Christchurch is the largest city in South Island, with about 450,000 people, a bit more than 1/3 of the total population of South Island. And it’s the place I’ll be flying from to Brisbane. It’s a shock to be in a real city after being mostly in the sticks. I stayed 4 nights here in an AirBnB just a bit north of the main town, slowly exploring and also getting myself ready to leave NZ. It’s been a GREAT TRIP and yet the weather is certainly changing, making it clear that biking weather will soon be over. And when I depart, I’ll have been here a total of 85 days, just 5 short of the 90 days allowed by my visa.
I spent my four days here doing various things…some exploration, a bike ride, dinner with our friend Sebastian who came into Christchurch on my last day, and generally lazing around a bit. I finished one book and was looking for another, and by chance ran across a book review for a book whose story is based in Hokitika in the mid-1850’s, and which won the Man Booker prize in 2013. And so I’m reading it, as a great book but also murmuring along the way at places we visited recently.
Christchurch is a cool town to visit, with a vibrant center with tons of bars and restaurants. We were here to earlier to see the SailGP, but I got more of a chance to explore with the added time and also since I had my bike as transportation. There are a few buildings still being shored up from the earthquake that hit over 10 years ago, wrapped up and protruding steel supporting beams. A number of buildings have nice murals painted on them.
The day after I arrived I took my bike on the bus to Lyttelton and then the ferry across to Diamond Point, and then riding back the 20 miles to my apartment over the coastal range separating the bay from the main town.
There’s a old set of trolley cars that one can take around the town, and it reminds me of our trip to Lisbon last year. I took too many pictures of the trolleys but that’s OK.
Leaving a town with a bike always takes some planning. Airlines require your bike is boxed so you have to figure out how to do that without a car. Air NewZealand sells boxes at the airport (if they have them in stock) so my plan was to ride to the airport with all my stuff, having bought a used duffel bag at a charity shop in Christchurch for $3, so I can check a bag holding all the camping gear and tools. Mind you, I went to 4 charity shops to find the duffel bag of the right size, in the rain, but that’s just a detail. Getting to the airport (which was easy), they are out of boxes! But getting some delivered within the hour! YAH! The whiplash of emotions and logistics. But it’s all good. A box costs $25NZ which is fine and they even have a stand and tools just outside the airport to help the process along. No fewer than four groups of people came and talked to me about my trip while I was boxing up my bike, which was great. Kiwis have time to chat and connect.
And so, the trip, this part of the trip, is mostly over, as long as I get myself up to get on the flight to Brisbane at 6:30AM. It’s the only direct flight and so I’m more or less happy to get up early.
If you want to see all the towns, distances and elevation gains per day, you can look at this Google Sheet.
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