Christchurch

Christchurch to Dunedin to Christchurch

Christchurch, New Zealand – Wednesday 26 March 2025

On Monday morning, we did what has now becoming routine, and left Christchurch after rush hour and the school run had finished. We’re staying within walking distance of the city centre, as I will discover when I return, and Christchurch traffic has not improved in the 14 years since I last visited. Our destination is just outside the city of Dunedin, about five hours south.

We missed the first place we planned to stop at, the ‘Book Barn’, a vast second hand book shop recommended by our Christchurch hosts. We didn’t see the sign until after we had driven past. Much of the drive south is a flat straight road, with the occasional ‘S’ bend as the road crosses the main train line. then back again a few kilometres further on. Unlike the trip from Blenheim to Christchurch, where we did the reverse as we travelled by train.

It’s not the most thrilling of rides and I felt a bit for Paula who did all the driving; practice she will make perfect after we go our separate ways tomorrow. The only excitement was crossing really long bridges over the frequent and very wide rivers, and stopping for lunch in a garden centre just south of Timaru. You can (usually) trust a garden centre lunch. We were, as expected the youngest people there, and we’re all in our 60s.

THE highlight of the journey was the Steam Punk Museum in Oamaru, about two thirds of the way down the coast. We stayed for a while and I took too many photos for this post, so will do a separate one next. Needless to say, it was fun!

Our final stop was to see the Moeraki boulders. I was warned that they were underwhelming and to be honest, they very much were. They are interesting and unique and worth seeing, but keep your expectations in your backpack, and maybe keep that in the boot of your car, locked of course. I wanted to see them as I don’t think there is anything else like them anywhere else in the world and for me that alone is a reason.

The ‘boulders’ are a small number of almost spherical rocks, slowly disappearing into the sand of the beach and I’m sure years ago they were much more spectacular. If you do want to visit, try and get there early in the morning to avoid other visitors, especially tours. There weren’t many people when we visited, but each one wanted a photo standing on the rocks, so I had to wait one-by-one as they did so. I was muttering with frustration by the time I got my ‘turn’.

They are cool though, and I especially liked the boulder lying at the top of the beach by itself that has been split open by a small landslide and you can see its hollow core. as if it’s a museum exhibit.

My sister lives on the Otago Peninsular in the hamlet of Portobello, a thirty-minute drive east of Dunedin’s city centre. They’ve only recently moved there from not too far from Nelson at the top of the South Island. Though there are a number of houses, a lot are holiday homes and it feels quite remote, but the house has a lovely view from the deck and the remoteness suits my sister and her family.

Just before we left New Zealand, back when we stayed here for seven months in 2021/2022, we were going to come down to Dunedin for my nephew’s wedding. Sadly we ended up not coming due to the ongoing Covid pandemic. Though it was largely over in New Zealand by then, we didn’t want to risk the confined spaces of flights and wedding venues as our return to London was immediately after the wedding. I hadn’t seen my nephews in years and had never met the eldest’s wife until today.

We had dinner with my sister, her sons and daughter in law and a very nice evening catching up. It was also Eleanor and I’s last night together for 16 days, which seems like an epically long time for us to be apart, so the evening was spent with that hanging over me. I will miss her.

We woke to an empty house on Tuesday morning as my sister had gone to work. After a quick breakfast we took a leg stretching walk down the waterfront where I found this fantastic local bus stop; I love those chairs. It was a lovely day for a walk and it is very pretty here under the sun. I expect on a windy, rainy winter evening, it’s not quite so jolly.

At the end of my sister’s road is this lovely feature made when the road was cut through, and now known as Pineapple Rock, for obvious reasons.

We drove into Dunedin and parked in a supermarket carpark in the town centre. Free parking is always good. We had a final early lunch and then it was time for (almost tearful) farewells as Paula and Eleanor headed off in the car to continue their tour of the lower south island and I took my small backpack, I’d left the big one at my friends’, and walked around Dunedin for an hour before getting one of the two daily buses back to Christchurch. Weirdly, I seem to have no photos of Dunedin, other than the below.

I discovered, a bit late, that there are some great brutalist buildings in Dunedin, particularly as part of the university. Annoyingly I didn’t really get the time to find them, though I did find the back of the hospital. There is some interesting architecture in Dunedin, a good mix of local stone buildings from the Victorian era and 60/70 construction, with a few modern buildings mixed in.

It’s a nice little city, and I want to come back again. Not least as it plays a huge part in New Zealand’s musical history, especially with Flying Nun Records in the early 80s when I was going to see a lot of bands. I remain a firm fan.

The bus ride was long and slow, but perfectly fine. It was my first time alone for a few weeks and time to mentally unwind and prepare for the next part of the trip was welcome. An opportunity to reset my brain and outlook and prepare for thinking and planning by myself.

I stayed the night at my friends’ house again, joining them, and winning, the local pub quiz, which was a lot of fun and very unexpected. On Wednesday morning I headed off with my big backpack and walked to a barbers about halfway to the centre where I had the remains of a winter beard shaved off. I didn’t want an extra coat in the hot climate of Delhi – forecast of 38 degrees towards the end of my time there.

After the shave I walked back to the art gallery and used their free bag store to leave the big and small packs. After pretending to look at some exhibits I’d seen just a couple of days ago, I grabbed a coffee and snuck out the side door in search of the brutalist council building I’d seen on Sunday. The art gallery building is beautiful.

As I previously noted, I couldn’t find the council building, so I just enjoyed an hour of walking around the city, before collecting my bags and catching the bus out to the airport for the next leg of my trip; a day in Brisbane to hopefully see all three of my ‘kids’ in the same place at the same time, a first in over 10 years. I’m excited, but pensive.

Onwards.

Christchurch, New Zealand – Sunday 23 March 2025

We have two nights in the same place for the first time in five nights and, as we’re staying with old friends of mine, it’s a good opportunity to unwind, unpack and throw some clothes into their washing machine.

As I will be moving around via public transport a bit more than Eleanor and Paula will be, I’m using my trusty travelling back pack, the one I started my travels with 13 years ago. The backpack means I’m carrying fewer clothes than they are and the next time I have more than one night in the same place is in three countries and five days’ time, in Delhi.

My friends lost their house to the tragic 2011 earthquake (earthquakes seem to becoming a trend on this trip, which I’ve just noticed, and is completely accidental) and it wasn’t rebuilt until 2016. It was rebuilt almost exactly as it had been, and has been decorated wonderfully. It’s such a funky place and I’m so glad they could rebuild back to how it used to be and so glad they had room for the three of us to stay.

I only visited Christchurch once after the earthquake, before I left New Zealand at the end of the same year. That was with work for a quick trip from the airport out to the production centre for the printing company I worked for and then back to the airport and home to Auckland. I haven’t seen the inner city in the 14 years since then. A lot of the centre has been completely rebuilt, though there is still work to be done. The city looks pretty good, though of course that has come at a huge cost; financially, politically, socially and emotionally.

We started our day at the new art gallery (free parking for us). We drove past a very nice bit of brutalist architecture that I promised myself I would come back to when I return to Christchurch on Wednesday after separating from Eleanor and Paula in Dunedin. Annoyingly I couldn’t find it!

I liked the gallery, it’s modern and bright and the rooms are well spaced and paced and there were some good pieces. I particularly liked ‘The Civil Servant’ (at least I think that is what it was called, I can’t find anything on the internet).

We left the gallery and walked around the new centre of the city. So much of the area was destroyed in the earthquake that there are still buildings waiting to be safely demolished and numerous building sites and blank spaces where buildings once stood.

The city has supported some fantastic murals, some of them massive, as part of the rebuild. It’s really pleasing to see authorities embrace the value that high quality large works of art on buildings can bring. When I go back, which I will, I will do a proper street art and brutalist building photo walk.

The spire of the cathedral collapsed in the quake. It was the spiritual centre of the city and a well loved building. There have been discussions and plans and court cases and challenges of court case results for years, and there has not yet been an agreed plan as to what to do with the cathedral and the land it sits on. Sadly it’s still fenced off as the remaining structure is deemed unsafe.

We walked through the new shopping precinct so I could visit the bookshop as I’m trying to find a couple of New Zealand music books: Boodle, Boodle, Boodle (the making of the EP by The Clean) and Peter Jefferies’ The Other Side of Reason, neither of which I found anywhere in NZ. I also wanted to visit the new Flying Nun Records shop. Tempted as I was, I didn’t buy anything.

We lunched in the new Riverside food court, which was not dissimilar to any of the modern, independent food courts we have visited in other countries or parts of the UK. There was a wide range of interesting choices, with all the usual international flavours represented. I had a Thai dish and it was very nice, as was the local ale I washed the food down with.

After lunch we were driven to the airport where Paula collected the rental car she will drive us around in for the next few days. We returned to our friends’ house and then were driven up into the Port Hills that overlook the city and separate it from its harbour at Lyttleton. The Port Hill road was badly damaged in the earthquake and sections of the road remain closed, and will never be reopened to cars. It made for a nice walk, and there is a good view down to Lyttleton, where we visited next.

Up here you can still see the damage that the quake caused, with bits of road just hanging off the cliff.

It was nice to see the famous cable car is back in operation.

Lyttleton is a small town, part bohemian and part port worker. It’s a nice town and after a very short walk to see the sights we stopped for a drink in a very nice little bar with a decent soundtrack going.

On the way back to our friends’ house we drove through the eastern part of Christchurch where a number of suburbs had stood alongside the River Avon before the earthquake. All that is there now are a few trees and the drop sections of footpaths that used to be the start of a driveway. The entire suburbs has been bulldozed and will never be rebuilt as the ground is just too unstable. All those people moved from their homes. So sad. It was a stark reminder of the recent history of this city, and the work that has been done to repair the damage and the soul of the place.

A walk along Poole Bay

Saturday 07 November 2015 – Bournemouth, Dorset.

One of the reasons I wanted to go to a four day working week, or more importantly a three day weekend, was to be able to go away overnight on occasion yet still have time to do all the things that need to be done at home.

After a really good trip to Folkestone last Saturday I decided to go to the complete opposite end of my ‘where should I live on the UK south coast’ line and head to the Bournemouth area. I have long considered Bournemouth and Poole as an area to live in, not that I have done anything more than drive through. They are two hours from London, which is the furthest I want to be away, but more importantly they are a short ferry ride from the end of the South West Coast Path, an area I remain completely fascinated with.

There is quite a lot to look at, Bournemouth is a reasonable size town and Poole runs right along one side. Bournemouth sits on Poole Bay with its long long strip of beach, so I planned on getting a train to Poole, walking down to the bay and then along the coast to Southbourne where I will stay the night. On Saturday I will go to Christchurch to have a look around and get the train back to London from there. There were a few flats to check out on the way, so it seemed like a good plan. It rained both days…

As it was a Friday I chose to leave after 10:00 as the non-rush hour fares are significantly cheaper than peak fares. The train left from Waterloo, I paid a little extra to get a first class seat, mainly as I wanted to get a seat with a table, and with free wifi in the carriage I could catch up with emails and other things on the way down. I did not pay much attention to what was going on out the window until we passed Southampton and got into the New Forest. Not that I could see too much through the rain anyway.

I arrived in Poole a little late at 12:30. It was not really raining, just a fine drizzle, but it was being blown by a really strong westerly wind. There was no station at Poole, just an exposed platform, so I hurried off in the direction of the old town, but was faced with a massive roundabout and big wide roads, which took me a while to navigate across and around to get to some shelter and put a rain coat and my pack cover on.

For a change I had actually packed well for this trip, and even had appropriate clothing for the conditions – lessons finally being learned. I had also printed off some maps of the route I wanted to take, but paper maps were useless in these conditions, so maybe I had not planned that well…

I did find my way to the old centre of Poole easily enough, it is only a couple of streets with a scattering of old buildings. There was a flat opposite the church that I wanted to walk past, checking the area out. It was nice, but really only just one street nice.

I had read that Poole itself was not the most attractive of towns with a lot of the centre built during the dire architectural period of the 60s and 70s. It was fairly evident, especially around the harbour at the end of the road. I was also disturbed to see a few closed restaurants – never a good sign.

I started walking down the harbour side in the wind and drizzle, I was planning on walking through to Bournemouth a few miles away, but a bus happened to stop at a bus stop just as I was walking past, so I jumped on board and got a ride to the bus station and from there a bus towards Bournemouth. The traffic was pretty bad; as my tummy was telling me it was lunch time and we were not going anywhere fast I got off the bus in Westbourne to look for an open cafe. I am glad I did, it had a decent looking high street and a vegetarian cafe, where I had a very nice lunch.

There were a few flats to rent on West Cliff Rd, so I walked down it to Bournemouth central and the coast, passing the ubiquitous Conservative Club. They seem to be everywhere in small towns.

I skipped Bournemouth town and headed straight down to the waterfront by the pier. I was surprised, pleasantly so, to see a few surfers out making use of the small break, I never considered Bournemouth as a surf town, so this is good news as surfers are generally laid back types, and I want that where I live.

With the wind blowing the rain into my back I headed up the beach front towards Southbourne, three miles away. After pebbly Folkestone, it was nice to sea a long stretch of sand.

It was an interesting walk, a bit damp, but I was wrapped up well and if I did not point the camera into the rain I managed to take a few photos without rain drops on the lens.

The strong winds brought out a couple of para-surfers who were really making the most of the conditions, whistling up and down the beach.

You can see from the, very New Zealand looking, grasses and trees just how strong the wind was.

I loved how these beach huts followed the colours of the rainbow from beginning to end, nice to see some real thought put into planning and designing public space.

Like Folkestone last weekend the sea front is a narrow band between the sea and the cliffs and for the most part it is free of buildings, in fact walking along it was rare to see anything at the top of the cliff as well, I really liked that. There were not that many places along the sea front to access the tops of the cliffs, though there was this cool funicular.

And further along there was this zigzag to the top. I walked up so could I have a look at what the houses looked like on the cliff-top, but apart from the large building at the top of the zigzag there were no other buildings, there was a little more cliff to go.

I walked along the road into Boscombe Spa, which looked quite nice from here, a winter time flat on the beach would be OK – not sure if I would want to live here in the summer when it is really busy.

There was a nice little chine here, and the trees looked amazing with the autumn leaves still on, the photos I took was just washed out of colour sadly. I checked out Boscombe Pier, though there was nothing much to see, just a few stragglers braving the weather for some fresh air.

There was another mile or so to go to Southbourne, and though it had mostly stopped raining my trousers were soaking, and my legs were getting cold in the wind. I picked up the pace a little bit, though still had to stop and take a couple of photos. It was nice down here, and I loved the weather as well! The Toi-tois – or pampas grass as they are called here, just reminded me of home – as did the acres of scrubby gorse all along the hill side. There are no beach huts in Auckland – so I remained rooted in southern England.

I found another zigzag and headed up towards Southborne.

I popped out not too far from where I was staying the night at the Cliff House Hotel, I had booked a single room online and it was tiny – but very comfortable and nicely appointed, though the shower was rubbish

The bar area was booked for a party in the evening, I was planning on not going out once I had arrived, but had to change that plan to find some food. After getting into some dry clothes and shoes – I am so pleased I bought a rain cover for my day bag yesterday, I went for a walk to the local pub. One pint and out, it wasn’t my sort of place, not bad, but not great either.

I looked for restaurants on my phone and found a place that looked OK, but took a wrong turn in the dark and found Southbourne’s high street instead. It was a nice high street, couple of bars, coffee shops, loads of other shops etc and only one bookie. Not bad. I found myself a bar, had a drink, felt comfortable enough to sit and read my book and eat my dinner so did. It was not a late night and I was back in my room well in time to watch The Returned on the TV. A great episode too, the best TV for a long time !!

I slept pretty well, and woke up to the expected very heavy rain. I lay about in the room for a while, eventually going down for breakfast just before last orders. I was trying to kill some time until the rain stopped, which it did pretty much on forecast mid-morning, though it was only a brief respite. I walked back up to the high street and had a look around in the day light, taking some time to visit a couple of real estate agents to talk about short term furnished rents – food for thought. It is very expensive !!

Christchurch is the next town along the coast , on the other side of the River Stour. Fortunately there is a good bus service running along the coast so I jumped on a bus rather than make the walk the in the newly started rain. Like the view of the New Forest from the train there was not a lot to see crossing the river from the bus.

Leaving the bus at the top of the high street I took a leisurely stroll down towards a big old church I could see at the end of town. I was talking to a woman on the bus – I like a friendly town, and she was telling me about all the good things in Christchurch, including the volunteer run cinema.

What I did not know prior to visiting, was that Christchurch had a small castle. I saw a sign at an intersection in town, so had to take a detour to check it out. It was a bit wet, so I did not get a good explore.

There has been a fort here since before Norman times, but the ruined keep on the hill was built in the mid 1100’s when the castle was extensively upgraded from wood into stone. The site was largely destroyed in 1652 after a short siege during the civil war. The castle was built near where the rivers Avon and Stour meet and guarded the entrance to the New Forest.

The first thing I found was the remains of the constable’s house, built inside the castle walls around the time the keep was built. It has one of only five remaining Norman era chimneys left in the UK – the fact there are any left amazes me! The rain was falling quite heavily now and the ground around the house was just one large puddle, so I took a couple of rain splattered snaps and left.

There is not much left of the keep, only a couple of walls remain standing, I am sure there was a nice view to be had from the top of the low mound, but I did not linger up there after taking a quick picture of the priory from the shelter of the walls.

A path down the side of a small tributary of the River Avon took me to the back of the priory. The church is all that remains of priory which was (as usual) destroyed around 1539 in the dissolution of the monastries. I took a walk around the churchyard, but did not venture inside, which I now regret as reading about it on Wikipedia I have discovered it is more interesting than I thought. Next time.

After stopping for lunch, and a respite from the drizzle, I headed back up the high street to the station and caught the train back to London.

The view of the New Forest on the return was worse than the view on the way south !!

Despite the weather I really enjoyed my two days out, walking along the sea front in the rain was not as dire as it sounded, or could have been. There were enough people around to make it not seem deserted, but few enough for me to enjoy the space and the scenery. I liked the area and will add it to my list of places to consider moving to.