Feb 7 – Christchurch! We passed through here twice on the last trip but didn’t stay long as we were attempting to see the entire country in 3 weeks. That was a terrible mistake. We discovered a beautiful city, with many things to see and do this time.
Today we had a few shopping items to take care of and then got into the important business of exploring downtown. They have a great walkable core downtown with wide pedestrian walkways and a picturesque river winding through. A buskers festival was on the go so we stopped and watched a few acts. Some quite impressive!
They have made a lot of progress in the past 6 years. On our visit in 2014 (3 years after the big earthquake) there were empty lots, piles of rubble, and condemned buildings all over the place. Now there are a lot of parking lots….. but also many construction projects and new buildings. It is interesting to see some of the churches still propped up with supports. I’m not sure how they plan to deal with this long term. Maybe there is no good solution. Some residential areas are definitely condemned from future re-development (Red Zones), due to liquefaction potential, and still others are reserved from future development as memorials.
Christchurch has a fancy undercover market in the center – super inviting and hard to choose what to try. I think it might be a weekly treat if we lived here. The smells were so good.
Also right in the center – the Botanical Gardens is excellently done. The flowers, gardens, and features are beautiful. The rose garden in particular was a highlight – but the whole thing is peaceful, serene, and welcoming. Sometimes you need to just stop and smell the roses.
Our current impressions of Christchurch: Livable, tasty, fun, well organized, thriving. Absolutely worth a visit.
This is also very welcoming – we did not escape the attention of our hosts when we came home.
Feb 8 – Most of the day was spent booking future travel. In our previous lives we’d spend months planning a couple weeks vacation. Now it’s a bit more challenging to keep up with everything, so sometimes we just need to stay home and do some ‘work’. Flights are now booked to get us to Turkey via Sri Lanka from Malaysia. eTA are required for both Sri Lanka and Turkey for Canadians. Only the Sri Lankan one can be applied for at the present time. We’ll have to get the Turkish one done in the coming weeks.
We went for a walk along the Kaiapoi River in the afternoon (just so we weren’t lazing around the house ALL day). This is a heartbreaking area, one of the “Red Zones”. 500 families lived here before the earthquake. Making lemonade out of lemons – the land has been repurposed as parkland. For anyone from Labrador that drives the Baie Comeau Highway – it has the eerie feel of Gagnon, QC with curbs and sidewalks but no buildings. Sections of the city are essentially a ghost town, after the earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 mud erupted up through the ground engulfing buildings, causing buried tanks and vessels to pop-out of the ground, and swallowing other buildings. Buried services were broken and roads destroyed.
It is reported that 1000km of Christchurch’s 1985km road network have needed reconstruction since the quakes, and full replacement of the damages will take 20 years. Clearly, some of the roads in use are just patched to get by, after replacement of water distribution and sewerage networks. There is a long way to go still.
Feb 9 – This was one of those days that just felt perfect. Nothing extraordinary happened, but we just had FUN the whole day. Back in downtown Christchurch we hired a Canadian canoe for an hour (*note all canoes here are called ‘Canadian’ canoes, which makes you wonder why bother adding the Canadian part when it’s the only kind….). We had a super paddle up the Avon River along side the Botanical Gardens and mostly managed to avoid hitting the many other kayaks, punts, and canoes. It was just so fun!
Canoeing was followed by Thai food and ice cream (of course?), and then we drove over towards the coast and Godly Head. What a drive – the views were glorious. It was one of those times when it just doesn’t seem possible that this is really our lives. We walked for about an hour around the head taking in the views and old fortifications. (New Zealand had extensive WWII fortifications alongside its ports.)
Feb 10 [Bron] – Brent wasn’t keen to do more overnight hiking but I sure was! There is a 2 night hike just outside Christchurch called Te Ara Pataka which sounded perfect as my next tramp. Brent kindly drove me to the start point on the Banks Peninsula, which happened to be a pub on a hilltop. It had taken us a while to get going in the morning so it was almost lunch time when we got to the pub. It just made sense to have a woodfired toastie together before setting off. I was a bit concerned as the sign said it was 6.5 hours to the first hut and it was noon by the time I started. Luckily the sign times were very conservative and I got to the hut just after 4pm. The track included a ~2000 year old Totara tree, some rocky bits, and a lot of pasture walking with views of ocean on both sides (being on the crest of the peninsula).
~2000 year old tree 
tough with a big pack!
Views for miles… 
They were curious, but didn’t cause any trouble
Feb 10 [Brent] – Time to explore! I turned up the tunes, rolled the windows down and headed for the water! Cunard Line’s Queen Elizabeth was in harbour at Akaroa. The quaint little french town, full of bakeries and artisan shops, was inundated with tourists. I didn’t hang around, but decided to see some of the other little villages on the Bank’s Peninsula. It isn’t everyday you can drive around on an old volcano. The inlets on the peninsula are locations where the cinder cone has collapsed in. It makes some very interesting landforms. Much to see!! There is a beautiful series of scenic highways, that criss-cross the peninsula, and I travelled most of them, before returning to Kaiapoi and our farmstay.
Queen Elizabeth in Akaroa
Upon returning to Kaiapoi, I packed up some grub and headed for Woodend Beach to bask in the sun.
Feb 11 [Bron] – A beautiful morning of great weather. It wasn’t very windy – but this tree would indicate it usually is.
The track continued up to the highest point on the Banks Peninsula – Mount Herbert. It was a pleasant climb (only a few hundred meters at a time) and the views were nice in every direction.
The trail then heads below some cliffs and drops down to a saddle where the second hut is. This hut was built in about 1920 and was impressive stone construction. The views were great and I spent a lovely afternoon reading outside (the walk was again quicker than signposted and I got to the hut at 1pm).
Next hut in the saddle at the center of the photo 
Can’t beat this view from your bedroom window
The location delivered with a great sunset and sunrise. The only negative was the smelliest outhouse on any of our hikes yet.
Sunset 
Sunrise
Feb 11 [Brent] – I enjoy museums, and history – depending on the subject, sometimes much more than Bronwen. I headed off to learn more about the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes. My first stop was the Municipal Museum of Kaiapoi. The museum celebrates the historic achievements of the community, which had one of the first and largest freezing factories dating back to the 1890’s. This permitted Kaiapoi and area to produce agricultural products for the world – namely New Zealand lamb. Due to the large quantities of lamb and wool produced in the Kaiapoi region, development of rail connecting it to a larger port in Christchurch happened before rail development elsewhere in New Zealand.
Kiwi’s proudly point out that there is a museum for about every 7500 in their population.
After a quick bite of lunch, I headed off to Quake City, a museum dedicated to the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes. The content was very good. There were many firsthand accounts of the events, the losses, and stories of survival and recovery, alongside many artifacts. I was very interested. It is definitely worth a visit if you are in the area. Of particular interest to me was the liquifaction simulator, which demonstrated the destructive forces that occur after the ground stops shaking. The basin filled with sand had an air injection that caused the sand to ‘boil’ and would apply forces to solid plastic blocks and low density ping-pong balls. The solid blocks would rapidly sink and the ping-pong balls would erupt out of the sand. It was a lot of fun, and I played there with all the other Engineers – taking turns, of course. Sadly, I have no photos of the simulator, as I may have lost my turn playing to take a picture. 🙂
Not far from Quake City is the 185 Empty Chairs – one of the memorial the people who died in the 2011 Quake. The 2010 Quake, although much stronger – 10X more powerful, resulted in no fatalities.
The afternoon was perfect again for a short spell at The Pines Beach.
Feb 12 – [Bron] I hiked the last 5km (mostly through planted pine forest) to the road in the morning where Brent was waiting to pick me up.
Peaceful morning at the hut 
None of the spiders in NZ are venomous…. right?!
Feb 12 [Brent] – Don’t be late! Have a plan for coffee! Mission accomplished twice.
35km Summit Walkway complete!
We had ambitious plans to do all kinds of activities in the afternoon but ended up chilling on the farm instead.
Feb 13 – All too quickly it was our last day in Christchurch. Brent had heard about a community garden in the village nearest us that was open for visitors. It was another use of a Red Zone area, and they’d even moved all the fruit trees from family homes that were condemned to the garden. It was a great space and a local volunteer showed us around, told us the history, and fed us tasty strawberries. All of the food is free to anyone who wants it and they have an ongoing donation shelf for people to bring home garden items in as well. If every community had something like this the world would be a better place.
For our last afternoon we headed to the beach with our chairs and a picnic. The beach stretches for kilometers, with soft sand and a gentle slope, perfectly packed down sand for easy walking. And no people…. (ok, there were a few, but on a walk of ~5km we saw about 5 other people, 2 dogs, and 1 horse).
We’d come back to Christchurch in a heartbeat – it has so much going for it! This was one of our favorite spots of the entire trip so far.
Brent And Bron Abroad 