Christchurch, a new chapter

I arrived in Christchurch on July the 23rd after a beautiful flight from New Plymouth. First watching Mt Taranaki and the perfect miles wide circle around its peak, then over Cook’s Strait and seeing the 20 kilometre long Farewell Spit jutting out from the South Island. Followed by the Southern Alps stretching on and on, finally reaching the Canterbury plain with the massive glacial rivers spilling out into the Pacific Ocean.

Touching down in Christchurch at about 1 pm, my first port of call after leaving the airport was wrangling my three bags plus backpack to the bus stop, somehow onto the bus, before finally dragging them the thankfully short distance from the bus exchange to my hostel, the Drifter. And then I could finally get to decompress after the disaster of New Plymouth, I was safe and sound where I was supposed to, with nothing that needed immediate action. I think I just rested the rest of that day, having a very well deserved burger at the hostel restaurant and otherwise just chilling.

Hagley Park

The next morning I was feeling a bit more balanced, and so in addition to taking care of some necessities like groceries and a metro card (for the bus), I got started on the fun process of insurance claims. Parallel with that, I was also in the process of finalising my thesis employment process and contract with Trimble, which involved some back and forth on the wording of me getting to publish, and quite an extensive background check through a fun third party portal to provide all the details and approvals for police checks. Both of these continued over the following few days.

The Botanical Garden

On Friday the 25th, I finally got out of the hostel. Going for a walk through Hagley Park in the centre of town and checking out the Botanical garden contained in it. Really nice to get outside properly, and the weather was definitely cooperating. Rounding the whole thing off with a coffee at the library, and the disappointing realisation that I can’t get a library card yet because I don’t have a permanent Christchurch address.

The Red Zone, eerie areas abandoned after the earthquakes, now being converted into green space

Which brings me on to my hunt for a permanent place to stay. Some context here for everyone back home in Sweden, New Zealand cities are weird, and Christchurch even more so due to the huge earthquake in 2011. There are basically no apartment buildings, instead the whole city is made up of just suburban sprawl consisting of mostly single story houses, with a tiny city core or CBD where it gets denser and most of the life is (very dense for Auckland, barely any difference in Christchurch). This means that even students generally lives in houses, but because most single people can’t be expected to rent a house, flatting is extremely common (and oh yeah, unlike Sweden a lot of houses are rented out). Which is great for me, because that means there are a lot of opportunities to find a second-hand contract. In fact the Christchurch flatmate Facebook group has 75 thousand members in a city with 400 000 inhabitants.

Home, on a frosty morning

Proof of this stark difference in housing market is that it took me less than a week, from starting looking for a place, until I moved in! I went on my first viewing on the 26th of July, and over the following days visited ten places in total. Wigram was maybe the 5th or 6th house, I visited, and the first one that really felt good, so the day after I came back for a chat with the rest of the flat, and moved in two days later on the 31st. It’s a relatively spacious one-floor house with a small garden, which I share with Emma who is head tenant, and Gareth and Kate, all lovely and very welcoming people. Wigram itself is very quiet, mostly just suburban houses, but with more nature around than most of the rest of the town in the form of flax covered flood defences out front, and the wonderful Port Hills in the background.

Halswell Quarry

Rounding off my first two weeks in Christchurch, I went on my first tramp up in the Port Hills on Saturday the second (of August). Taking the bus to Halswell and walking through the Halswell old quarry, now converted into a park, I started my way up along Kennedy’s Bush Track. This is quite a long climb for a hill, starting from the Canterbury plain which is basically at sea level and climbing all the 520 height meters up to the top of Mt Ada, really quite tall for a “hill”.

You can see the Southern Alps in the background

It is a very nice hike, and the weather was lovely. Climbing up through brushy pastureland with alternating sheep and cows on the sides (and a few horses), with the grass covered hills in front and the Southern Alps to my back, extending to something like 120 degrees of your view. Not to mention the beautiful but sadly invasive Gorse bushes, very dense thorny bushes with vivid yellow flowers which colours the peaks of the hills a golden yellow.

Mt Ada

At the top of Mt Ada, I had the fika I’d brought along, and enjoyed the stunning view of Lyttleton Harbour. The Banks Peninsula, which the Port Hills forms the northwestern section of, is an ancient volcano which has been dormant for close to 10 million years, with the harbour being formed from one of the craters and the hills making up the crater rim. After a short rest, I went down again from the peak and started hiking along the rim southward where I headed into the native forest on the east side of the ridge. A very different landscape, way wetter and with sun cover, but still beautiful. And some really cool cliffs up the slopes on the following two peaks.

The round radar station on the rightmost peak is Cass Peak

The final adventure of the day was trying to get to the top of Cass Peak, which involved heavily debating whether the road beam meant no entry for cars or for everyone, and then quickly turning back when finding the peak fenced off with big Do no enter signs. Then walking back north along the ridge again, and down along Kennedy’s track, really starting to feel my legs and feeling quite tired. Timing the bus relatively well and then getting home to a very well deserved dinner and warm bath. Coming home, or at least home for the next 6 months or so.