Saturday - February 05, 2005

New Zealand: Christchurch

Christchurch is on the South Island of New Zealand and is not nearly as big a city as Auckland. It is so British that its river is called the Avon, it has an incredible private boy's school that looks like something out of the 19th century, and one can go punting on the river a la Cambridge. It also has an incredible Botanical Garden that reminds one of a small version of Kew Gardens. It's the kind of place where you imagine that everyone must sit around in lawn chairs nibbling on cucumber sandwiches. All veddy, veddy British, you know.

We docked in Lyttelton, the port for Christchurch, around 6 am and disembarked around 10, when shuttles buses were available to drive those of us who weren't taking organized shore excursions into town. We were dropped right in the heart of the city at Cathedral Square, which was filled with buskers, market stalls, and food wagons. The weather had appeared dicey when we left the ship, but the skies cleared and it turned out to be a beautiful day. So we decided to forego a ride on the antique tram that drove tourists around the city sights, and set off on foot - but not before buying a lovely jade necklace, made by a Maori carver, at one of the stalls.

Our first stop was to see the statue of the famous explorer Captain Scott, who set out for the Antarctic from Lyttelton, never to return. One of the most moving things about the statue is that it was sculpted by Scott's widow. Our next stop was the Arts Centre. This is a very interesting place in that it is the site of the old university, with its Victorian Gothic buildings which have been turned into crafts shops, galleries, theatres, cafes, and a cinema. From here we crossed the street to enter the Botanic Gardens and here we stayed for about 2 to 3 hours.

This garden was a little gem! It had river walks lined with massive trees, an incredibly large and beautiful rose garden, formal flowers beds and herbaceous borders, conservatories dedicated to ferns, palms and exotic plants, orchids, cacti, and begonias with blooms the size of salad plates. We walked all through the gardens and sat on the river banks watching the punters and canoeists pass by. We saw cork, sequoia, beech, and ginko trees that can only be described as humungous! One arborvitae was so large, we could walk right into it and it felt as though we had entered a cave (see photo).

We probably spent more time here than we should have, but we were enjoying it so much that the time just slipped by. After we finally dragged ourselves away, we wandered over to see the beautiful buildings of the Christchurch Boys School and then back to Victoria Park to admire the modernistic fountains and to see the statues of Captain Cook and a decidedly cranky-looking Queen Victoria.

Then it was time to head back to the ship for our 6 pm departure. When we arrived at the gangway, we were met by a brass band and a horde of people all parked along the road and crowded into the viewing point on the hill above us. A number of people in town had remarked to passengers that they had never seen the QE2 and they were going to drive out to see us off. It made me wonder how many people say, "Gee, the Carnival Conquest is in port; I think I'll go see her off." There also were many private sailing ships in the harbour around us (including a kayak), and a catamaran and a steam boat that had sold tickets for $30 per head to sail out of port alongside of us for as long as they could keep up.

I saw tears in the eyes of a number of passengers as we departed to the sound of the band playing "We'll Meet Again, Don't Know Where, Don't Know When." The private boats kept up to us for about 20 minutes or so, but once we got moving, they soon fell back. You could see the fog moving in again, and hugging the tops of the sunlit hills, and it got steadily worse to the point that the Captain was compelled to spend another night on the bridge. Unfortunately, the fog stayed with us long enough that the Captain had to cancel our day cruising the Queen Charlotte Sound the next day. We were extremely disappointed with this turn of events, but could understand the decision. There was no point endangering the ship if we weren't going to be able to see anything anyway. So we cruised by the entrance of the Sound, where it was sunny and clear, and then continued on to Sydney at an extremely slow pace, seeing as we had all this extra time now.