Finding a Car, Missing Santa

Trip Start Oct 17, 2009

Trip End Oct 16, 2010

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Where I stayed

Stonehurst Accommodation Christchurch

Flag of New Zealand Christchurch, South Island, New Zealand
Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Christchurch was another flying visit as it was our landing point for the South Island and the base from which myself and Tony would be setting off on an eleven day road trip. We arrived in the early afternoon so had a little time to explore the entirely pleasant city which is renowned for being English in atmosphere and aesthetics. The reputation is deserved too, you could be forgiven for thinking you were strolling through Oxford particularly when you get down to the waterfront and see the raft boats powered by paddlers dressed like Morris Dancers shipping tourists down the river. Myself and Nath were able to use our student discount cards – given to us for nowt when we booked our initial flights with the Student Travel Agency – for the first and only time before they expired at the end of 2009 as we ascended the cathedral tower for some views of the city which are a little marred by the iron grills that have been placed over the look out points. Still, you could look down on the huge Santas and the square's showpiece Christmas Tree which looked a bit daft in the warm sunshine of the evening

Memorial Gate in Christchurch

. Much to my disappointment, I wasn’t feeling at all Christmassy at this time of year. Not even a dash of festive music on the plane had done the trick, this felt like a soulless Christmas which is the one bad thing about travelling to a warm climate at this time of year. Elton John was telling me to Step Into Christmas, but it didn’t feel quite right in my flip flops.

I immediately liked the serene and relaxed city centre which is no bigger than a town by "back home" standards, although the nightlife wasn’t offering too strong a pulse aside from the odd hilarious drunken office Christmas do. Having said that, it was only a Tuesday and I was taken enough with Christchurch anyway to be able to imagine myself working there for a while. That was a consideration for the future though; for now it was a few drinks, a bit of live music and then back to bunk after some sad goodbyes to Nath who was heading south to meet up with his Studley friends in Queenstown. After nine weeks of travel together, a good five of which had been spent sharing a bed due to the predomination of double rooms over twins in Asia, it was strange to see him go but we’d be meeting back up briefly for Christmas and could congratulate ourselves on having seen so much in such a short space of time. He still looks like Gordon Strachan mind.

With Gordon gone, myself and Tony set ourselves to the task of finding a car armed with a handful of brochures and web printouts offering promises of 20 dollars rental per day

Festive?

. Of course, these prices are accurate as long as you’re booking in the dead of winter when you have to drive with chains on the wheels of your car and power them with de-icer but now in peak season, the best deal we could find was 43 dollars for a little hatchback which amounted to around �11 per day each over the eleven day period we would be hiring it.

With the car ready to collect the following day, we had an afternoon to spare so decided to head out of town to the harbour settlement of Lyttleton which had been described as "amazing" by a local I’d chatted to on the plane from Auckland. That proved to be a slightly exaggerated description – the town is very much a working port although the surrounding cliffs are marked by a smattering of quaint cottages and bungalows providing smatterings of colour against the green cliffs. The Visitor Centre promises a “heritage trail” which we duly embarked on and it takes you round a ten minute loop of two streets via a series of information points telling supposedly “quirky” stories about the town’s history. The first information point is missing, meaning that we went several hundred yards past the loop before having to turn back and the “quirkiest” tale I found was an old anecdote about a shrinking church which used to be so treacherous it had worshippers fearing the building as well as God on a Sunday. The other stories simply revolved around people leaving ships and setting up schools and houses – hardly comparable to Roald Dahl’s finest. Never mind, at the end of the trail there is a sign directing you on a ten minute walk to the “Time Ball” which sounded futuristic, exciting and well worth the walk. It isn’t. It’s just a maritime navigation centre and the ball itself is just a big lead one which descends down a pole to allow mariners to reset their chronometers

By the river, where the duck likes it best

. It’s apparently of great historical importance to seafarers but after some consideration I can’t claim to be either while Tony has much more of a “trucker” look than a sailor one. So to us, it was just a lead ball, and it had already descended by the time we got there. We headed back to catch the bus in to the city after Tony had polished off a local pie with typical relish. It had been an unspectacular glimpse in to small town New Zealand life but I'd enjoyed it that way!

We had a quiet night in Christchurch as we had an early start and I need to preserve some funds too. We were waiting to pick up our car by the time the hire company opened their doors at 8am the following morning and it looked, well, cute. Toyota by brand, a Vitz by model, it would be taking us South down the coast to Dunedin by way of a couple of stops to begin with. We’d even managed to bag ourselves a passenger in the shape of Andy, a Scottish lad who won my favour straight away by being much, much balder than me, yet younger. We fitted the bags and bodies (ours that is, not dead ones) into the car much more easily than anticipated and found out that the Vitz was unexpectedly, an automatic. So, it really was simply a case of stepping on the accelerator and we were heading down the coast.

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