Blogs from Christchurch, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania

NOTE: We arrived home late on Friday the 9th of December, but only just finishing the last of the blog entries on the 21st. Unfortunately our run of lovely weather came to an end today. It rained most of the night and was still grey and drizzly this morning. Over breakfast we decided that we wouldn’t attempt any other sightseeing around Greymouth in the rain. The couple of things that we had thought about visiting, before setting out for Christchurch, were outdoors so we decided that they would be too unpleasant in the wet. We also had to consider that we would be on the go all day with no access to a motel room to get clean and dry before our flight home to Melbourne tonight at 9.00pm! After Bernie packed the car up in ... read more

We woke up to a lovely morning in Christchurch, had a chilled breakfast in the motel and then headed towards the town centre. We took the scenic route through Hagley Park, the biggest park in Christchurch with the Avon river running through it. At the far end we came out by the old buildings of Christchurch College. Luckily the amazing Tram system runs right past the college, we bought our day passes and hopped on. We stayed on the tram into town, past the Cathedral and got off by Quake City, a museum to the Earthquakes of 2010 and 2011. Seeing the cathedral was a true reminder of how devastating the Quake of February 2011 really was. Listening to the tour guides on the Tram and looking around museum showed us how truly terrible the time ... read more

All good things come to an end,or so a famous saying goes.And the 50th Anniversary Tour of the Top of the South Island is no different. We awoke to a rather overcast day in Christchurch with a cool autumnal feel about the weather. However before we arose to get the day underway our minds went to our next holiday in 2024 and hopefully a resurrection of the postponed BBA of 2020 when we had planned to travel again to Europe taking in islands of the Mediterranean,mainland Europe and Great Britain and Ireland.Now that COVID around the world seems to be becoming an illness that if you catch it, you mostly get over it relatively quickly,and you can protect yourself by being vaccinated and as countries open their borders to traveller's that we might just be able ... read more

The cloud that had started to roll over the hills on Banks Peninsula yesterday were forecast to spread over the city overnight and the prediction was correct.However,the cloud is also forecast to clear as the day wears on and afternoon should be sunny with 20C. So we took a dollar each way and dressed our top for summer and bottom for autumn and hoped for the best that we wouldn’t get too warm if the sun came out as predicted or too cool if the cloud cover remained all day. It was another free ride into the city and we alighted the #28 at the modern, clean and well organised bus interchange. Tauranga city could learn a lot from Christchurch as the Tauranga bus interchange is quite frankly a disgrace with undesirable people loitering requiring at ... read more

Five months after a magnitude 7.1 earthquake, centred near Darfield, Christchurch, an even more damaging quake struck on 22 February 2011. That shallow, 6.3 magnitude quake, just 10 kilometres from the centre of Christchurch, caused the greatest ground acceleration ever recorded in New Zealand. The earthquake claimed the lives of 185 people of and injured many more. Following the devastating earthquake as part of the city redevelopment a new waterfront has been created along the Ōtākaro/Avon River to make it easier to access river front businesses and green spaces. Whariki Mats welcome you to this walkway and along it’s path. The traditional weaving designs have been adapted using stone pavers.Each whāriki is an arrangement of natural stone pavers of varying shades and colours. The Canterbury Earthquake National Memorial was designed as two distinct areas either side ... read more