Christchurch (including Kaikoura), South Island, New Zealand

16th December – 20th December 2017

As we drove towards Christchurch, from Mt. Cook, I couldn’t believe we were already heading for our last stop in New Zealand. We arrived in the city centre at around 7.30 and lucky for us, the bus was doing a stop at a hotel around the corner from our hostel, otherwise we would have had a ten minute walk with all of our bags. One of the first things you notice when you enter Christchurch is the fact that it is still a building site and it shocked me that it could still be in such a mess almost seven years after the earthquake that devastated the city.

As we walked around the corner to our hostel, we had to weave in and out of scaffolding to reach the door. We checked in and went up to our room. As we stepped into the room, we were greeted with some kitchen workers in the window, about two metres across the alley way. It was a little weird, so we shut the curtains, but that seemed strange in the day.

Once we had settled in our room, we went for a walk to the shop, as we needed some bits for tea. the shop was a bit far, especially as we didn’t know where we were going and got lost a little. When we got there, we decided to do a full shop, so that we didn’t have to come back again (hopefully), even though we originally just wanted to get bits for that night.

By the time we had got back to the hostel and cooked tea, it was a late one. We ate and cleaned up, before going to bed. As the room was baking hot, we had to have the windows open; however, this was a problem, as the kitchen workers across the alley way were very loud and went on with their music, cleaning up until gone 1am. They weren’t doing it intentionally to annoy us, but it was annoying that it was disrupting our sleep.

As we didn’t get to sleep until late, we had a lie in and a chilled morning the next day. We didn’t really have many plans, but Christchurch had a bit to offer, so we wanted to go and explore. Once we were up and ready, we made ourselves some breakfast, before I prepared us some lunch that we could take out with us, to have as a picnic.

Once we were ready, we set off towards the city centre. We wandered up and down the streets which contained both very beautiful and very sad places. We walked through Cathedral Junction, which was the home to the Christchurch, old-fashioned trams. From there, we walked onto New Regent Street which was very pretty and beautifully designed. The buildings in New Regent Street were a mirror of each other, from the pattern, to the tiles, to the colour.

After walking up and down New Regent Street and seeing some of the trams, we head towards Cathedral Square. When we got to Cathedral Square, it was so sad to see the mess that the cathedral has been left in. Seeing the city, the way it was made it so hard for me to believe that the earthquake was so long ago. It made me question how they haven’t had the money to try and restore their most important landmarks. It is strange for us, around the rest of the world, as we hear about and see the disasters when they happen, but as soon as a few weeks have passed, we start to forget and just think that everything is back to normal – I certainly didn’t imagine there to be such a long period of time where there is destruction.

As we left Cathedral Square, which they have tried to do up around the cathedral, we walked towards the park. We were looking for a travel shop to book an activity for when we went to Kaikoura, but it was shut, so we went to the park instead.

Hagley Park is the inner city park in Christchurch, and one of the biggest inner city parks in the world. We had a wander around and found the river, as well as some huge Christmas baubles under the trees!

From the park, we walked up to the information centre to pick up some leaflets and sort some bits out, before walking back to the park for our picnic lunch. We had to sit ourselves in the shade of a tree, as it was so hot, we were burning in the sun.

After our picnic, we walked along the river to the boathouse. At the boathouse, we rented a kayak and went for a leisurely row up the river – it was extra leisurely for me, as I let Joe do most of the work. After we had rowed up for about half an hour, we turned around and let the river carry us back down towards the boathouse. It was such a relaxing trip and what I imagined all kayaking trips to be like – not the work out we had to endure in Franz Josef.

Once we had returned the kayak, we felt like we had earnt ourselves an ice cream – I probably didn’t really earn much, but Joe earnt one for the both of us, so we went to find an ice cream shop. We bought one from the best ice cream shop in Christchurch (according to trip advisor) and it was good! I had a flavour called Mrs Claus, which was cheesecake flavoured with red velvet cake mixed in – it was amazing! We ate our ice cream in the park, watching other kayakers on the river, before making a move again.

We went for a walk around the shops, before going back to Cathedral Square to relax for a bit. We sat on the benches in the sun and watched people go by for a little while. As one woman rode through on her bike, she announced that there was free ice cream at the remembrance bridge. I didn’t want to look too keen, so I didn’t act upon it straight away, but after about five minutes, we had to go and investigate to see if she was right.

As we walked towards the remembrance bridge, we could see a big queue of people by a Ben and Jerry’s ice cream truck. We casually passed by and watched to see if it was free and as no one seemed to be handing any money over, I got in line – I know I had already had my ice cream for the day, but it was free and I couldn’t resist (Joe was being too good and said no, even though it was free – he’s crazy!).

While I ate my ice cream, we had a walk around the Restart Mall, which is a load of shipping containers that were put there after the quake, to help people get their business up and running again, quickly. Although it was only meant to be there for eighteen months to two years, it’s still there now, although it’s apparently smaller than it was at first.

After looking around the Restart Village, we wandered to the Remembrance Bridge and sat on the benches for a while, watching the world go by.

After a while, we went for a walk back to the hostel. On our way back up to the room, we put in a request to change rooms because of the noise – I didn’t want three more nights of that, if it could be helped. We had to wait while the worker checked with his boss, but luckily, they said yes, and we could move down the corridor, with the builders outside instead! At least they didn’t work until the early hours of the morning.

Once we were in our new room, we chilled for a little bit before making tea. We had a slightly earlier tea, as I was hungry and didn’t want to start snacking. I made satay chicken for tea, which was enough to last us for two nights. After eating and clearing up, we went back to the room to watch some TV in bed, before falling asleep.

The next morning, the alarm went off at 8.30, so that we could get up and ready, as we were hiring bikes at 9.30. We got dressed and had some breakfast. While Joe cleaned up from breakfast, I prepared the lunch, so that we could have a picnic while we were out.

It was a slight rush to get out on time, but we made it to the bike shop (which was in Cathedral Junction, just by the hostel) just before 9.30. When we got there, it felt like the rush was for nothing, as the shop didn’t even open on time and we had to wait until 9.40 for the man to arrive.

When he arrived, we had two choices of e-bikes: a city one, or a mountain one. As the city ones were apparently more comfortable, we chose those and after a quick lesson on how to use them, we were off.

As we weren’t really sure where to go at first, we rode to Cathedral Square and tried to make a brief plan. Riding the e-bikes, was a little bit different to a normal bike, as it really does help you go a lot faster, with just a few pushes of the pedals.

Once we left Cathedral Square, we rode back to the Remembrance Bridge and Restart Village, as I didn’t have my camera when we went the first time and I wanted to take some photos. The Remembrance Bridge was designed to remember all of the people who died in World War One, but it is used on Anzac Day every year for celebrations to remember all those who fought in various years for New Zealand.

From the Remembrance Bridge, we rode along the river to look at the earthquake memorial, which was a nicely done memorial, which wasn’t over the top. We carried on going along the river, to the boathouse café, where we sat and had a hot chocolate to do some proper planning for the rest of the day.

After our drinks, we rode to the newly opened High Street shopping area and had a look around some shops, before it was time to ride to Willowbank Wildlife Reserve for a look at some kiwi birds!

The ride up to the reserve was a bit longer than I expected but it was a breeze with the e-bikes! Depending on the setting that you choose, the bikes can go quite fast – at one point I got it to 35 kilometres per hour, when I was pedalling quite quickly. However, the bikes were that good that you didn’t even need to pedal at all if you didn’t want, you could just press the button and the bike literally did all of the work for you, getting to speeds of 30 km/h on its own – this was a very handy feature at times.

When we got to the reserve, we were given a map and told about the three different sections in the reserve. The first section that we walked through was the section for animals introduced into New Zealand – some which are pests and some which are not. We saw animals such as eels, ducks, emus, birds, otters, lemurs, gibbons and many more. When we walked up to the cockatoo to have a look at it, it surprised us both when it said hello to me. Joe didn’t believe me at first that it was the bird talking, and at first, I thought he had done it to wind me up but then it did it again and it soon became the favourite!

After the introduced animals section, we walked into the farmyard section. There wasn’t anything new that we hadn’t seen in here, but it was nice to wander through. There were some piglets chasing their mum around the pen to get some milk, which was funny to watch until she settled down for them. We saw llamas, horses, sheep, goats, chickens and tortoises.

At the back of the farmyard were some picnic benches, where we decided to stop and have some lunch. Joe made a new friend who genuinely had bigger feet than him, which made him feel quite uncomfortable, but it was funny to watch.

Our final section, was the native animals section – the section we had been waiting for! We walked through and saw lots of birds that were native to New Zealand, including Weka, Kea and Tui. We also saw some Tuatara, which were in the same section as some frogs, so this made me feel very uneasy!

At the end of the native animals section, we finally entered the kiwi area! As kiwis are nocturnal animals, the chances of us seeing one in the wild was very slim and we hadn’t in the previous six weeks, so this was our last chance before leaving New Zealand. We walked into the area, which was dark, and we had to be very quiet. We heard one kiwi before we saw it, as it squawked and scuttled along the back wall, but then we saw it eating some food. As it was so dark, it wasn’t possible for me to get any photos. On the way out of the kiwi section, I spotted another, which was right on the edge of the fencing, just next to me. I crouched by it and watched it for a little bit, and tried to get some photos, but they weren’t great in the lighting. After a while, it scuttled off and we couldn’t see it anymore.

In the gift shop on the way out, we bought ourselves a little Christmas kiwi to accompany us on the rest of our travels, before we got back on our bikes to head back to the city centre.

On the way back, I had a good idea of where we were going, so we could just get going. As we were driving down a quiet side road, I heard a noise behind me. I turned around and saw Joe diving off his bike onto the grass. As I didn’t think there were any issues on the road, I wondered how he could possibly fall off his bike, but he thinks he caught the side of a grid. Luckily, it was a quiet road and he landed on grass, so he didn’t hurt himself. We carried on riding, and it was nice that most of the journey was on cyclist only lanes, away from the roads, so we could just put the power on to get back.

When we got back to the city centre, we did a little bit of retail therapy as my limited wardrobe choices are really boring me now. We also got ourselves another free ice cream from the Ben and Jerry’s van – something that they seem to be offering every day leading up to Christmas. After visiting a couple of shops, we went to give the bikes back, before heading back to the hostel.

Back at the hostel, we were able to chill out for a bit before we had tea. Tea was the other half of the satay chicken from the night before. While I was cooking, I had a quick look in the free food boxes in the hostel to see if there was anything I could throw together for the next night, as we hadn’t accounted for two more nights and we didn’t want to food shop again.

After tea, we got ourselves an early night, as we had a very early start the next day and a long day ahead of us.

At 5.45, the alarm went off for us to get up and ready to go to Kaikoura for the day. We got up and ready and as neither of us wanted breakfast at that time, we grabbed the packed lunch that I had prepared the night before, before heading towards the bus stop.

Although we were at the bus stop on time, the bus didn’t show up until 7.30, when it should have been there at 7. Apparently, the delay was because of traffic the previous day, causing the bus to get in late, and the driver needed a ten-hour break before he could drive again. The traffic was because the road between Kaikoura and Christchurch had only just reopened a few days earlier and the bus had only taken its first trip the day before us. Due to the early start, we both fell asleep on the bus, which made it go much quicker.

We arrived in Kaikoura at about quarter past ten. When we got off the bus, we had a very slow wander up and down the main street looking in the shops. It was a very chilly day and we were starting to regret not bringing any warmer layers with us, but we hoped it would warm up a bit.

After walking up and down the street, we wandered onto the rocky beach, where we sat for a little bit. We ate our picnic on the beach, looking out onto the very blue sea. Once we had eaten, Joe lay down and before I knew it, it was snooze time – it doesn’t surprise me anymore.

Once Joe had woken up, we walked back towards the street, where we found a little café to sit and enjoy a milkshake. We sat there for a while, before it was time to walk to the kayak office, as we had booked ourselves in for a pedal kayaking activity, to go and see some seals.

When we got to the office, we were greeted by Levi, the owner, who had bought the pedal kayaks in from America and it was probably the best thing he has done. We got there at about 1.15, ready to go out at 1.30 but we were delayed by two people who didn’t turn up on time.

Once everyone had arrived, we were given a life jacket, and we were driven five minutes down the road to the bay where the kayaks were waiting for us. We climbed into the kayaks and we were given a quick lesson on how to use them, as it was hands free – it was so much easier than a normal kayak!

We started off by pedalling out into the water where we met up with Ryan, our guide, who had pedalled out in front of us. We had a quick chat about the Kaikoura peninsula and he told us that until their earthquake in November, last year, they didn’t know that all of the rocks, that are now in the water around the peninsula, existed, as they rose two and a half metres as a result of the earthquake and it isn’t the only part of the land that did rise.

After a quick chat, we carried on pedalling, and pedalled around the end of the peninsula, called Shark Tooth rock. As we were pedalling, we saw some seals on the rocks, but we had to give them their distance, as they can get quite protective and angry on the land, but are very friendly in the water. On the way, there were a couple of seals in the water, but they didn’t really come very close to us.

On the water, we saw some birds, including the New Zealand Shag bird. The shag is one of the best swimming birds and can dive down to get its food and hold its breath for long enough to find what it wants. The only problem the shag has, is that it had to stand on the rocks to dry its wings out, before it could fly again. This was funny to watch, as it would just stand there with its wing spread, until it could fly again.

On the other side of Shark Tooth rock, we pedalled into Whalers Bay (named Whalers Bay because the Maoris would live up on the hills and would run down and spear whales in the water when they spotted them). While we were sat in Whalers Bay, we had a couple of seals swim up and play with the back of another kayak but when we turned around, they disappeared. We pedalled around the bay for a little bit, but they didn’t reappear, so this was a little disappointing.

Once Ryan had taken some photos of us, we started to make our way back, squeezing through some tight gaps, going over some choppy waves. We stopped to try and find some more seals on the way back, but they just weren’t up for playing, which was a shame. Although all the seals seem to do is lie around in the sun all day, they are very good swimmers and can swim up to 250 metres deep, holding their breath for eleven minutes. The fur seals aren’t at risk in Kaikoura, as there aren’t any predators: they don’t have sharks and when the killer whales come up, they are more interested in the dolphins, so the seals have a pretty good life up there.

After around two and a half hours on the water, we started to head back into the bay. Ryan told us to look out for blue penguins on the way, as they had been in the water recently. Just before we pulled into the bay, I spotted a penguin right by our boat! Both me and Joe saw it, but by the time everyone else had turned around, it had gone and there was no chance of a photo, but it was so close! The others came around to try and see it, but they were too late and it had gone.

As we were heading back into the bay, another blue penguin (which are the smallest breed of penguin in the world) popped his head up to see us, but quickly disappeared again, so again, no photos. As we pedalled into the bay, Ryan took out our pedals and Joe had to paddle us back in, with me steering at the front. Despite the steering being great the whole time we were out on the water, it gave up on me at the last stretch and I had to paddle too to help to steer it.

Once we were back on dry land, we returned our pedals and paddles to the van, before Joe and another guy on the tour, helped Ryan and Levi to bring the kayaks up to load them back onto the van. After the van was loaded up, we drove back to the office, where we said thank you and goodbye.

After saying goodbye, we walked back along the main street, towards the bus stop. As we had a little time to wait before the bus arrived, we found another café to sit in and have a drink. The bus that we got on, was the same bus that dropped us off in the morning, so it was still running a little bit behind schedule, although it had made up fifteen minutes.

Just after 5.30, we set off back towards Christchurch. After the long and busy day we had had, we both slept for the first part of the journey. We missed all of the roadworks and only woke up when we had a toilet stop. From there, it was still about an hour and a half to go, but it seemed to pass quite quickly.

The bus arrived back in Christchurch at about 8.30, and as we didn’t have to collect any bags, we could shoot right off and get back to the hostel. Even though it was already late, we had a busy night ahead of us back at the hostel: I had to make tea, we needed to do some laundry and we needed to pack.

Back at the hostel, we both had showers first, before putting the laundry on. Once the washing was going, I made a start on tea. As tea was a mix of whatever we had left and whatever we could find in the free boxes, we were having burritos and homemade chips. We had one potato to make the chips with, and once they were on, I got the rice going for the chicken burritos. To say it was a random tea, we had plenty of food and it turned out quite well.

After tea, we cleared up the pots and waited for the dryer to finish our clothes. Once this was done, we could pack our bags, ready to leave the next day. Although it was late, we didn’t want to go to bed until we had packed, as it meant that we could lie in until the last minute the next morning and we didn’t have to worry about our bags. Once everything was ready, we finally got into bed at about midnight.

The next morning, we were able to sleep in until 9, as we didn’t have to check out until 10 and most things were already ready to go. We got up and ready and finished off the last bits of packing before checking out. Once we have checked out, we went back up to the kitchen to have some breakfast and sort out our remaining bits of food.

Just before 11, we left the hostel, for our last day of exploring New Zealand. We started off by going to a part of the city that we hadn’t been to yet. It was quite a sad part of town, as it had the ‘Cardboard Cathedral’ which is the transitional cathedral that they have built while they decide what to do with their original one. We had a look inside and it is made to look like it’s made out of cardboard, as it is only temporary.

From the cardboard cathedral, we walked along to the next block where there is the unofficial memorial to the 185 victims of the 2001 earthquake. The memorial is 185 white chairs, one to reflect each person’s personality as best as it can. It was put there soon after the earthquake, opposite the site where the CTV building was – the building where 115 of the 185 people lost their lives. It was quite moving to see the chairs all sat there; there was a note saying that people are welcome to sit there if they wished to, but we didn’t feel like we wanted to do that.

After looking at the memorial, we walked back towards the centre of the city. We decided that we were going to take it easy on our last day, so we bought ourselves a ticket for the tram, which takes tours around the city. The ticket lasted us all day and we could hop on and hop off as many times as we liked, so it seemed perfect for us.

As the whole loop only took fifty minutes, we decided to do the loop once, before deciding where to get off and explore. The drivers (although our first was quite grumpy), gave commentaries of the city as we drove around. It’s amazing to hear how much money is going into the city to try and rebuild it: the new library is costing $97million and the new convention centre is going to cost just short of $500million and this is just two of the projects that are ongoing. Even though it still looks like a giant building site in places, there have already been so many restorations, although these are mainly bars, restaurants and shops.

Helping to rebuild the city are 7000 workers from all over the world. They are putting down street, fixing roads, restoring statues and rebuilding businesses. There were 1700 building that had to be taken down as a result of the earthquake, including some heritage buildings, such as an upmarket hotel where the Queen and The Beetles stayed on their visits to Christchurch. It is thought that it will be another thirty years until Christchurch is back to its former glory, which seems like such a long time. There are new regulations in place where buildings aren’t allowed to be taller than seven stories high and the foundation and framework are much sturdier, yet flexible if another earthquake was to hit the city.

One of the drivers made us laugh at one point, as he mentioned some things that can be done outside of the city centre. He mentioned a zoo, or animal centre with lions and tigers etc, and then mentioned Willowbank, but emphasised that this was the children’s reserve. Whether it’s a place for children or not, we had a great time and got to see a kiwi, so we didn’t bother with his repetition of his thought that it was for children.

After finishing the first loop, we decided to get off at the last stop, New Regent Street. We had a wander down, looking at the beautiful buildings, before popping into Mrs Higgins’ bakery for a treat. I had a cookie ice cream sandwich and Joe had a muffin – both of which were great.

We got back on the tram at New Regent Street and began the loop again. This time, we got off at a few different stops, having a look around different parts of the city. Although the tram didn’t take us to anywhere new, it was nice to be able to get a relaxing ride round and have the commentary to go along with it. As we had decided to have a late lunch/ early tea, before we went to the airport, we were on the look out for somewhere to go, while we wandered.

After we had walked up and down the streets and had ridden around a couple of times, we decided to head into the Christchurch museum, which was free of entry. The first exhibition that we saw explained about the early Maori settlers and how they hunted the Moa bird, which is now extinct. There were different displays, that explained their way of living and how they survived, using the land and natural objects.

Walking through to the next exhibition, we walked into the Paua house. We started off by watching a short clip about a married couple Fred and Myrtle who lived in Bluff. Fred liked to collect Paua shells and polish them up. He would frequently get into arguments with Myrtle as they cluttered up the floor and obstructed her vacuum cleaner. As a way of getting around this, one day, they decided to nail them to the wall to keep them out of the way. Once they started nailing them to the wall, they didn’t stop and soon, their entire living room was covered in Paua. They had 1145 shells on the wall and once it was complete, they decided to open their house to the public. People would pay to come in and look at their house and Myrtle loved it. She loved the company and she didn’t care how many people came in to look. They believe that they are the ones to put Bluff on the map for people to visit it.

As Fred and Myrtle have passed away, their living room is now in Christchurch museum, so we were able to have a look at it.

Leaving the Paua house, we walked into a photography exhibition, where we both got lost in the photos. The exhibition fifty of the best National Geographic photos, and underneath each one was an explanation of how the photo came about. As we were both mesmerised by the photos, we almost lost track of time.

Unfortunately, we ran out of time in the museum and couldn’t even finish the photography exhibition. Just after half three, we left the museum, to get the tram back around then get some food before we had to leave. We found a very nice, upmarket food court area, which was just out of the city centre. We had a burger each and shared some chips, and I was that full afterwards, I didn’t even want my daily dosage of free ice cream!

After we had finished eating, we walked back up to the hostel, for the final time. We collected our bags and set off walking towards the bus stop, to get the bus to the airport, for our flight to Melbourne.

What a beautiful, but sad place Christchurch is. As I have said over and over, the state that it is still in, is so shocking, when it has been almost seven years! The work that people are putting into it, to try and restore it and the fact that they haven’t given up on it, is amazing. I’m glad that we had the chance to explore the city fully, it was so exciting to finally see a real kiwi and although we didn’t get to see whales (which Kaikoura is famous for), it was good fun to kayak around the seals.

As we head over to Australia and begin to slow down a bit, I’m not entirely sure how the blogs are going to work and how frequent, or exciting they will be, but there will be updates. I’m excited to catch up with, and introduce Joe to, family and friends over the Christmas period, and it will be nice for the both of us to have some quiet time; although I’m not sure how long it will be until I get restless and need to be back to constant adventuring!

To travel is to live, Katie x