Tag Archives: Travel

Christchurch: I – the city centre

Leave a Reply

Thursday 5 March 2026 – Guess what? The drive down to Christchurch from Kaikoura is quite scenic.

It’s reassuring to note that they take some precautions against falling boulders in places,

but then we were heading into a place with quite a record of geological instability.

We arrived in Christchurch in good time check in to our hotel, the very well-organised George. Whilst Jane settled in to our room, I went to hand back our hire car; the nice manager at Budget was good enough to waive the charge for the extra day we incurred through the mix-up back in Auckland. On the way back I got some milk in for the inevitable cups of Twinings finest Earl Grey and also discovered a significant characteristic of Christchurch – the street art,

which is sprinkled liberally throughout the city, quite often on walls surrounding car parks. There are a lot of car parks on the open spaces throughout Christchurch that arise courtesy, one suspects, of the massive earthquakes that devastated the city in September 2010 and, more tragically, in February 2011, more of which later. I also passed the Victoria Jubilee Clock

built in celebration of Queen Victoria’s jubilee in 1897 (and rebuilt in 1930, presumably after an earthquake in 1929). I also noted that they have problems with the English language here similar to the ones we have in England.

The hotel room carried a reminder of the earthquake, too.

Anyway, we had some time to ourselves, both during this afternoon and tomorrow morning. So we went for walks. Obviously. These are photographs from our peregrinations, not necessarily in the order in which we saw things.

Street Art

We took a lot of photos of the street art, because there’s a lot of street art. There are some huge installations across the city centre

Trompe l’oeuil frontage for something

and many, many smaller examples.

It seems that any space is game for being covered.

A standby generator in Mona Vale

Other Art

As well as the murals, there are plenty of other installations around the city,  both old and new.

James Cook
Queen Victoria
Not sure if this is an art installation or a working phone box

Architecture

Obviously, since much of the city was destroyed in 2010 and 2011, there are many, many new buildings. Accommodation has sprung up all over the city with an agenda to attract people back to living there.

One famous post-earthquake construction, a container mall (similar in concept to the Tin Town that sprang up after the Napier earthquake), has since been demolished, and replaced with a very modern shopping centre

and the city’s restored tramline runs a tourist hop-on, hop-off service through it and round the other sights of the central area.

The city itself feels a little….odd. I suppose the lack of skyscrapers (there’s unsurprisingly a moratorium on tall buildings except under exceptional circumstances) and the ubiquity of modern constructions have a bearing on this. It’s a very pleasant city to walk around in. Parts of it have been restored to their previous glory, like New Regent Street,

along which the tram runs.

There’s been plenty of construction of new buildings, of course. The river Avon runs through the city, giving it a pleasant, green, focus

(the statue in the river there is, yes, an Anthony Gormley).

This greenness is not normal, by the way. Apparently, by this time of the year, all of the green spaces have usually been burnt brown; but it’s been such a wet summer that the grass is still green. As we walked around, the weather was delightful – 25°C and sunshine – so Christchurch folk’s bad luck was our good fortune.

Some modern buildings are just Deloitteful

but all the time the spectre of such a recent upheaval (literal and figurative) hangs over the city.

There are also several handsome old buildings which were damaged in the earthquake and which haven’t been restored (yet, one hopes),

including this teacher training college, which is a very striking building.

There is a museum, Quake City, dedicated to the earthquake, which is a very intense education about the impact it had. One thing I hadn’t appreciated was the constant barrage of quakes that has hit the city since its inception. Since 1844 there have been over 20 earthquakes in the area – they’re almost routine. What marks the 2010/2011 earthquakes out is the timing: September 2010 was a larger upheaval (7.1), but it happened in the middle of the night when the city was quiet. The one that followed, in February 2011, was “only” 6.1 but it was in the middle of the day, many of the buildings were weakened from September and so foundered, and many lives were lost in the collapsing buildings. The devastation was huge and widespread, as shown in photographs in Quake City.

Some buildings survived,

Was a Church, is now a microbrewery!

and, particularly, wooden ones tended to be able to withstand the shaking.

But, of course, many didn’t, notably the cathedral and the basilica.

Political wrangling has put a stop to restoration work of this cathedral, which seems an outrage until one considers that there’s not enough taxpayer money to go around and there are many more important calls on what money there is than, frankly, restoring churches. In that context, it’s a bit strange to note that there was money to build a brand new sports stadium

(seating capacity 30,000 but without its own car parking) but not to construct a mass transit rail system which would go a long way to relieve the city’s chronic rush hour traffic gridlock. There’s clearly been a lot of building, many examples of which could possibly have been funded entirely from the private sector.

An example, though, of what can be done is shown by the Cardboard Cathedral, formally called the Transitional Cathedral of the city, which is a truly remarkable (a) building and (b) piece of thinking.

There really is a huge amount of cardboard in its construction.

In a move that should surprise no-one, the building regs were changed somewhat after the earthquake, and ever since, all buildings have to have a minimum 50 years of expected life; the cardboard cathedral is expected to last well over a century. We learned this from a conversation with a lovely chap called Richard Parker, a volunteer at the cathedral and also a man involved with the city’s building programmes.

The Cardboard Cathedral is quite an inspiring construction, both for what it represents – rebuilding after a major setback – and how it’s done – with vision and imagination. Our visit to it and to Quake City were probably the most significant segments of our wanderings around in this very pleasant city; and we weren’t quite done. We had our fourth and final meeting with old friends, and were able to explore a few other aspects of the place. I’ll detail them in the next entry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hiking Kaikoura

4 Replies

Wednesday 4 March 2026 – The Hapuku Lodge is such a wonderful environment that we both were powerfully tempted to spend the day relaxing. It would have been splendid had the weather been crap; then we wouldn’t have needed any further bidding to remain slothful. However, looking out of our bedroom window,

we could see it wasn’t. So we went for a walk. Obviously.

Kaikoura is set on a peninsula which juts out from the east coast just far enough to make walking round it a decent  distance for the sort of hike we thought we could cope with.

 

It’s about 20km south of the lodge, so we retrieved our car and set off. The plan was to park at the point of the peninsula and walk round it until we got back to the car. However, lots of other people had the same idea and the small car park actually at the far end of the peninsula was full. It wasn’t a problem; we were still going to walk the same distance irrespective of where we started, so we found a spot a kilometre or so back and started from there instead. The peninsula is clearly a holiday hotspot, and I had a chuckle at one place’s marketing of an attraction for passing punters.

The recent snow that had settled on the mountains provided a great backdrop for photos of the very rocky seashore.

At the point of the peninsula, one can opt to walk along the rocks or take the path to the top of the cliffs; we opted to do the latter. It’s a well-presented path to start with, up a reasonably stiff climb of about 50m vertical.

The path then wends its way along the cliff top, past a small and unusually-sited lighthouse

which can only work to the north, since vegetation has grown up to obscure any light it shows in any other direction. The peninsula walk is a popular one; there were plenty of other walkers along it,

all presumably taking advantage of today being the first day of good weather for a while. As you might expect, the views along the way are excellent.

There’s a seal colony on the rocks to the south of the peninsula.

Those brown specks are actually fur seals,

which, as any fule kno, are not actually seals, but sealions. Using the dodgy end of the video capabilities of the phone, one can take slightly ropey video of them doing their sealiony things.

We could see the people who had decided to walk the lower path as they passed a wooden teepee on the shore.

I’m not quite sure why it’s special – there are any number of these things set up in the woods around Surrey, but there it is. Had we wanted to explore further, we could at that point have taken a path down to the shore, but

steps? I don’t think so. We’ve only just recovered from Tongariro.

As we went along, it rather looked as if there was going to be another stiff climb

which looked rather daunting. There’s someone working their way up it in this photo.

Yes, there is.

It frankly looked like bloody hard work, so having climbed a stile to get to it,

we were rather glad to note that one could go round as well as over.

We’d psyched ourselves up for the steep bit, honest, guv; but going round was a much more attractive prospect. The going was a little muddy in places – not seriously, but enough to give evidence of the wet weather that had preceded today’s lovely sunshine. The scenery continued to be wonderful, both looking towards the mountains

and southwards over the cliffs.

Eventually, the path reaches a settlement called South Bay

(I’d call it a town, but there’s no cafe, so civilisation hasn’t quite reached it yet). On the rocks outside South Bay there were several seabirds, which we saw were mainly shags. One, though, we thought was an egret,

and we were wrong. It was actually a spoonbill. Yes, it was.

and it was doing its spoonbilly things, again, captured at the far end of what’s possible with today’s phones.

At South Bay, the path turns back to cross the peninsula from south to north. We passed a house where the post box almost had a turf roof (lichens in actual fact of course)

and another which gave evidence of how windy it normally is round here.

The path led past some splendid agapanthus,

still in flower (most of the North Island agapanthus was over, so it was lovely to see this).

Leaving South Bay, the surroundings change quite significantly

as the path goes through a small pine forest.

Beside the path was today’s Mystery Object;

ramps which we couldn’t believe were a construct of nature. There were actually two of these double ramps and I wondered whether at some stage they were part of a mountain bike trail, creating some jumps for the deluded fools who go in for screaming down steep hills on narrow muddy paths.

We’ll never know.

At the top of the wood, one emerges into the outskirts of Kaikoura, taking “Tom’s Track” to get back through to the north coast of the peninsula.

This led us to a view over the Kaikoura Esplanade

and, blessedly, past a coffee shop, the Bee Box, where we had a small rest and a large flat white.

We were then on the road that runs along the north coast of the peninsula and simply had to walk along to where we’d started.  The walk led past another tribute to Tom

and a striking wooden sculpture

back to the car.

So, that was the Kaikoura pensinsula

and a very pleasant 10km hike it was, too. We headed back to the Lodge and took it easy for the rest of the afternoon before another superb dinner in the restaurant there. The food really was extremely fine.

The original plan had been to take part in a star-gazing session as night fell. However, clear as the day had been, clouds came in to foil that plan. Nonetheless, the moon looked good as it rose in the evening.

That signalled the end of our time in Kaikoura and regretfully we have to leave the lovely Hapuku Lodge tomorrow, to head further south. Stay tuned to see where we go next, eh?

 

 

 

 

 

Back to Picton, then to Kaikoura

4 Replies

Tuesday 3 March 2026 – All we had to do today was to get from the Abel Tasman Lodge down to our next accommodation, which was near Kaikoura. We had a choice – take the quick route to Blenheim and thence south towards Kaikoura, or add extra time and scenery by taking the Queen Charlotte Drive, a “scenic route” which led to Picton, where we had arrived on the South Island three days ago. Our itinerary’s description of the Queen Charlotte Drive as “one of the most scenic drives you’re likely to encounter” sealed the deal, despite that it made the already quite substantial journey an hour longer.

As we left Mārahau we saw a series of the trailers that the water taxi folk, Aquataxi, use to haul their boats around;

the water taxi custom in that part of the world obviously drives a substantial business. Our route took us on roads that had become almost familiar – back through Motueka, Nelson and Richmond before taking a sudden left on the Queen Charlotte drive. In Motueka, we spotted an office of the Kiwi Growers of New Zealand, which sported an interesting poster;

not just normal or golden kiwis, but red ones, too. John, of Kiwi Dundee, back at Coromandel, had told us about them, but this poster was the first time we’d seen any further evidence of them. We haven’t spotted them in any shops, that’s for sure.

The route through Nelson and Richmond led us back near Pic’s Peanut Butter World and past the Nelson Classic Car Museum; since we knew there was a good coffee shop there, we stopped to make sure their quality hadn’t lapsed. It was very busy; it’s clearly a popular breakfast spot.

The route passes Port Nelson and immediately after that Jane had spotted something she wanted to explore – the Boulder Bank Scenic Reserve.  As you drive along the highway, you can see a narrow bank of land out to sea; it’s a long thin spit.

I initially thought it was an artificial construct, but actually it’s a natural spit of boulders, formed of the debris of land slips from the Mackay Bluffs, swept southwards by sea currents over 10,000 years. The spit is 8 km long and it is open as a hiking path.

What they don’t tell you about in the guide books is that there’s a waste treatment plant just a few metres from the spit, with, beside it

a substantial effluent pond. The smell was pretty familiar to us as something that we get in our garden when something has gone wrong with our septic treatment plant. There was a suspicious flurry of greenish water visible

but the various water birds didn’t seem to mind at all

and the general miasma seemed to attract quite a lot of insects, as evidenced by the number of swifts (or swallows or martins, they didn’t stop to let us work this out) flitting about in the bushes nearby.

There’s a swamp beside the track that leads to the spit, called the Whakapuaka Raupo Swamp, which provides a nice foreground to the backdrop of the hills thereabouts.

Undeterred*, we carried on towards Havelock, past some excellent views as the road occasionally led up into the hills.

It was clear that this area has a very significant logging industry.

We stopped for more coffee at Havelock. Jane had spotted a coffee cart in what looked like an attractive area, and she was rigfht.

The coffee was good, served by a very, very cheerful chap, whose laugh was akin to an offensive weapon. Shortly after Havelock one reaches the decision point: straight on for the quick route, or turn left for the scenic one. So we turned left, heading on the 34km, very twisty road to Picton,

which would have taken us just under an hour, except we kept stopping to check out the scenery and take photos. As promised, it’s very scenic.

Havelock as seen from the Queen Charlotte Drive

Pleasant to look at, and typical of the general scenery to be seen from Queen Charlotte Drive

A flat part linking the two bodies of water on the drive (called Linkwater, unsurprisingly)

Prehistoric Tree Ferns

I had been expecting some kind of wilderness route, but actually there were habitations and side roads all the way along, and, every so often, a pretty bay.

Eventually, we got to the official Picton Scenic Overview lookout, where we could see Picton nestling in the hills.

I was a bit cross with what I thought was an eyesore in the foreground here, which included a big ugly commercial ship which I hid behind the ferns. It actually turned out to be a rather interesting site and sight as we turned the corner. It’s Waimahara Wharf, in Shakespeare Bay, and

it’s a vast logging operation, which was fascinating to watch, with some clearly specialised machinery at work shifting the logs around.

Picton itself has, as we knew, a major port facility as well – big enough to receive the InterIslander ferries – and the route gave us a good look over it.

In reaching Picton we’d come full circle – out to Abel Tasman and back; but now it was time to head south to our destination for the day. As we went, the countryside changed remarkably, from heavy logging which, we supposed, sustains Picton’s role as a major port facility, to wine country with surprisingly bare hillsides.

There were some pine plantations on the hills, but they didn’t seem to be managed in any way (e.g. having the lower branches trimmed off as they grew); and there didn’t appear to be any attempt at planting more pines on these bare hillsides. Some places were very bare indeed.

We passed a salt works

and some more striking scenery

before heading down to a coast road and some cloudy and rainy weather.

This grey and windy weather lasted us until we reached our destination – the rather splendid Hapuku Lodge, a slice of luxury where we would be spending a couple of nights. We were welcomed by Lisa, who showed us around the place whilst our luggage was unloaded from our car for us and then led us to our accommodation – a tree house.

We have a great view of the hills,

and, remarkably, the snow on top of them arrived just a day ago.

Now, I don’t like to brag (oh, yes you bloody well do! – Ed) but this is a very luxurious place we shall enjoy for two nights. The accommodation is sufficiently nicely done that I’m going to have my work cut out just trying to understand, for example, the Japanese toilet that will cosset our nether regions whilst we’re here.

By the time we got here it was almost time for dinner, and we had a splendid meal. The portions were not excessive, but after dinner we still needed to go for a walk. Obviously. By this time the weather had cleared (good omens for the morrow)

and we took a brisk walk down to the “beach”, where Jane took this great photo,

and we admired the evening view back over the mountains, which we could now see very clearly.

So ended the day. Tomorrow, if the weather is good we shall go for another walk. Obviously. And maybe there will be some star gazing….you never know….

 

 

 

 

 

 

*  or should that be under turd…?