Tag Archives: Christchurch

The journey between Christchurch to Oamuru is flat and quite bland compared to the spectacular scenery we have become used to.  We have decided to stay overnight in Oamuru for two reasons:  there are colonies of the rare yellow-eyed penguins and the tiny blue penguins;  and secondly the town has an historic centre containing a large number of 19^th century limestone buildings

Penguins are nocturnally active on land.  They leave the colongy before sunrise each morning and return at dusk each night and there are viewing areas for both the blue and yellow-eyed penguins on the edge of town.  We decide to go to see the yellow eyed penguins which are supposed to come ashore around 7.30pm.  But not tonight!  We wait on the cliff top overlooking the beach where the colony resides in the wind and drizzle for almost an hour and not a single penguin comes ashore.  Finally as we are leaving we spot the head of one penguin hiding in the bushes.  Apparently, we later discover it is moulting season and the penguins stay ashore all day.  Shy creatures they tend to stay hidden in the undergrowth particularly if they see or hear humans about.

We drive through part of the historic district which has a strangely incongruous feel;  impressive and beautiful as they are, the buildings just don’t seem to belong.

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Today is a day for chilling and catching up with some administrative housekeeping. We have successfullys let one of our flats – quite a feat when we are on the other side of the world – and there is some paperwork to complete, sign and send off to our recently ensconced tenant.  There are postcards to catch up on – ones we bought over a week ago when we were in Rotorua.  It’s when we come to post them at the NZ PostShop we find out that there is more than one company provide postal services and the stamps we bought with the postcards are  not NZ Postie Shop stamps and the cards have to be posted in a blue postbox a couple of streets away. 

Another quirky thing about NZ is the provision of internet services.  Download speeds are very slow and way behind anything available in the UK.  Internet access is very expensive.  Monthly subscriptions are over NZ$100 a month (£35) compared to around £18 in the UK and access at holiday parks (and internet cafes) can cost up to NZ$9 per hour compared to SE Asia where internet is widely available hostels, hotels and cafes free.  Even more bizarrely internet  services on the  holiday parks (and possibly elsewhere) are provided by a number of third party companies who act as an middleman between the parks and the service providers – which must go some way to explaining the high charges.   Using the internet at different parks can mean having several pre-paid accounts running simultaneously which can start to get complicated!

Phrase of the day:  ‘Merge like a zip’ seen at the point where  roads changes from two to one lane.

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Christchurch is known as the ‘garden city’ of New Zealand and for good reason;  at its heart is the lovely Hagley Park and Botanical Gardens, a wonderful space full of majestic trees, lawns and flowers through which runs the small Avon River.  The Christchurch Beautification Society (yes, really) works to enhance the attractiveness of the city including planting 1000s of bulbs in the park, regenerating an island that used to be the site of an old flour mill and sponsoring floating islands of flowers on the river amongst other not doubt equally worthy projects.  There is a curously dated Englishness about Christchurch not least due to it’s Gothic stone buildings including the magnificent cathedral which dominates the city centre, historic weatherboard  houses with their verandahs and delicate iron fretwork, the English-inspired street names, Cambridge punts complete with punters in straw boaters and blazers and old-fashioned trams  providing tours of the city.  This is a calm city – no hustle bustle here.  As will the rest of New Zealand there is hardly any traffic giving it an eerily quiet almost deserted feel .  We spend most of the day doing a walking tour courtesy of Lonely Planet taking in Cathedral Square, the river Avon which winds its way around the city centre, the high street and the fashionable drinking areas. 

Thomas’ Hotel on Hereford is few minutes walk from Hagley Park in one direction and Remembrance Bridge and the centre of the city centre in the other.  We are opposite the Arts Centre housed in a rather nice gothic stone building, which on further investigation turns out to been converted into an artsy-crafty shopping complex aimed at tourists, and a very popular micro-brewery.  The location couldn’t be better.

Word of the day:  trundler = supermarket trolley

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