Another windy city
January 12th, 2024. Still in Christchurch.
Turns out Christchurch has the 10th most turbulent airport IN THE WORLD. I’m feeling that today. We’re on the top floor (5th) of this hotel and the wind is whistling and moaning and blowing what sounds like metal trash cans around on the roof.
One of the reasons we chose this town was because they have a gondola. We love funiculars, gondolas, cogwheel railways, any type of strange conveyance. After breakfast we grabbed a cab and headed over.
The gondola here was a total rip off as far as cost. $40 NZ per person for what was at most a five minute ride. I shouldn’t be annoyed–the view up there was great. We could see a bay to the south and Christchurch sprawl to the north. People watching was good too, with one dorky dude with an expensive-looking camera rig taking photo after photo of his sexy, pouty posing girlfriend (I don’t know why I assumed they weren’t married. Come to think of it, who knows if it was even his girlfriend).
On a different day I’d have walked the meandering path back down to the visitor center but the wind was too nasty. On the cab ride back to the hotel we saw people on a path by the lagoon with one of those rental bikes where you normally sit side by side and pedal. In this case one person was pedaling and the other person was behind pushing as they tried to make headway against the wind.
Afterwards, we collected our dirty laundry from the hotel (the situation was getting dire for me with clean and dirty clothes mixed together in my packing cubes – bleck) and walked a mile to a laundromat.
The laundromat was located at the end of New Regent street, a cute pedestrian mall built in the 1930’s. We put clothes in the washer, then had a touristy lunch (not great food but great setting). Afterwards I got a Thai massage (across from the laundromat!) while R. played on the internet and watched our clothes dry.
I had to hold my hat on during the walk back to the hotel and this is a tight, snug baseball cap I use for travel and have worn on a sailboat ride in the San Francisco Bay (very windy) with no problem. It was extremely unpleasant. I don’t understand how the wind works here because it would be strongly at our backs and five minutes later in our faces–on the same street. Maybe this explains the lack of wind turbines.
We were supposed to ride a bus 9+ hours to Queenstown tomorrow, and not in the larger seats I’d booked for us previously. I couldn’t imagine this trip, sitting hot in the sun squished next to R., waiting for a rest stop so I could pee, eating some weird sandwich from a stinky bakery, not being able to take good photos because of window glare. I begged R. to see how much a flight would be as I heard travel within NZ wasn’t too expensive.
It wasn’t–didn’t cost much more than the bus. Miraculously, past me had booked fully-refundable bus tickets so I cancelled the trip. WOOO! So much relief. Tomorrow we fly!
We had dinner in a decent Mexican restaurant and afterwards a drink at Boo’s. The host from open mic night was playing guitar accompanied by a singer. The clientele tonight was New Zealand in the summer–very bridesmaid with so much floral print.
Despite the wind we had a good day, and I looked forward to getting the heck out of here tomorrow.
Where I am underwhelmed by Christchurch
Because somewhere had to be our least favorite place on the trip
Jan. 11, 2024
I feel bad critiquing a place devastated by a 2011 earthquake, but as a tourist, the city has a suburban feel and few attractions. It may have been more interesting before. Buildings from all eras were destroyed–possibly much of the character as well. I don’t miss cathedrals (which always seem to get rebuilt) but the funky little stores and apartment buildings. Our guide on the train yesterday said many people moved out of the city after the quake, and as a result the highway infrastructure to surrounding towns improved. In the past it might have taken 45 minutes to get from ___ to Christchurch, now it takes only 15, so people could live further away and still work in the city.
I read a lot about the quake, curious as to why a quake smaller than the 1989 quake in San Francisco caused so much more damage. It’s complicated.
This probably didn’t fall over in the earthquake, but is a great example of New Zealand politeness.
Everything that follows is me recollecting things I read on the internet so don’t quote me. Christchurch is built on an alluvial plain, aka sediment washed down from mountains. Even a casual internet search will reveal hazards associated with building on this type of land. However, there hadn’t been an earthquake for hundreds of years and there were no known faults.
Here’s the part where things go wrong: developers built on swampland (streams and rivers run through the city) because – eager/greedy developers and cities ignore science under the pressure to expand. This is literally the plot of so many movies and books (and real life). Selling swampland or land in a floodplain or some other place that clearly should not be built upon. It will be fine! Don’t worry!
In September 2010, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake occurred 40km from Christchurch, which caused damage in the city but no one was killed. It did loosen things up though. The epicenter of the 6.3 “aftershock” (I learned that there is debate in the science community about what is considered an aftershock) in February 2011 was only 10km from Christchurch and at a shallow depth and this quake the ruined the city. 185 people were killed and there was extensive damage.
I learned a lot about liquefaction. “Liquefaction is a natural process where earthquake shaking increases the water pressure in the ground causing some soils to behave like a fluid, resulting in temporary loss of soil strength.” We have liquefaction zones here in San Francisco and I thought it meant only that the ground was unstable due to having been a creek in the distant past, or that it was coastal landfill. But liquefaction in a wet area is a whole other thing…really scary. After the September earthquake, people’s homes along the Avon/Otakaro river (the swamp) sank and water seeped in, but damage wasn’t too bad. During the February earthquake, weakened houses were destroyed, streets reverted to rivers, and entire neighborhoods officially declared red zones and all buildings required to be demolished. More than 8000 houses were eventually torn down. Initially, the government would only give settlements to people who had insurance…though many people who owned their homes outright did not have insurance. It took until 2018 for the government to pay uninsured people for the houses it required be torn down, even though some had minimal damage.
In addition to the red zone, there are empty lots all over the city where buildings were torn down but not rebuilt. You almost don’t notice them at first other than it’s odd to have so many parking lots where no parking is needed.
Enough history. I headed to the nearby botanical garden this morning. The day was unusually hot and windy, 20 degrees above normal according to my weather app and anecdotal evidence. A news crew hailed people kayaking on the river and asked them, “What do you think about this weather?” Someone mentioned it’s normally cloudy and windy and never like this.
Either the Avon or Otakaro river…battle between English and Maori happens on every sign
Highlights of the garden included finally finding out the name of the plant that I’d been seeing all over. I thought it was a Joshua tree. No, it’s a cabbage tree. Cordyline austalis. I also saw a very suspicious-looking redwood tree supposedly from California. I’ve never seen one like it. I enjoyed the conservatory which was meant to be a hot house but was actually cooler inside today.
I headed towards the CBD (central business district) to find a store that was supposed to have New Zealand arts and crafts. I was getting a bit panicky about souvenirs. I’ve got zero suitcase space and am struggling to find small unique things to bring home for friends and family. On the way I stumbled upon the Riverside Market. It’s a fun outdoor mall plus indoor food hall that’s very nicely done. I had sushi for lunch. The store I was searching for turned out to be a standard artsy gift store with only about 20% made-in-New-Zealand items. No luck.
Hot and tired and needing to rest my feet while still seeing some sights, I caught bus number 2 to Sumner, a beach town the woman on the train implied was very far from Christchurch, but turned out to be only a few miles away and a quick ride on the bus because we didn’t have to stop often. There was no air conditioning on the bus so I moved to the back on the shady side.
I hate to post “meh” photos, but do want to document the place. Oh! There’s a cabbage tree!
The landscape around Sumner was NorCal-esque. Very dry, steep hills with bare dirt and dry grass, hillside homes with nicer vegetation around them. Not that pretty. On the beach, high surf churned up what might have been pretty-colored water. The light gray sand was covered in driftwood and people. Many people played in the ocean as well, despite the cold water and rough surf. The lifeguards on beach were earning their money, looking vigilantly in every direction and yelling and waving “No swimming” signs to people in the undertow area.
The wind picked up and sandblasting me and everyone else, but everyone else seemed fine with it. I walked back to the street and waited in the sun for the bus home.
We had dinner at a highly-rated and delicious restaurant, The Goldfinch. The only sad thing was that it was their first night open after summer break and it was only us and one other couple in the whole place, so no fun people-watching or atmosphere.
Back at the hotel we struggled to set up some mood lighting so we could relax and watch TV. Not sure if I mentioned it but the lighting in the room was a nightmare. All on or all off, no dimmers. And all on was like a TV studio–blaring bright. We set up a small desk lamp in the corner and watched strange New Zealand public-access-esque shows in near darkness, happy to take a break from trying to find things to do.
North Island to South Island
Jan. 10, 2024, Wellington to Christchurch – A BIG DAY.
I was sorry leave Wellington, but as I keep reminding myself, this is an overview trip. Time to hop on the ferry and train and see new things. We had to wake up too early, but the sun rises too early so all we had to do was leave all the curtains open to wake naturally.
The ferry terminal felt more like an airport, with a row of check-in desks where they weighed our suitcases and even tagged them through to the train to Christchurch. A woman in line in front of me had the best tattoo – a woman face-planting into a cake. The art was simple but oh did it capture how I’ve been feeling at work lately!
The ferry, Kaitaki, was a huge car and truck ferry, nearly a cruise ship.
Unbeknownst to me, R. had booked upgraded tickets for the trip and we got access to a special lounge area that included breakfast. I was so happy to have food and drink and a safe-ish place to leave our packs while we ran around the boat. Being a city person, an uncomfortable part of travel is being separated from my belongings and having to trust they’ll be there when I get back and/or arrive somewhere. When we took the ferry to Moorea and handed our bags over to a guy who threw them onto a giant steel wagon, a big part of me thought, we’ll never see those again. Gradually though, I began to relax and trust the process, even though it’s a new one at every turn.
The ferry, like most of what we’ve experienced in New Zealand, was exceptionally neat and clean and comfortable. They even had a movie theater and a magic show for the kids. And, um, me. I spent most of the 3+ hours outdoors, walking back and forth from port to starboard (look at me using sailing terms) to see the views.
Which were amazing. Thankfully the sea was calm. A chart in the terminal indicated it could get very, very rough. The semi trucks onboard were lashed to the deck with huge chains.
When we got into the wooded channels of the south island, we saw many off-the-grid houses, clearly only accessible by boat. Pretty setting, but too remote for my taste. No Thai food, no pizza delivery.
We arrived at Picton, where we’d catch a train to Christchurch. The train…aka The Coastal Pacific Scenic Plus Experience. We’d been eagerly awaiting this journey! It was a bit of a splurge, but I felt like it would be a once-in-a-lifetime voyage and a really memorable and relaxing day.
Explore the unique cultural and culinary flavours of our Pacific coast as it glides by your window aboard our Coastal Pacific Scenic Plus dining experience. While you ease back and enjoy the seaside scenery and intimate views of Marlborough’s world-famous vineyards, we’ll be serving you a menu filled with freshly picked ingredients from the lands you pass through.
We’d hoped to take many trains around New Zealand but all the trains on the north island were offline over the holiday for track maintenance. We booked this one, and I was tempted by a trans-alpine journey, but you had to go to the coast and back in one day and it seemed like too much time in a seat (10+ hours) and too much of the same scenery. Plus $$.
Somehow we ended up being the last people off the boat and got to chit chat with the exiting crew. They directed us to the train station a few hundred yards up the road…a possibly historic building ruined by hosting a Subway sandwich chain at one end. We checked in and asked the woman if we should get lunch before boarding at 1:30, and she said oh no, they feed you well on that train. Woo-hoo!
That’s our ferry. I can’t explain the strange line of people heading into the sea.
The weather had been flip-flopping from gray and story to sunny all day, and for now it was sunny and hot. We wandered over to the beach/harbor and I left R. in the shade communing with seagulls and walked out onto the docks.
A woman near me screamed and pointed and there was a manta ray! She apologized for screaming and I assured her I was grateful.
I live in a city and don’t normally see manta rays swimming around. Nature!!
Half an hour later we boarded the train. The car was really nice, with huge windows and white table cloths. I was initially put off by the seating configuration–four seats (two on each side) facing a table…meaning we’d be knee to knee with strangers for the whole day, some of us sitting backwards. I really didn’t want to make small talk. I wanted to stare out the window and take it all in as I voyaged further south than I’d ever been in my life.
I waited anxiously to see who our traveling companions would be. At the moment there were only eight other people in the car that could easily hold 60, and then, with a jerk, the train pulled out of the station. It was just us! We had the whole car to ourselves!
A serious, meticulously made up woman in a black skirt, black shirt, and jaunty black and white scarf (the uniform of the train staff) welcomed us, I asked where the rest of the passengers were, and she explained that this was the first day they’d run one of the fancy cars on this route so people didn’t know about it yet. I’d lucked onto it. Two more women in uniform came into the car and she introduced them. One would be in charge of our dining and the other was…our server? Not quite sure, but she was down to earth and funny, like she’d rather sneak out for a smoke with us than go on about the pinot grigio. The serious woman awkwardly recited a Maori greeting of some sort. Hard to imagine there was a traditional blessing for tourists on a wine train.
The first leg of the trip was through Marlborough wine country. The vines were huge and very leafy compared to what I’m used to seeing in Napa and Sonoma. More water? Beyond, rolling golden hills in the “kind of like California but not really” way things often are here.
The wine and dine part of the trip was fine but not amazing. The serious woman asked for our feedback as they weren’t quite sure how to handle dining for this portion of trip, from 1:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. They assumed we’d eaten lunch, however coming from the ferry we hadn’t, and I was starving. Our first snack, half an hour in, was two mussels, two pieces of beef on tiny toast, and a scoop of sorbet, and a wine-tasting flight of four barely-filled glasses. Fortunately the fun server was happy to top up on our favorites, and I became a bit tipsy and forgot I was starving.
My favorite part of the trip was the open-air train car. Loud, noisy, windy–amazing. It felt like breaking the rules to be able to hang out there and I couldn’t believe it wasn’t packed at every moment. From here I could finally get some good photos without window glare.
The train headed east, up and over hills, and we were on the coast, zipping by long lonely stretches of deserted black sand beaches littered with driftwood. This is the hard part, passing all this by and being intrigued and not being able to stop and explore.
The highway ran alongside us most of the way, so it would be possible to explore all this by car or camper, as many Kiwi’s seemed to be doing.
Beach ferns!
The weather turned gray and windy and we headed inland to a landscape of rolling hills and farms and SHEEP. I took up residence on the other side of the car in an empty seat and tried to get a good video of massive quantities of sheep, preferably running away from the train. It was tough because we were moving quickly, so I had to anticipate where sheep might be and start the video in advance. Here’s a decent one:
I expected a surprise reveal, another landscape change, but after passing through sparsely-populated suburbs we arrived in Christchurch. It wasn’t what I expected. A low-rise city on a flat plain, the mountains distant and invisible thanks to cloud cover.
The short cab ride to our hotel didn’t improve my opinion of the place. I don’t know what to compare it to. It had a suburban vibe, things felt dispersed like there wasn’t a core. It’s not fair to critique the place as many historic buildings and whole neighborhoods were destroyed in the catastrophic series of earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 (which I will talk more about later), so it wasn’t what it once was.
Our hotel was just okay. I think they thought they were a boutique hotel but no. The walls of our room were mostly blank. One print. The lighting was awful–all on or all off. All on being interrogation-level with no dimmers. We set up the desk lamp strategically so we could have some mood lighting without going blind.
We weren’t hungry after our snack and wine day so we didn’t bother with dinner. By some freaking miracle there was a club, Boo’s Whiskey Bar, two blocks away that promised live music. They had an open mic night and great cocktails. The place wasn’t crowded, and the guitar-playing MC opened the night by detailing how he knew everyone there but us.
I was so happy to finally be around actual real New Zealand people doing normal things in the town where they lived. This felt like a first as, aside from bus riding, we’ve been in tourist situations. It was a good end to a crazy day of so much travel and so many new things to see!
Roadtripz and Other Journeys 