Marc's Blog: nz - A Week in Christchurch

π 2019-01-20 01:01 in Ntrips, Nz, Trips

This year's linux.conf.au was in Christchurch, so we went there and had a few extra days to look around. -

I started with Christchurch's Air Force Museum of New Zealand which was actually quite good:

After that, we went to Quake City which gives a good overview and explanation of the big earthquake they had more recently, but it was just one in a list of many over the centuries:

many quakes

stone buildings did not fare well, the church was heavily damaged

They have a nice river going across the city and botanical gardens, the avon:

Other city pictures:

8 years later, many buildings are still being fixed

They had a nice botanical garden next to the Christchurch's Canterbury Museum

After the botanical garden we had a good visit of the Christchurch's Canterbury Museum

Given that the cathedral was destroyed by the recent earthquake, the transitional cathedral is interesting:

Downtown is otherwise slowly being rebuilt:

A highlight was Willowbank Wildlife Reserve, lots of eager and hungry animals :)

this one got lost

the Keas are quite curious and hungry too if you have food :)

They then had a Maori show, was came from the heart but was not up to the same level than some nicer ones we've seen elsewhere, but it was still nice:

Various dances and demos they did for us:

Jennifer tried their dance, had a few issues with it :)

I'm not sure if I did better, I hope I did :)

And that was it for Willowbank Wildlife Reserve and Ko Tane Maori show and dinner.

During our time in Christchurch, we picked a day with nice weather, and took the Tranzalpine train coast to coast

We then had a nice dinner at Chillingworth Road Fine Dining Restaurant:

The next morning, we went to the Antarctic Center:

They also had an Art Gallery in a nice building:

A local attraction is the Christchurch Gondola, which wasn't bad, but it's a 30mn bus/shuttle ride away: it gives you an elevated view and the option of what looked like a not so stellar hike in high sun, so we ended up skipping that and only spent 1H to get the next shuttle back:

They have a back in time tunnel ride which was ok-ish:

We then had a bit of time left to go through a half hidden science museum: Rutherford's Den in the old university. It was actually quite good and I wish it had been easier to find so we would have scheduled more time for it.