28/03/03: Check out. Eat a
Subway by the lake. Bus to Christchurch and book into Star Times Backpackers on
Cathedral Square. Indian at the Asian Food Mall, Bailies Bar for drinks.
29/03/03: Do laundry. Coffee
at The Daily Grind, check emails, wander around town, coffee, at C-1 Good, eat
at hostel. Welsh L and K show up. Get drunk at Bailies and hostel bar.
30/03/03: Hungover. Drive to
Akaroa on the Banks Peninsula. Get back, walk to stadium and take photos of
Christchurch. More drinks at Bailies with L and K.
Everything is in place to get us
back to Auckland: a coach to Christchurch and two nights’ accommodation; a
coach to Kaikora, another two nights’ accommodation; a bus to Nelson, a
night in a hostel and an early ferry to Wellington; finally, an overnight train
all the way to Auckland. Having it all laid out like this means we can go about
enjoying the remainder of our time here without worrying over logistics or the
cost of it all. (My partner and I can't take all the credit. We
explained our predicament to the travel agent who then came up with the plan
and made the arrangements, and did so with much enthusiasm.)
M
and S get up early and join us for breakfast down by the lake before we depart. S has more time to spare than we do, so she’s going to
hang around in Queenstown for a few more days and continue her journey at a
more leisurely pace. It’s possible that she also has the option of staying with
Fergus.
In 2010 and 2011 Christchurch
suffered a series of earthquakes. In fact, seismologists classify the
subsequent quakes – including the most substantial, occurring on 22 February
2011 – as aftershocks resulting from the first, which happened on 4 September
2010. All the buildings that I photographed in 2004 – the Cathedral of
the Blessed Sacrament, Lancaster Park Stadium, the Government Life Building and
Press Building on Cathedral Square, as well as the Cathedral itself – were
damaged by the quake(s) to such an extent that they have either since been
demolished or condemned. The loss of the Press Building is particularly sad.
Built between 1907 and 1909, in a perpendicular Gothic style, it was one of
Christchurch’s more interesting structures. Conversely, the Government Life Building
was considered to be one of the city’s ugliest. I did not share in this
assessment and admired its modernist sensibility.
Two
other buildings that no longer exist are the Lyttelton Times/Star Building and
the Warner’s Hotel next door but one, both overlooking Cathedral Square. The
Lyttelton Times was once the home of the newspaper it was named after. In 2004 it
was operating as a hostel called Star Times Backpackers, which was where we
were booked to stay. (The Star Building was actually built as an extension to
the Lyttelton Times Building, and presumably named after the company’s evening
paper, The Star.)
Government Life Building
The drive to Christchurch takes about eight hours, with a number of stops along the way – Ashburton, Tekapo,
Cromwell, Frankton. Sometimes these stops are to admire views, often they are
for comfort. After checking into Star Times Backpackers, we walk down Colombo
Street, take in the malls and have something to eat in one of the food
halls therein. It’s been a long day, so in the evening we venture no further
than Bailies Bar, occupying the ground floor of Warner’s Hotel. It’s a
traditional pub entertaining an older crowd than I’ve become accustomed
to, which I quite like.
The
following morning we attend to our laundry, go for coffee on New Regent Street
– a pedestrianised mall built in the Spanish Mission architectural style – and
wander around town. Despite being New Zealand’s second largest city it strikes me
as smaller than the third, which is Wellington. I think this is because it is less
densely packed, lower in rise and adheres to a grid system. That being said,
the city centre itself feels European, and there appears to be more shops
than there were in Auckland, New Zealand’s largest metropolis.
That
evening Welsh L and K show up, as anticipated. The idea is to go on a pub crawl,
but we end up bedding down in Bailies for night. We pick apart our shared experience
of Asia and smooth over the rough edges that beset our final days together in
Siem Reap. The next day, very worse for wear, L and K drive us in their hire
car to Akaroa, a small picturesque town on the Banks Peninsula, which is wasted
on me.
It’s
the middle of the afternoon by we time we get back – early enough to drag
Louise to Lancaster Park, a 38,000+ capacity sports stadium to the south-east
of the city centre. The journey takes us along High Street, away from City Mall,
where there are older, more interesting buildings between more contemporary
developments. Beyond the intersection with Madras and St. Asaph streets, the
landscape reverts to type: low-rise prefabricated warehouses and thoughtlessly
designed office blocks.
Louise
and I have be up early for our bus to Kaikoura, so we settle for
a quiet night at Bailies. It’s been great hanging out with L and K again,
especially in such a contrasting environment to before, and it’s a shame we
cannot continue our travels together.
31/03/03: Nearly miss the bus
to Kaikoura. Check in to Dusky Lodge Backpackers. Develop photos while my partner
goes whale watching. Drinks at the Strawberry Tree. Back to guesthouse for spit-roast.
Rains heavily.
01/04/03: Go to town and pick
up more photos. Have coffee and walk along the seafront. Bus to Picton and
check into Dusky Lodge Backpackers. Early night.
Either the alarm didn’t go off or
we didn’t hear it. We make our bus with literally seconds to spare, without
having showered or cleaned our teeth or anything. Fortunately, the drive to
Kaikoura is not much more than three hours. Unfortunately, I don’t really like
where we’re staying. It’s got that bunkhouse, traveller vibe we found in
Rotorua, with gap-year kids stewing in the hot tub. It might have something to
do with Kaikoura itself. We are here so that my partner can watch whales and
swim with dolphins, and such things attract a certain type.
I’m
not interested in doing either, so while she’s watching whales I decide to look
for somewhere to develop a roll of film. Mission accomplished, I then go for
coffee in the Strawberry Tree, which looks like it might be a nice place for
drinks come the evening. An hour passes, I collect my prints and meet my
partner along the waterfront. We then return to the Strawberry Tree for lunch
and to look at my photos. They are of the North Island. I didn’t know this when
I dropped the film off because I have no way of distinguishing one roll from
next. I had hoped they might be of Laos or Cambodia, but the developers have done
such a good job I no longer mind. I decide to drop off another roll, although
I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to pick it up.
Our
hostel is putting on a barbeque, so that’s tea sorted. Our plans to go
for a few drinks afterwards are thwarted by a torrential downpour and heavy
winds, and we end up making a dash for the nearest convenience store, buying a
few tins and having an early night.
The bad weather persisted. We
were awoken yet again by another false fire alarm, before my partner had to be
up ridiculously early to swim with dolphins, only for it to be called off on account of the weather conditions. By
the time she’d got back the rain had stopped, so we walked into town, picked up
my photographs, had breakfast and followed the esplanade as far as the Kaikoura
Community Theatre. We then returned to our hostel to collect our things and catch
the bus to Picton.
There
wasn’t the time to do anything in Picton other than order a takeaway and hang
out for an hour or so in the garden of our guesthouse. We had to be up very
early to catch the ferry the following day, and the travel agent had booked us
a conveniently located, and well appointed, guesthouse with our own private
room. Ironic, then, that out of all the dormitories we stayed in this was the
only one that had bedbugs.
02/04/03: Catch the 05:30
morning ferry to Wellington. Walk around town, go for a Subway, buy T-shirt,
have coffee, take in a gallery and go for a KFC. Few drinks in Trax before
boarding our train to Auckland.
03/04/03: Arrive in Auckland. Meet J for lunch. Drop off more film at the developers. Louise goes shopping.
Go for a curry in the mall and then back to C’s. Meet J in pub for a couple.
04/04/03: Get bus into town
to pick up photos. Go to Viz for coffee. Louise decides to develop some of her
photos. Back to Viz to check out the results. Loaded Hog for a quick pint. Get
bus back to C’s, have dinner and then drive to Ponsonby to bar with high
ceiling.
It’s good to be back in
Wellington, even if it is just for one day. There was no time to eat before our
departure so we make a dash for the nearest Subway, which is seems to have
become our go-to food emporium when we need something quick.
Louise
is off to see a Lord of the Rings exhibition at the Museum of New Zealand Te
Papa Tongarewa. I’d quite like to go but I don’t want to withdraw any more
money before we fly out in three days’ time. Instead, I’m going to wander
around town and enjoy the sunshine. I buy a small, yellow T-shirt in a thrift store for a
couple of dollars and then find a free gallery along the waterfront. When
Louise is done we go for a KFC, out of convenience, and then make our way to
the station, mindful of the consequences should we miss our train. That still
leaves us with about an hour to kill, so we settle for a few drinks in a bar
called Trax.
The train journey across New Zealand takes in some attractive scenery. Not that I got to see any of it: it
was dark and I quickly fell asleep. I normally find it difficult to
sleep on any form of transport, so I must have been tired – I didn’t even get
to see the sun rise.
J
has kindly arranged to meet us for a late breakfast/early lunch. Again, it’s
good to be back in Auckland, and we make a day of it: develop more photographs
(ever since Cambodia, I’ve been paranoid about losing rolls of film, or inadvertently
damaging them), drink coffee and go for a curry. Louise buys a sweatshirt (by
Karen Walker) she spotted in a magazine (Pavement) I bought in Taupo. While
she’s doing this, I walk around town taking photographs having realised that I
didn’t take many during our first visit. We meet at the Loaded Hog on the
harbour for a quick drink before catching a bus back to Mount Eden. As it’s our
last night, C is going to take us to few smart bars in Ponsonby, although his
driving there precludes any sort of final blow out.
It’s
a fairly subdued evening. Louise and I are sad to be leaving and C is sad to
see us go. I have decided that I really like New Zealand, especially its
cities. At the same time, I don’t feel like I’ve been in a position to fully
exploit them. New Zealand is more a place to live than travel, or somewhere to
take a long vacation, stopping over in hotels, rather than hostels, and wearing
clothes more suited to a temperamental climate. I would like to return one
day.
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