Ice Ice Baby: Christchurch Day 1

We woke up and checked out of our Rotorua hotel, bidding the smell of sulfur and also the 1950s (all Rotorua hotels are in the style of ‘50s motor lodges) behind us. We checked in for our flight to Christchurch and got our luggage on. The flight took us over beautiful landscapes. We could see the Southern Alps out our window, and they were so beautiful that we decided then and there to change our itinerary on the fly…we can do wine tasting at home and they sell NZ wine at home, so we decided to take the TranzAlpine train to Greymouth on the west coast instead of doing wine tasting on Wednesday. We are really spontaneous people.

Anyway, we landed in Christchurch, which is in the South Island, and caught a shuttle from the airport to our hotel. We were thrilled to see that the Quality Inn Pavilions is a 2007-era business hotel in a nice, quiet part of center city…and they had our room ready more than 2 hours early! Wonderful. We set out immediately to explore, stopping at Burger King for a quick and cheap lunch. I only mention it because the Burger King in Christchurch is very much like a Johnny Rocket’s anywhere in the US. I can’t imagine NZers actually think all our restaurants have posters of Marilyn Monroe and antique tin Smokey the Bear signs, but such is the evidence before me.

The Minus 5 bar in Auckland was a tropical paradise compared to this storm.

After lunch, we caught the free Christchurch shuttle bus, which took us around center city to Cathedral Square. Once again on this ride, I noticed the graphic nature of Kiwi road signs. In this case, the sign in question is one warning bike riders about the tram tracks, which can catch bike wheels. The sign actually depicts a little stick figure whose bike has hit one of the tram tracks, sending him flying through the air, limbs flailing. Graphic! Anyway, once we got to Cathedral Square, we saw the Wizard of Christchurch spewing his knowledge right in the square – he’s a guy who takes it upon himself to come to the square and opine on anything from politics to religion to sports. No time to argue with the Wizard, though. We hopped into the visitor’s center and booked tickets for the train ride for tomorrow and got passes for the International Antarctic Centre to use right away.

We caught a 2:00 shuttle to the IAC, which is, obnoxiously, out by the airport, which is where we just were. The rain started at 2:10 (first rain of the trip!) while we were on the bus, which made us feel like we had won something. We passed Hagley Park, and it is easy to see why people liken Christchurch (affectionately abbreviated “Chch”) to London. Hagley Park reminded both of us of Hyde Park, since both have willow trees around the outside and meandering paths throughout. Beautiful! On the drive, we also noticed a big difference in the Maori influence compared to the North Island. There are almost no Maori street names, which is a stark contrast to Auckland and the polar opposite of Rotorua. We didn’t see many Maori people out and about, either. I was both amused and sad to see that one of the Chch high schools had a big sign out front acknowledging one of its students for being the top math student in all of NZ: amused because, well, math award, and sad because in the US we don’t give that much recognition to our students’ intellectual achievements.

Anyway, the drive back to the airport was totally worth it, because the IAC is nothing short of fantastic. We arrived around 2:30 and checked out the Antarctic expedition exhibits at the centre. Over 70% of all Antarctic expeditions leave from Chch, so it makes sense to have the IAC visitor center right here. We laughed to see the US Antarctic Program/NSF’s station right there at Christchurch airport. U! S! A! U! S! A! At 3:00 we went back outside the IAC to take a ride on the Hagglund ice-crawling vehicle, which you have probably seen on the Discovery Channel. It is the little boxy thing with tank tracks on it that creeps over the ice. It was about US$7 extra to take the Hagglund ride, but it was absolutely worth it. A friendly NZer loaded us all into the Hagglund and took us along an obstacle course on the IAC’s grounds, including a 2-story hill that the vehicle climbed with ease. It gripped onto the sides of hills and zipped down steep inclines – it’s even amphibious, which our driver demonstrated by driving us into a pond! The ride was pure fun, and we got an appreciation for the difficulties associated with exploring Antarctica. We were all knocked around quite a bit, but it was a cool experience. Oh yeah – and while we were waiting to get on the Hagglund, we met a lady wearing a cap with Gretchen’s firm’s logo on it. Turns out this woman’s daughter works in the Sydney office. Work is following us once again!

After the 20-minute ride, we dashed back into the IAC to catch the 3:30 penguin feeding. The IAC is home to 13 Little Blue penguins, which are indigenous to New Zealand and are completely adorable. After the penguin feeding, we rushed back into the museum and donned heavy coats and boots and entered a chilled chamber, where we experienced an Antarctic storm! There were howling, swirling winds. It was incredibly cold. The Minus 5 bar in Auckland was a tropical paradise compared to this storm. The storm was both awesome and terrible – good thing it was only a few minutes long. I’m not sure anymore about that Antarctic voyage I’ve been contemplating lately…I think, better to go to Egypt. After the storm experience, we used our remaining few minutes to explore the museum a little more. The IAC has some great displays about the geologic life of Antarctica, the requirements for living there, the sea life there, and the scientific work that goes on there. We really enjoyed it and learned a lot. Unfortunately, we didn’t have nearly enough time to see everything (the story of our lives these days), since we had to catch the last shuttle at 4:30 back to Chch center city.

We walked to Portofino, an Italian restaurant on the Strip recommended by our guidebook, to make a reservation for dinner, and then we strolled over to the Botanic Gardens. Maybe I am just spoiled by Longwood Gardens in Chadds Ford, PA, but the Gardens were really nothing special. They were more of a beautiful park than a garden, which is fine enough but seems like false advertising. If the Auckland Wintergarden hadn’t been so great, I might have thought differently. Anyway, after the garden, we headed back across the river to the Strip and heard live music, so we turned toward that immediately. This is Cup and Show Week in Christchurch, which is their equivalent of the Kentucky Derby. We saw all of the girls coming back from the races in their big hats, getting drinks at the bars on the Strip, so we decided to join them. We enjoyed the live music (the band was Eleven11, a cover band) and had a pre-dinner drink while we took in the social scene, which we were told by one of the people we met was at its best today.

After our drink, we headed to Portofino for dinner. The food was wonderful. We had veal stuffed with camembert and ham and a nice chicken and tomato risotto, plus a good glass of red NZ wine to go with everything. We walked back to the hotel after dinner, stopping for a bottle of wine, and did a long-overdue load of laundry at the hotel. Tomorrow it is off to the west coast of the South Island via one of the greatest train journeys in the world. I can’t wait!