South Island: Day 1 (Christchurch)

I woke up at dark thirty in the morning to catch my 6:30AM flight to Christchurch.  My mom landed there about 45 minutes before me, but what with customs and her hiking boots, I ended up waiting for her.  There was no time for jet lag.  We hightailed it from the airport, dropped our luggage at the YHA, and made it to the town square by 9AM to meet our tour guide.

Our tour only had two other people scheduled in it, so we went by foot around most of the city.  Christchurch is really beautiful in the springtime.  It is known as the most “English” city in New Zealand, and the architecture and landscaping reflect the title.  Everything is done in a mainly Queen Anne style, and there are cute English gardens and parks everywhere.  There is even a river than runs through town and cuts across the Queen’s Gardens.  This was the prettiest town we were in on the whole trip, I think.  

After this sightseeing tour, we got dropped off at the Antarctic Centre.  The majority of the Antarctic explorations leave from Christchurch, and several countries – including the USA – have permanent laboratories and stations in Christchurch.  There is a really cool museum that Mom and I explored.  I got my picture taken with the fake penguins, played with all of the little-kid-inspired exhibits, and checked out the gift shop.  The museum also had a “blizzard room” that Mom refused to go in.  It was a room that got as dark as it does in Antarctica and then high winds kicked in, simulating a snow storm.  Mom said that she had enough blizzards up north and didn’t need another one in New Zealand.

We also did a Hagglund Ride while we were at the museum.  This was a model of the vehicle that they use while in Antarctica, and we went around a track out back.  We were jostled around, plunged under water (the vehicle, not us personally), and pulled over hills and canyons.  This vehicle can take anything Mother Nature throws at it.  Mom was very nervous before we got on.  She kept saying to me, “What have you gotten me in to?!”  I think she had fun, though.  There was a kid about five or six years old in the cabin with us, and I don’t think she could get too scared if they little kid was having fun.

One thing I noticed about Christchurch – and the south island in general – is how late things open and how early they close.  I have been living in Wellington, a city where you can go out to dinner, then go to a bar, and then get your coffee in the morning, all without going home.  This is not so in the south island.  Cafes don’t open until 8AM at earliest, with many not opening till 9AM.  Everything shuts down at night, and unless you are going to an actual bar, you can’t really find anything else going on.  I was expecting something more like Wellington.  I hadn’t really visited other big cities outside of Wellington before (with the exception of Taupo, and that doesn’t count because I was sick), so I expected them to be all like Wellington.  It caused me to be a little irritated before I realized that everything is not Wellington.  I ended up still having a fabulous time in the south island of course.  This is only Day 1!