Christchurch

It was the Christmas Day we left from Wanaka towards the East Coast of the Southern Island. After a long tramping to the Roy’s Peak, it was really hard to drive all way to Timaru, the town our next night was booked. On our way we passed lakes Pukaki and Tekapo. Tekapo is famous for its beautiful night sky. It must be overwhelming, but we should learn in Finland how to promote these natural things.

We continued our way towards north in the morning, so we didn’t see the town of Timaru itself. We drove the coastal road, but decided to make a little trip before Christchurch. We drove to the Banks Peninsula, to check the village of Akaroa. Banks Peninsula was formed following violent eruptions of the two volcanoes and the result is incredible scenery. Just 75 kilometers from the city of Christchurch, Akaroa is a historic French and British settlement nestled in the heart of an ancient volcano. It’s actually the site of the only attempt to establish a French settlement in New Zealand.

It must have been the exhausting driving, but we really felt that it was too much to drive, after seeing so many beautiful places in NZ, visiting Akaroa didn’t give us too much of anything. We do see why the people love it (it’s a charming village with colonial architecture, galleries, craft stores, and cafés), but for us, it was just another village behind curly road, which you still need to drive back too.

In the evening, we reached Christchurch and our motel. We really enjoyed our stays in the motels, you can park your car nearby, and make the food on your own (pasta and tuna…). The prices are also good.

Christchurch is New Zealand’s largest city and the gateway to the Canterbury region. It’s on the way to recovery after the earthquakes of 2010/11. It’s the New Zealand’s first-founded city too. The earthquakes left bigger damage we ever thought we would see. Nobody really commented anything about the city to us, not in negative, not in positive way. But in our opinion, it was worth to see, it’s at least something very different!

A popular shopping destination is Re:START, located in the Cashel Mall. The shops are small containers.

The next day we continued our way towards West Coast again, as the road between Picton and Christchurch was damaged due to earlier earthquake (2016), and we had only two days left on the Southern Island before the ferry back to Wellington.

Before we left Christchurch, we visited the Airforce Museum of New Zealand. It has a remarkable collection of memorabilia and a captivating history. Interactive displays and collections dating from before World War I are there. It was very interesting museum, and for free!

After the museum, we stopped by to buy some food, and continued towards West Coast. The scenery changes constantly as we drove around a hill, over a mountain pass, across a river, past lakes, ski fields and unique geological features passing great scenery on Arthur’s Pass.

The best part was ancient monolithic limestone rock formations at Castle Hill. We did little bouldering (no talent on this sport!) on these cool rocks. It was a very windy spot tho, but for sure worth to stop for.

The next night was in Greymouth, where we spent rainy day celebrating Jukka’s birthday. That story was told in our story of West Coast (https://ubt.fi/2017/01/23/south-island-the-wild-west-coast/). The last day in South Island we simply drove all way up to Picton, stopped on the way to pick our own cherries, ate a dinner out (no motel this time!), and waited that the ferry would leave in the night. It’s cheaper to take the ferry during the night, and we found nice sofas to sleep on.