Chch

1-Church of the Good Shepherd, Lake Tekapo
2-The Southern Alps
3-View of shadow-creased mountains near Twizel.
4-Christchurch tram and Gothic Revival buildings.
5-Driving through Mackenzie Country.

Not easily deterred by a 7-8 hour drive, this intrepid couple ventured up to Christchurch (abbrev. Chch) for the weekend. We won't talk too much about the drive except that it was LONG on the way up and even LONGER coming back because we decided to take the scenic route. But it was well worth the trip and we're already planning the next one.

I was anxious to see what Chch would be like because people seem to either love it or hate it. I quickly found that I belong to the former group. My poor husband had to listen to my incessant cooing over how wonderful a time I was having all weekend long.

Christchurch is often described as the most English city in NZ. With brick red phone booths, a river called Avon (replete with punters), lovely botanical gardens, and a plethora of Gothic-revival architecture, I don't have the foggiest notion from whence that moniker came.

We packed in a lot, visiting the arts centre, botanical gardens, Ernest Rutherford's den, Canterbury Museum, art museum, jazz club, arts/craft market, and a few cafes and restaurants on Saturday alone. The coolest thing for me was exploring the arts centre, which is a gargantuan arts enclave set on the beautiful former campus of the University of Canterbury. There are galleries, studios, music halls, theatres, an art house cinema, bakery, wine bar...everything artsy you can think of is there. Plus, on the weekends there's a huge array of artisans, buskers, and international foodstalls purveying their goodies outside.

We took the inland route back and passed through some spectacular southern scenery: the snow-coated Southern Alps, barren Mackenzie Country, Mt. Cook, Lindis Pass, the otherworldly rocky section of central Otago, Fruitlands, then on through to Gore and eventually back home to Invers.