Christchurch

 Tuesday, February 25

Good thing we ordered a new phone for Frankie already, the price has gone up by $100!  

Interesting fact:  the previous government in New Zealand had put in a policy to phase out smoking.  They banned the sale of tobacco to anyone born after 2009.  But the current government repealed the ban, stating that it would create a black market for tobacco.

So, how much variety can we fit into one day???

As we left Kaikoura, we drove along the coast and Frankie saw dozens of dolphins in the bays.  Anton didn't see any because he was driving.  The drive from Kaikoura to Christchurch is only 2.5 hours, so it gave us time to stop along the way.

We came upon a town called Cheviot, a coastal town population 360.  Everyone must know everyone!  

There are lots of walks and hikes in this area.  We considered hiking the Ready Money Trail, named after a guy nicknamed Ready Money Robinson because he bought an estate using a wheelbarrow full of cash.  This is what's left of the foundation of his mansion:

imagecredit: https://thenewzealandjournal.blogspot.com/2008/11/ready-money-robinson-cheviot-estate.html

Instead, we drove a little farther along the coast to the settlement of Gore Bay, with 14 residents.  As we were driving into the village, Anton thought he saw a penguin.  We parked the car and walked back and decided it was probably a lawn ornament, but no, he was a real penguin!  He was hanging out on someone's front lawn.  Someone told us that he is probably sick, and the authorities will wait 30 days to see if he will molt and recover.  He is all the way from Fiordland which is 800 kms away and on the wrong coast.  Poor thing!

We walked along the coast for a bit.  The beaches are quite rocky.

We eventually found the Jed Vale Cemetery Walk which was a bit lacking in signage:

The trail took us through a field and up a hill.

At the top, we found a very small cemetery, about 100 years old, with half a dozen marked graves.

There is a story of 7 unmarked graves here belonging to some sailors who drowned in the late 1800's.  Loading and unloading cargo was extremely treacherous because large boats could not anchor close to shore.  Small boats were used, and one of these capsized with 7 workers.  However, some historical evidence points to these workers having swam back to shore.  So what exactly do the unmarked graves hold????  Or do these graves even exist at all?

We made our way back into the town of Domett to meet up with our booked tour, the Hurunui River Experience.  This is a small family-owned business and they are the only jetboat operators on the Hurunui River.  We were the only ones on the tour.  

We chose this because we thought it would be fun to explore a braided river.  Rather than being one solid river, a braided river is a series of smaller channels that interweave with each other.  This is an aerial view of the Hurunui River:

The jetboat was invented by a New Zealand engineer in the 1950's to navigate some of the shallow rivers on the south island.  They are basically the same design as jet skis.  They are designed for speed and tight turns in water as shallow as 14 inches, although Tim told us that he can navigate in as little as 6 inches.  And don't worry if we hit land, we'll just bounce right off it.  Tim says that every time it rains, the river changes, so his travel path changes.

The whole ride was quite fun.  He did several tight 360 degree turns, very zippy.  Anton tried to take a video of one but it goes by really quickly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flfQcO-Ucek

He took us one direction down the smaller braids, and then the other direction to the ocean.

After zipping along the river, Tim stopped at a secluded beach and prepared a local lunch for us.  

After the jet boat experience, we continued driving to Christchurch, another hour and a half.  We only had the one afternoon here, so we had to choose just a bit of Christchurch to explore. 

Christchurch is the 2nd largest city in New Zealand, and the largest on the South Island, population 392,000.  It was first settled about a thousand years ago, and was the first official city in New Zealand. It was devastated by earthquakes in September, 2010, and then a few months later in February, 2011.  

We walked from our hotel to city center, about half an hour, and saw some of the city that way.  Are they repairing this mural?

We made our way to the Christchurch Cathedral, which has been damaged at least 5 times by earthquakes. It is being repaired in stages, completion date 2027.  In the meantime, they are using a "transitional cathedral".   The interesting part is that it is a Cardboard Cathedral.  Part of its structure is made from 24" diameter cardboard tubes, and it is the only cathedral in the world made of cardboard.

We walked through Christchurch Central City to the Botanic Gardens, 51 acres, founded in 1863 with the planting of an oak tree.  Admission free!  It was so nice and peaceful walking through the garden.  It was lovely to see flowers again, and they had gorgeous trees.

We walked back to our hotel, which is called Scenic Hotel Cotswold and makes us feel like we are in the UK instead of New Zealand!  The city has a lot of English street names, pubs, etc.

Survivor Australia episode 2!