I like wandering around cities: trying to get a sense of a place,
the feeling that a surprise could lurk around the next corner. So
after a week and a half of small towns and all that nature, I was
looking forward to my visit to a real city. Christchurch certainly
qualifies; its 300,000 residents make it the South Island's largest
population centre. It bills itself as the most English city outside
England itself. Which isn't fair; Christchurch has some of the best
aspects of England, but with its own peculiar spin. Personally, I
think Melbourne is much more English
in attitude. Christchurch has an English look; it just doesn't seem
to take itself nearly so seriously. I think of it as Melbourne on
drugs. But only in a good way.
The Arts Centre is a
good example of what I mean. These somber buildings were part of
the University of Canterbury; now they house galleries, craft shops,
cafes, theatres and all manner of entertainment. Definitely
unstuffy. And what better location, just across the street from the
magnificent
Botanic
Gardens, where 150 years of careful nurturing and the amazing
growth properties of New Zealand's climate provide 75 acres of color
and scent and play of light and shadow. English trees never grew to
such majesty in the old country.
The real center of the city is Cathedral Square, named one assumes
for the big religious-type building at left. The Cathedral was
begun in 1864 and completed a mere forty years later. So it's not
really a cathedral, is it? Not without another sixty years
of work stoppages, at least. In a rather less central location is the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament at right. I spotted the green domes on a walk to the edge of the city centre and just had to get a closer look at the structure beneath them. And discovered another nice feature of Christchurch: free shuttle buses. Just the thing for the tourist who walked way too far out of town and really, really isn't looking forward to the long walk back.
Back to Cathedral Square. I was standing around and admiring the
view when a couple of really old black sedans drove by, ferrying a
load of tourists. A moment later an ancient Volkswagen Bug drove by
in the opposite direction. Except there was something decidedly
weird about this particular Bug: the back had a striking resemblance
to the front! I had just experienced the arrival of the
Wizard. My guidebook had mentioned this living landmark and local character, who shows up at the Square at 1PM in season to deliver his lecture to an enthusiastic crowd. The topic of his lecture? I couldn't begin to do it justice. Suffice it to say that there are aspects of physics, metaphysics, politics and a bunch of other -ics in his presentation. And a few well-chosen barbs for the other, more serious (or at least less entertaining) pontificators working the Square. Which makes me wonder: Is it sacrilege to pontificate in the shadow of a cathedral? Gosh, I hope so.
One of Christchurch's bigger tourist attractions is the
International Antarctic
Centre, a short walk from the airport. The Centre serves dual
purposes: a place to learn about the flora, fauna and geology of
the continent and about the international efforts to explore and
understand it, it is also the jumping-off point for the New Zealand
and American missions to the Antarctic. (That's the base for the
American program across the street.) The Centre is also a lot of
fun, with a snow and ice chamber to give people a feel for Antarctic
conditions (as a former Rochesterian I
was singularly unimpressed but a trifle nostalgic), as well as the
chance to ride in a Hägglund, a genuine Antarctic vehicle that
can traverse 45° inclines and meter-long crevasses and can,
when necessary, float. Not the most comfortable of rides, I must
say.
There are moments that justify all the walking down random streets I
do in search of the perfect picture. I think this qualifies as one
of them. How perfect to spot a strip club right next to a French
bakery that advertises hot buns in its window. At least I
assume it's the bakery that's doing the advertising. It's
not... I mean... the Dolls House wouldn't go in for that kind of
hands-on service. It doesn't, does it?
Christchurch sits on the east coast of the vast, fertile and incredibly flat Canterbury Plain. Which is fine for the farmers and the ranchers. But we tourists expect something more in our geography. We want untamed wilderness! We want sheer drops! We want nosebleed territory!
I got my first look at the Southern Alps on my flight in from
Rotorua. But now I'd have a closer look, on something
mixed-metaphorically called an
Alpine Safari. The
adventure began on a jetboat on the Waimakariri. Jetboats are a
Kiwi invention, developed by a South Island stockman to help him get
around his property. Fast, incredibly maneuverable and navigable in
as little as three inches of water, they have only one small
problem: a strange tendency to go into 360° turns at a moment's
notice. As if racing along a winding river with the wind in your
hair (or in my case, scalp) isn't excitement enough!
The jetboat was followed by a drive along mountain trails in a 4WD
vehicle called a Unimog. Our route was roughly northwest, often in
sight of the tracks of the TranzAlpine so far below. (The railroad
took fifty years to cover the 150 miles from one coast to the
other. It had to be constructed in sections, paying for itself by
transporting coal and other products from the mountains to Plain.
It's still used to ship coal today, along with a daily cargo of
tourists.) The colors of the mountains make a startling contrast to
the green hills I'd left in the North Island; here the green was an
accent to the earthtones and an occasional splash of snow white.
Every now and again, my guide would point out the location of a
township. I'm used to ghost towns, having toured a few in
California and Nevada. But New Zealand ghost towns are different;
here there is little but ghosts. Where are the abandoned
buildings, the equipment left behind when the inhabitants gave up
and moved on? The answer told me something about Kiwis: they don't
believe in waste. And when they leave a town for good, they take
everything with them. Why build a new house when you can just move
the one you have? The house at left is an exception. Jack Kidd
stayed on in the township of Avoca long after everyone else had
pulled up stakes. When he left in the early 1960s, the house
remained. Among his belongings I noticed a copy of a book by
James
Fenimore Cooper. What an appropriate volume, I thought, to be
owned by The Last Of The Avocans.
The moa depicted at right is a giant and flightless New Zealand bird
that went extinct four hundred years ago, allegedly at the hands of
Maori hunters. Although not according to Pat Freaney, the late
owner of the hotel where
we stopped for lunch. In 1993 Freaney claimed to have spotted a moa
in the mountains near his hotel; that the report brought him a great
deal of business should not be used to question its veracity. Nor
should the boxes in the rafters of the restaurant labeled Moa
Droppings raise suspicions. Maybe moa are just really good at
hiding.
My guide dropped me off at Arthur's Pass, where I would take the
TranzAlpine
train back to town. But I had an hour and a half before
departure, more than enough time to take a hike up to Punchbowl
Falls. The trail is pretty steep, somehow managing to go uphill in
both directions. (Yeah, I know that's impossible. But it sure
seemed that way at the time.) And once I got some of my breath back
I really appreciated the way the falls played against the rocks.
I'd have enjoyed it a lot more if fear of missing the only train
back to Christchurch hadn't been uppermost in my mind.
I made it back to the train station in plenty of time. And sat
comfortably as we wound our way back along a lower altitude version
of the route I'd followed earlier in the day, passing along the
Waimakariri and then on across the Canterbury Plain to the coast.
The train includes an open-sided observation car, where all the
photographers gathered, tried to ignore the blustery wind and
snapped away in between railway tunnels. The TranzAlpine is
considered one of the great rail journeys in the world, offering
more beautiful and certainly more varied scenery than any trip of
comparable distance. And if you happen to hit a perfect day of blue
sky, well, it could be a lot worse.
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