaps predictably) spectacular. The summit road gave stunning views in both directions – back over Christchurch and the surrounding planes stretching back to distant mountains, and onward to a volcanic crater lake connecting with the sea. But the barren mountain-top itself was even more familiar to me than punting – fields and fields of sheep – just like Wales! As it’s spring here there were loads of pretty lambs around too, looking a great deal sweeter and fluffier than their mums.
Anyway, now we will move onward again, further South to Dunedin – the ‘Edinburgh’ of the South! And for the first time this trip we’re actually looking forward to the trip more than arriving…
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