Christchurch   Christchurch is located about one-third of the way down the east (Pacific) coast of South Island. It is centered in the Canterbury Plains, and in the region known as Canterbury. The city was settled in the 1840’s. This location contrasts with the harbor cities of Auckland and Wellington. Although only 12 km (7.5 mi) from its harbor at Lyttelton to the southeast, Christchurch itself is a city on the plains, and its terrain is quite flat.

I’ve talked in the past about place names being unclear or misleading as to dedication, and cited the fact that, as nice a name as Minneapolis is, it is not obvious, and no one realizes, including most residents, that it’s named after Minnehaha. The same is true of Christchurch, and of the Avon River running through it.

Surely everyone takes Christchurch to be a religious name of some sort. I always did, until researching this piece. It must have something to do with the denomination called the Church of Christ, right? Or at least there must be a local church there that gives the city its “religious” name, don’t you suppose? Nothing of the sort.

Christchurch is not a religious name, but an academic one. One of the founders of the city had attended Christ Church, one of the largest constituent colleges of Oxford University, and named the New Zealand city after his alma mater. It’s therefore an academic dedication, as though someone had named the city Harvard, Yale, La Sorbonne, Cambridge, or—why not—Oxford. Actually, since he attended Christ Church, he was simultaneously attending Oxford, and naming the New Zealand city Oxford would have been much more clearly an academic dedication.

[To muddy the situation a bit more, in Oxford itself, Christ Church is both the name of a college, and an actual church, the cathedral of Oxford, an indication of the ancient religious origins of academic institutions. (Black academic robes looking like priests’ cassocks is another indication.) It would clarify the Oxford situation if people said Christ Church Cathedral as opposed to Christ Church College, but that is not regularly done, as you can tell by the name of the NZ city. By the way, the College has produced 13 British Prime Ministers.]

When the NZ city was named, in 1848, it was for a short while spelled as two words, like the college, but for most of the time since then it’s been written as one word. To further indicate the academic connection, the street that winds along the north bank of the Avon River in Christchurch is Cambridge Terrace, and the one on the south bank is Oxford Terrace.

If the name Christchurch is misleading, and is a failed dedication, unfortunately the same thing holds for the Avon River. What do you think when you hear that very attractive name? Stratford-upon-Avon, of course. Shakespeare! The Bard of Avon! And again, you’d be wrong, just as I was.

Apparently among the early British settlers was a pair of Scottish brothers who asked that the river be named after a certain Avon River in Scotland, which apparently flows into the Clyde; it’s apparently sometimes referred to as the Scottish Avon. But when seeing the Avon River in Christchurch who thinks of Scotland? Another failed dedication, but still, a beautiful river.

Christchurch is a low-rise city. There are a few contemporary buildings on Cathedral Square that go up to maybe 8-10 stories, but they are the exception. It is said that it is the “most English NZ city”, perhaps because of some neo-Gothic buildings and the beauty of the Avon flowing through town with the punting activity on it. Although all three cities have very distinctive characters, as much as I like Auckland and Wellington, the slow pace and charm of Christchurch make it my favorite.

I want you to be able to visualize the layout of the city. It has a standard grid pattern of parallel north-south and east-west streets, but right in the center of the central city is Cathedral Square. I understand that traffic used to go through it both ways on regular streets, but traffic in the 1960’s and 1970’s got so bad that the Cathedral Square layout was changed to what it is today. Picture four city blocks. At the intersection where they come together, the corner buildings are set back, allowing quite a bit of space. Remove much of the streets between these four blocks, and divert traffic to a diamond shaped road pattern around the edge instead, and you have Cathedral Square.

Now route all east-west traffic through the square along the top of the diamond, and all north-south traffic along the right side of the diamond, behind the cathedral. This means that three sides of the diamond have some light traffic, leaving the road on the southwest side of the diamond unbuilt, and that area part of the pedestrian zone of the entire square.

The Anglican cathedral on that east side of the square is Gothic Revival and was built slowly between 1864 and 1904. There are many historic buildings surrounding the square, most of them now recycled, including a former government building, now a hotel, a former central post office, now a visitors center with a prominent Starbucks in it, a historic hotel, now being refurbished by a hotel chain, and more. There are also some more modern, and taller, buildings already mentioned. One of them was the hotel I’d found online, the Camelot, right on the north side of the square. It was good-sized, yet modest, with a small lobby. I had a room on the second floor facing the cathedral and the rest of the square. My location added a lot to my enjoyment of Christchurch.

There is a noticeable contemporary sculpture on the square from 2000 called the Chalice. It’s about one story high, of stainless steel, and looks like a huge, shiny ice-cream cone. A rather large number of market stalls selling trinkets appears and disappears daily. There are lots of buskers (street entertainers) performing on the square; I remember a unicyclist and also a juggler. There is also very obviously an outsized chessboard on the ground with hip-high chess pieces. Everyone stops and watches. These large chess games in the park are common in Switzerland, and I remember watching one in Zürich last summer, and saw one also in Meiringen.

The Avon circles near Cathedral Square on two sides, to the west and north. Walking north from the square about two blocks one comes to Victoria Square, once a market square, now a park, and the Avon goes right along its far edge. While I was there, there was a Chinese Lantern Festival going on in Victoria Square with food stands and a stage with performers from China. Electric lanterns in the shape of animals were everywhere.

But the prime direction out of Cathedral Square is due west toward Hagley Park, four blocks away. This area covers the most charming part of the city. After a block one crosses Oxford Terrace, the Avon, and Cambridge Terrace, since the river flows north at this point. Historic buildings, outdoor cafés, and restaurants abound here as one crosses one of the pleasant bridges over the river. In the two more blocks to Hagley Park you pass the modern art museum, a Gothic Revival complex of buildings that used to be a college but is now recycled into an active arts center, and the historic Canterbury Museum. You are then at Hagley Park (1855) and the intertwined Botanic Garden (1863), which run north-south at the western edge of the central city.

The Avon River is as characteristic for Christchurch as any river is for its city, but do not picture a Thames, Hudson, or Seine. It is a rather petite river below street level, but its banks have been decorated and planted so that they largely form a linear urban park through town. Because this is a plain, the river over time has moved slowly enough to that it has formed large serpentine loops back and forth.

Hagley Park surrounds the Botanic Garden on the north, west, and south sides, much as an airline neck pillow surrounds your neck, and this is due to the serpentine river, which separates them. The river starts somewhere beyond Hagley Park, then comes eastbound and makes a huge loop turning westbound, forming North Hagley Park. It then turns eastbound again around the Botanic Garden, with South Hadley Park lying to the south. In other words, the Garden fits into the center of the Park like a round stub of a jigsaw puzzle piece.

[Note that Hagley Park is the largest urban park in the southern hemisphere. It is also the third-largest urban park in the world, second being Stanley Park in Vancouver, and first being Central Park in New York. Also note the three countries these three parks are in, countries that I’ve grouped together in earlier discussions. These are countries that went through modern periods of expansion, and were able to put aside space for these large parks as their cities grew. This does not in any way discount, among many others, Hyde Park in London, the Tiergarten in Berlin, and the Bois de Vincennes and Bois de Boulogne in Paris, but they are all older cities that did manage to turn hunting preserves into parks, but were not expanding like “New World” cities were.]

Where the Avon exits the Park and Garden and is no longer the border between them, there are boathouses for punting. Then the river, as it approaches the Cathedral Square area swings north, as mentioned above, where there is another punting area, then northwest through Victoria Square and onward toward the Pacific.

Trams had run in Christchurch from 1905 until they were closed down in 1954. Then in 1995, the city opened a heritage line. This means it’s a tourist attraction (but a very nice one), and doesn’t really “go anywhere”. Tracks run in a rectangle of about two blocks by five, always in a clockwise direction. The route starts just east of Cathedral Square, crosses it and runs west down to the park for a total of about five blocks, then goes north two blocks and turns east again to return via Victoria Square. The whole circuit takes about 25 minutes, since it makes long stops, especially in Cathedral Square. There are three heritage tramcars, the oldest one being the only one actually manufactured in Christchurch. A small plaque marks the seat up front where Queen Elizabeth sat in 1995—and I sat in 2009. I rode all three tramcars, but this oldest one was most fun because the center part is open on the sides to enjoy the weather. In addition, every evening there’s a separate restaurant tramcar that sets out, on which dinner is served as you make several circuits of the route.

A VISIT TO CHRISTCHURCH It was by pure happenstance that it worked out that I’d stay five nights here, which left me four full days, although the third day, Monday, was taken up by the trip to Greymouth. Saturday, Sunday, and Tuesday in town were idyllic, peaceful, and slow-moving. It was a most relaxing stay in this very pleasant city.

The night I arrived, Friday, I took the van from the station to Cathedral Square, ideal, because my hotel was right there. The first full day I was there was Saturday, and it was Valentine’s Day. Well, let me qualify that. For those readers in New Zealand and Australia, it was Saturday, Valentine’s Day. For those readers in North America and Europe, it was still Friday for you, and we would be sending both Saturday and Valentine’s Day to you as the hours passed by around the globe.

While I had arrived the night before under overcast skies, on Saturday my second-floor view from the hotel was sunny, and remained so for the whole time in Christchurch. My window faced the side of the cathedral some distance away and also looked out at the square with all its activities, including the chess game in the distance. Between the cathedral and me was the cathedral giftshop, which included a café, both indoors and outdoors. It turned out this was where I had my breakfasts, usually a muffin and cappucino. It was an unusual commercial venture for the cathedral, but was an enjoyable place to go, right outside the hotel.

I remember looking at a large display of very amusing greeting cards in the cathedral giftshop near the café. They were so good, I spent quite some time browsing through them, thinking how nice to be able to enjoy New Zealand humor. Then I looked at the back of the cards, and they all came from Massachusetts. I took this as just another example of the unifying similarity of the ANZCUS region I defined earlier.

In the café that first day, with the sun streaming in through a glass wall, I chatted up a couple who turned out to be from Nottingham. Chit-chat went back and forth until I asked what brought them to Christchurch. I nearly dropped my muffin when they said they had just gotten off the Queen Victoria in Lyttelton that morning for a day’s visit.

What a Valentine’s Day gift! The QV had followed me and had met me here! Actually, I had known that it’s route would be similar to mine, but I didn’t expect our paths to cross.

I had only wanted to go as far as Los Angeles, as did about half the people who were on the ship at that point, and then flew to the South Pacific. I knew the QV would then go for a day in Honolulu—but I had just been there, and one day isn’t enough anyway. It was then going from Honolulu to Apia (shades of Sadie Thompson!! That was their route when they got hung up in Pago Pago!), but just one day in the Samoas wasn’t enough for me either. Still, I can just imagine the QV either docked in Apia or at anchor.

After that the QV was to go to Tonga, which didn’t interest me, while Fiji did. It then made a one-day stop in Auckland (not enough) and then came down the eastern (Pacific) side of NZ for one day in Lyttelton/Christchurch, again not enough. Afterwards, it was headed to Hobart (Tasmania), Sydney, and beyond.

The Nottingham couple did point out that on the previous day, coming down from Auckland, there had been rough seas. That’s right—I had seen the rough seas as I was coming down on the TranzCoastal. I can only speculate if the QV might have been sailing southward out on the horizon as I was looking at the nearby beaches from the southward-bound train. And I assume that, as the train arrived in Christchurch Friday evening, so did the QV arrive in Lyttelton harbor.

When I left the café, I walked to the other side of the square where Cunard was sending in one shuttle bus after another back and forth from Lyttelton. I hung around for a while—my whole visit to Christchurch was easygoing—and I did recognize two people I’d seen on the ship (two older German ladies, as it turns out), but I didn’t know either of them well enough to talk to.

I watched a bit of chess, saw a little of the street performers, looked at the trams, and generally had a leisurely stroll around the square and the cathedral. Here is a YouTube video of the area: Cathedral Square in Christchurch

I had picked up a walking tour of historic places and buildings in town and spent part of the day just walking around, including up to Victoria Square, and then over to Hagley Park. I stopped into museums and the arts centre, then walked into the Botanic Gardens, spending some time in the large rose garden, and crossed lawns with century-old trees. At the edge of the Garden, where it met the Avon, I noticed a building called the Curator’s House, which was now a restaurant, but didn’t pay much attention to it at the time.

Next to the Curator’s House was the Avon, and right outside the Garden on Cambridge Terrace were the Antigua Street Boatsheds dating from 1882. At one time there were some half-dozen boatsheds along the Avon, but now you can go punting at only two locations, this one and one a few blocks downstream, more in the center of town. But there’s no historic boatshed left there, just a small dock. I felt this location near the Park and Garden would be more interesting for my punting experience the next day.

While Saturday, Valentine’s Day, had been my orientation day in Christchurch, Sunday turned out to be even better, since it was my tram-and-punting day. No one buys individual tram trips, but instead the two-day day pass. When I found out that you could combine that pass with a discounted single punt ride, I knew I wanted that ticket, sold in a special municipal giftshop a block away. They also sold NZ memorabilia, and one thing I saw there quite interested me.

MAPS This reflection is meant primarily for map-oriented readers. If you are not good at geography, can’t read maps very well, or lose direction easily, you might want to move to the next topic. Now: it has always struck me how mapmakers mislead. I’m sure they do so for economic reasons, but my biggest gripe involves water. Mapmakers usually want to show land and not water. A group of islands will be shown clustered together, and you have difficulty figuring how far it is from one to the other. Maps of New York’s five boroughs almost always show Staten Island as an inset, squeezed in closer than it really is. Maps of Long Island Sound are usually only made for boaters. Fortunately, I was able to find a map of the Pacific Ocean for this trip, but that was an unusual find.

The other problem with maps is the convention of showing north at the top. This is probably connected with the fact that most of the land masses in the world are in the northern hemisphere, and its consistency does help with orientation, but it can be misleading. One of the most impressive maps I’ve ever seen was at a now-gone museum of exploration near Philadelphia and Wilmington. It included a large mural map of the North Atlantic, showing routes of exploration over the ages. But the big difference about this map was that WEST was at the top. Across the bottom, from right to left, were Scandinavia, the British Isles, and Spain and Portugal. Across the top was North America, lying at an appropriately steep angle to Europe because of the curvature of the Earth. Viewing the exploration routes this way was a total revelation to me, and I could readily see why the Vikings on the right went to Newfoundland on the right, the French up the Saint Lawrence, the British to Massachusetts and Virginia, and the Spanish and Portuguese on the left much further south than the others—that is, to the left.

In a similar vein, the ticket giftshop had a map on the wall for sale. But SOUTH was at the top, quite proudly, I might say. For those used to looking at world maps with New Zealand and Australia squeezed and misshapen at the bottom, this view was a revelation. This map had, below Antarctica at the top, New Zealand front and center, first South Island, then below it North Island. Australia was to its right, and Indonesia below it, then the rest of Asia, squeezed to the bottom, and misshapen. Europe was also quite misshapen in the lower-right corner.

To the left of NZ the eye eventually reached South America, Chile and Argentina at the top. To NZ’s lower left was the huge Pacific, the eye finally reaching the US, and, below it, Canada. All texts on the map were set to be read in this position, and it could also be purchased as a jigsaw puzzle The map was called:

The map and puzzle are of course just meant as a novelty, but I find that argument superficial. Those of us who learn from maps can adjust our world outlook accordingly. Our perception does not have to be what the mapmakers usually feed us.

While the discussion is still on maps, let’s discuss some latitudes. You can maintain a traditional world map in your mind, but I’m going to follow the map we’ve just been discussing to do this, as a little mental exercise for those good with maps.

Antarctica is at the top. The Antarctic Circle is at 66°33”S, and the circular coast of East Antarctica, nearest to NZ and Australia, just happens to pretty much follow the Arctic Circle, so we can use the Circle as a benchmark at a rounded 66°S.

Of the three areas that reach southward towards Antarctica, Africa’s Cape Agulhas near Cape Town (2008/10) is the third closest at 35°S.

NZ, representing Oceania, is the second closest. The southernmost town in NZ is Invercargill on the south coast, at 47°S. In Australia, Hobart, on the south coast of Tasmania, is a little bit less at 43°S.

It is of course South America that comes closest, and faces the Antarctic Peninsula. Ushuaia, Argentina, is at 55°S. It was 2 ¼ years before being in NZ that I was in West Antarctica (2006/15), 1/3 of the way around the globe, and reached my lifetime southernmost point at 65°04’S.

Here are some NZ comparisons with the other two areas. On the South Island, Christchurch at 44° is comparable to Hobart at 43°. Its meridian crosses southern Chile and Argentina, and Christchurch’s meridian is much further south than anything in Africa.

On the North Island, Wellington, at 41°, is close to being centered between Christchurch and Auckland but up on the north coast, Auckland at 37° is well south of Sydney at 34°, but comparable to Melbourne at 38°. It’s a little further south than Buenos Aires at 35°, and just below the south coast of Africa, which is also at 35°.

Finally, as to the island groups visited on this trip, all three are at meridians very close to the equator. Apia, Samoa, is at 14°S; Nadi, Fiji, and Papeete, Tahiti, are both at 18°S. Going around the globe, that compares to La Paz, Bolivia at 17°S, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe/Zambia at 18°S, and Cairns, Australia at 17°S.

CHRISTCHURCH HERITAGE TRAM Armed with my day pass, I caught the next tram. Unlike the earlier regular trams in Christchurch that provided real transportation, this heritage tram runs only 2.5 km (1.6 mi) clockwise on a rectangular route, and makes eleven stops. By chance the one I got on first was that oldest one, the one with open sides in the center. The tram started its circuit, with the driver (motorman) announcing the sights and the conductor checking tickets. It was a leisurely ride, since no one was really going anywhere, just hopping on or off here and there, depending on what they wanted to see. I had figured I’d make the circuit 2-3 times, and then do other things.

But circumstances altered that plan for the better. About halfway through one circuit, the driver looked ahead and announced that something special was going to happen: the Sunshine Band was going to get on and ride with us. Although my first thought was that they were buskers and would pass the hat, that didn’t turn out to be the case. Perhaps the city subsidizes them, as well as possibly others. Actually, it was probably good that it was a Sunday, making something like this more likely, and even more pleasurable.

The Sunshine Band was a Dixieland Band. They boarded and sat in the front of the open part of the tramcar. They wore straw hats and outfits typical of the Dixieland era. There was a banjo, a trombone, a trumpet, an Asian woman who played clarinet, and a guy that played, of all things, the spoons. The music was so enjoyable, especially in connection with just riding around, seeing the sights (again and again), that I didn’t get off until quite some time went by, making multiple circuits around the route.

I know American music has penetrated many areas, but it was particularly enjoyable combining what is essentially the music of New Orleans and its region (2008/4 “St Martinville”) with the atmosphere of Christchurch. It went something like this: Victoria Square – “You Are My Sunshine” – Cathedral Square – “Bill Bailey” – a bridge over the Avon with punters below – “When the Saints Go Marching In” – the modern art museum – “All of Me” – the Arts Centre – “Sweet Georgia Brown” – Hagley Park – “Hello, Dolly” – the Botanic Garden – “Mame”. This potpourri is meant to indicate the blend we experienced on that ride that sunny Sunday afternoon. Those are some of the actual pieces we heard, the ones that I took note of, although not necessarily in those locations. We also heard “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”, as played elsewhere by another band on YouTube: Dixieland Band

You will have noted that that band I found on YouTube, the Dixieland Crackerjacks, is Dutch, and very good (check out their other selections on YouTube). This type of music has become classic, and international, and I referred to it once before, when a local pianist, who had joined for a day the luxury train crossing Siberia (2005/9), started playing Scott Joplin Rags, and his sheet music identified this as Рэгтайм / Regtaim music.

There was other music. As the tram passed the modern art museum again, the Salvation Army had set up on the museum plaza a good-sized concert orchestra. The tram conductor commented to the Sunshine Band that the “Sallies” were giving them competition, and that struck me as an odd word to use, but the next day, I passed a Salvation Army shop, which was clearly labeled “Sallies Thrift Shop”, so apparently that’s a standard NZ nickname.

PUNTING ON THE AVON As peppy as the tram ride was with the music, the punting experience was relaxed and idyllic. I got off the tram and walked down past the Botanic Garden and Curator’s House to the Antigua Street Boatsheds (1882). There was a café in the historic buildings, and displays of straw hats, old oars, and other equipment of the Edwardian era. At some sheds you could hire (rent) your own rowboat, canoe, or paddleboat, and there were a number of those on the river, but the main interest was the punts.

I now read that punting was developed on the Thames, and on occasion still is practiced there, but best-known is punting in Oxford, and even moreso, on the Cam in Cambridge (2007/4 “Cambridge”). However, in Cambridge, you have a choice of having someone punt for you, or of making a fool of yourself and trying to do it on your own, hoping not to fall in the water. Let’s say that in Cambridge punting verges on being a spectator sport as you wait for the next splash, while in Christchurch you cannot rent a punt on your own and instead, you can only have someone more expert than you take you on a graceful, leisurely ride.

Punts were originally meant for transporting goods in the late 19C, and only later became pleasure boats for passengers. They are quite unique in style. They have no keel, but are flat-bottomed, so they draw little water in the shallow rivers where they’re used; again, the Avon is only hip-deep. Both the bow and stern of a punt are square, which gives the punt an unusual look. Finally, at the back is a short deck for the punter to stand on. Avon punters are dressed in traditional Edwardian style, with straw hats and suspenders.

A gondola in Venice is more stylized (and graceful) in form, and is built with a slight tilt to the side, but the major difference is that the gondolier uses an oar in the deeper Venetian waters. A punter on the other hand uses a pole, and pushes it against the river bed, being careful not to get it stuck in mud. Both gondoliers and punters simply stand on their little deck in the back and have nothing to lean on or to support them. They also have to keep balanced when they have to duck under low bridges. A bit of skill is certainly needed as to balance, poles stuck in the mud, and ducking down—just look at the amateurs on the Cam.

We had a half hour trip, fifteen minutes upstream, then back. We entered the Park/Garden immediately, with (South) Hagley Park on the left and, the Botanic Garden on the right, right after the Curator’s House up above, which the punter told us was now a Spanish restaurant where they grow herbs and vegetables in their own garden.

This YouTube video shows Avon punting at the punting location in the town center, and shows more buildings than I saw just a few minutes upriver. Apparently a certain Toyama College of Foreign Languages (TCFL) in Japan has a study and homestay program in Christchurch, and presents this video to students. The colorful lanterns at 1:50 are part of a special festival on Victoria Square, apparently similar to the one I saw there: Punting on the Avon

Monday was the day I went to Greymouth, and Tuesday, my last day in Christchurch, gave me a feeling that I lived there. It was the day I had scheduled back in Wellington for the computer repairman to come, since I knew that fortunately I had scheduled a free day. He called at 9 to arrive at my hotel at 2, so after another relaxing breakfast in the café, I read my book in Cathedral Square, watched some chess and some buskers, and acted as though I lived there, waiting to complete some local business. He appeared on time at my “residence”; I asked him where he had parked, but he said he just walked over from the office. This furthered my feeling of living in town, right in the center of things. He did what he could, but had to walk it back to the office for something else, and was back by 5. I spent the evening on a week’s worth of e-mails, and then writing, just as though I had been at home.