Places
Christchurch: a city worth more than one night
Most South Island trips land in Christchurch and leave the next morning, and we understand: the Alps are calling. But the city that rebuilt itself after the 2011 earthquake has become genuinely interesting, in the way places that had to rethink everything often are. Give it a full day and evening and it repays you; here is how to spend them.
The rebuilt centre
- Riverside Market: a two storey indoor food hall on the Avon that became the city’s new heart. Come hungry; this is the best casual eating between Wellington and Queenstown.
- Punting on the Avon: an Edwardian flat-bottomed boat, a polite person in a boater doing the poling, and the Botanic Gardens drifting past. It is exactly as gentle as it sounds and better than it needs to be.
- The Botanic Gardens and Hagley Park: 165 hectares of trees at the city’s centre. The rose garden peaks in summer, the autumn colour in April is the South Island’s most accessible.
- Street art and New Regent Street: the quake left walls, and artists took them. The pastel Spanish Mission strip of New Regent Street, with the heritage tram rattling through, is the prettiest coffee stop in town.
- Quake City: a small, unflinching museum about the earthquakes and the response. It reframes everything else you will see in the city, including the cardboard-tubed Transitional Cathedral.
- The gondola: up Mount Cavendish for the one view that explains Canterbury: city grid, plains, Alps one way; the drowned volcano harbour of Lyttelton the other.
The Banks Peninsula day
If you have a spare day, drive the 90 minutes to Akaroa, the French-settled village inside an old volcano’s flooded crater. The harbour cruise is the reliable way to meet Hector’s dolphins, the world’s smallest and one of its rarest, found only in New Zealand waters. It is a better wildlife day than most people expect this close to a city.
The practical role
Christchurch is the South Island’s main gateway: the airport has the most connections, the rental fleets are big, and both great rail journeys, the TranzAlpine west and the Coastal Pacific north, leave from here. Almost every South Island itinerary we sell starts or ends in the city; the trick is simply to give it the evening and morning it deserves rather than treating it as a runway.
A day and an evening, timed
- Morning: the Botanic Gardens and a punt on the Avon, then Quake City for an hour that reframes everything else.
- Lunch: Riverside Market. Afternoon: the street art walk to New Regent Street, and the tram if the feet are done.
- Late afternoon: the gondola for the one view of plains, Alps and harbour. Evening: dinner in the centre, and an early night before the TranzAlpine at 8.15am or the drive to Tekapo.
Give Christchurch the evening and the morning, and the South Island trip starts a day earlier than it would have. The Coastal Pacific to Kaikoura and Picton runs from here every day from 1 September to 30 April, and the TranzAlpine west year round.
With a second day, Akaroa is the one. Ninety minutes over the crater rim of Banks Peninsula to a French-founded harbour village, a two hour cruise for Hector’s dolphins, the world’s smallest, met on most sailings, and back for dinner. It is the closest wildlife day to any big city in New Zealand, and the drive over the Summit Road is half of it.
Quick answers
Trips that fit
City, Mountains and Milford Sound Getaway
3 days across the South Island, starting and ending in Christchurch, fully escorted, so every day just happens. Strong on national parks.
10 Day Signature South Island
10 days across the South Island, round trip out of Christchurch, guided the whole way, luggage and logistics handled. Strong on guided coach tours.
Coastal Trails & Rails
10 days across the South Island, a loop from Christchurch, linking the great scenic rail journeys. Strong on adventure.
