Gayle and I had tickets today to go punting. A punt is a flat-bottomed boat with a square cut bow. A “punter” stands on the back part and navigates the river with a long pole. A punt can navigate shallow water, which is exactly what the Avon River is in Christchurch. It is named the Avon River by European settler, James Deans to honor his family heritage in Scotland. It was originally named by the Maori people as Otakaro meaning “place of play”.
Gayle read the FAQs on the punting website last night. She read that the seats are so low it is like sitting on the floor. “If you cannot get down and up from the floor without help you should not go punting”, it said. I fell asleep knowing that I would not be able to go punting. Gayle really encouraged me to go anyway promising to help me up and down. I even practiced squatting and getting back up this morning. It wasn’t pretty.
Before we headed out to the Antigua Boating Sheds to catch our punt, we enjoyed breakfast with flat whites (my new favorite coffee choice).
When we checked in for punting I shared my worry about getting down so low and back up. They put in a taller seat they called the throne. Have I mentioned what a kind, gracious and civil country this is? While we waited for our “throne” to be installed we watched one of the workers feed the black ducks (scaups).
Lucky us because he was a blast.
For a half hour we floated down the river, passed beautiful ducks…
…under the weeping willow that promises you luck if you touch its leaves…
…and made room for other people punting on the Avon River.
With a feeling of zen, we bid farewell to the best punter in Christchurch.
We headed over to the Christchurch Botanical Gardens which is close to the punting dock. This huge garden is free to the public. Have I mentioned how civil and public minded they are here? Free botanical gardens, who knew that was possible? Their website says you can take a tour of the garden on a small tram. So we headed over and enjoyed the beauty around us as we looked for the garden tram I ducked under the branches of this tree to see if it was one or two trees.
It is one tree.
Gayle’s happy place is any garden. She was loving every second of the place. Here she is sitting down on her cane stool waiting for the Peacock fountain to show off….as peacock’s are known to do.
It didn’t disappoint.
When we got to the place where we could meet the garden tram we learned that the next available spot would be at 1:30 p.m. It was only 10:30 a.m. So we headed off in search of a tram stop. We have an all day pass for the tram that makes 18 stops around the city. (I could call it a trolley but I got corrected by the locals everytime I referred to it as a trolley). We found stop 13 and realized that we were right next to the Arts Centre, which used to be the campus of the University of Canterbury. The university is now in the suburbs and their neo-Gothic buildings host art galleries, performances, movies, restaurants and cafes. We decided to step inside to the quad in search of the Great Hall which boasts a 4,000 piece stained glass window. This is the clock tower.
In this photo you can see a piece of art suspended so that it appears to be floating on its own. There is a large screen below it because they regularly show outdoor movies here.
Unfortunately the Great Hall was closed for maintenance. We wandered back to stop 13 and realized we had been sitting directly in front of the Great Hall stained glass window. It is not very stunning from this side.
The trams operate in the city center (CBD) every day until 6 p.m. Every tram we rode today was packed. It is apparent that they are currently having a student holiday. We got off at stop 7, where the bronze corgis are. They were installed to coincide with Queen Elizabeth’s 50th jubilee.
We walked past the new stadium that seats 30,000. It will open to the public this month. I think it will be on the day we have tickets for rugby here. The new stadium was needed because of damage to the old stadium during the earthquake of 2011. On the tram we learned that 80% of the buildings in the CBD were damaged or destroyed by the earthquake.
We were on an our way to see the Cardboard Cathedral, as it is nicknamed here. It is where the members of the Christchurch Cathedral have been worshipping because the Anglican Cathedral in the CBD was destroyed by the earthquake. “The whole cathedral cracked like a plate” as it is described in the Cathedral brochure we were handed. The cathedral seems to be taking longer to rebuild than all other building recoveries. A few weeks after the earthquake, one of the Cathedral staff saw an article in a design magazine about a Japanese “emergency architect” named Shigeru Ban, who designed a cardboard church to replace one that had been damaged during the Kobe earthquake. Ban offered to design them a transitional church and two years later it was finished.
It is made of cardboard, wood and steel. The large tubes that point your eye upward or made of cardboard. The building meets the current New Zealand earthquake code by 130%. It seats 700 people. You can see the cardboard construction most clearly in the pulpit.
The stained glass looking windows at the back of the sanctuary are actually made using a glass printing technology.
We headed on our way and found another tram stop. We were headed to Regent Street, which promised an array of places to eat. We settled on Thai food and had a delicious lunch. Not only has Gayle become a fan of Pad Thai she now knows that she likes a good mango lassi.
After lunch we hopped (actually I slowly pulled myself) onto another tram to head back to our hotel. This driver had to make two unexpected stops: once to make sure he could get the tram past a poorly parked car and another time to move a Lime scooter out of the path of the tram. Stop 8 is directly across the street from our hotel. We were ready for a rest.
When we roused ourselves and finished watching the evening news, I gave Gayle three options for dinner: C1Espresso where your order and your food and it is delivered to you through a pneumatic tube; the Indian restaurant a half block from our hotel; or I walk to the grocery store around the corner and get a baguette and real butter. I was pretty sure I knew which one she would choose and she did not disappoint. I walked around the corner to the grocery store for the baguette and butter. It was when we were traveling in France together that Gayle realized that a dinner of a baguette and butter made her smile. I do enjoy visiting a grocery store when I travel to a different country.
We spent the rest the evening making plans to pick up a car rental and drive out the Banks Peninsula to Akaroa.
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