Christchurch

What's left of the Cathedral downtown

We left Akaroa covered in cloud with 25 km/hour wind gusts and headed for Christchurch.  It’s an easy drive right to the city center and there is free parking for up to 3 hours next to the botanic garden.  We walked around downtown and were very impressed with both the level of destruction caused by the 2011 earthquake and by the rebuilding.  There were cranes and construction crews everywhere downtown.  Lots of building facades are still propped up by scaffolding or walls of shipping containers though and there are empty lots.  Pop up art installations abound and an entire shopping center made of shipping containers brings the necessities and frivolities back to life from banks to post office to coffee, clothing and souvenirs.

The botanic garden doesn’t seem to have suffered although the visitor’s center is very modern and new.  I wandered around the garden while Jake read in the café.  The rose garden was in full bloom.  There is a fairly extensive and well signed native plant area and small rock garden and heather garden areas.  The perennial border was very colorful and nicely designed as well.  The garden is bordered by the Avon River.  On nice days you can go punting along the river but today was cloudy and cool and only the ducks were enjoying the water.

There don’t seem to be many gas stations in NZ but we had lots of time to return our car and get to the airport, so we eventually found one.  Our car suffered only from a cracked windshield on its lengthy voyage around NZ.  We drove further than it takes to get from MD to NM.  An Air New Zealand plane took us from Christchurch back to Auckland, and our last night we are staying at a nondescript hotel near the airport because our flight to Melbourne leaves at 8:30 am.