The capital of the Canterbury region and South Island’s largest city, Christchurch is a genteel and lavishly green, with some of the finest gardens in the whole country. At the heart of the city, the Botanic Gardens is a jewel of woodlands and rose gardens that might have been transplanted from the home counties of England. At the northern end of the gardens is the Canterbury Museum. Of special interest here are the reconstruction of an early Christchurch streetscape and the display of Maori artefacts. The Antarctic exhibit charts the links between the city and the frozen continent, from the days of Captain Robert Scott to the recent past, when the US Antarctic bases used Christchurch as a forward supply depot.
Canterbury is one of the country’s major food producing regions, and Mavis Airey operates Taste Canterbury, personally escorted tours with this food and travel writer that offer an inside look at the regions finest wine and food producers. Taste farmhouse cheeses on the farm, award-winning wines at the vineyard, olives, nut products, salmon, ostrich, New Zealand honeys, tree-ripened fruit, boutique beers and handmade chocolates, all from the hands of their makers.
In close proximity to Otahuna Lodge, Otahuna Horse Riding offers horse treks on trails through native forest and over the Port Hills, with impressive panoramic views of the Canterbury Plains, the Southern Alps and Lake Ellesmere. Operated by Kate Tapley, Otahuna Horse Riding is a leading practitioner of natural horsemanship, which establishes a natural and sympathetic bond between horse and rider.
Golf comes naturally in these pristine green surroundings. There are 25 courses in the Christchurch area, with championship level play available at several internationally acclaimed resort courses including Clearwater, Russley, and Terrace Downs.
North of Christchurch, the town of Kaikoura is one of the best places in the world to see sperm whales, the largest toothed mammal. Another Kaikoura specialty is swimming with the playful, fast and sociable dusky dolphins that live in big pods just off the coast.
Christchurch is also one of the gateways to the Southern Alps, the tallest peaks in the country, a mountainous spine that rises to 3,500 metres within 50 kilometres of the west coast. These mountains are best seen from Mount Cook National Park or from the west coast, where some of the worlds most accessible glaciers slide down into rainforest..
Essential to the Christchurch experience is the half-day trip to the Banks Peninsula, the knobbly promontory that juts out to the south of Christchurch. Dominated by tall volcanic peaks, the peninsula’s coastline is indented with small bays where sheep graze almost to the water’s edge. Its main source of fame is the town of Akaroa, which was chosen as the site for a French colony in 1838. The first French settlers arrived in 1840, only to find that the British had already established sovereignty over New Zealand by the Treaty of Waitangi. Less than 10 years after it was founded, the French abandoned their attempt at colonisation, but the settlers remained and gradually intermarried with the local English community.
The best way to get the feel of the town is to walk along the waterfront from the lighthouse to Jubilee Park. The focus of historic interest is the Akaroa Museum, which has a display of Maori greenstone, and embroidery and dolls that date from the French days of the settlement. The museum also includes Maison Langlois-Eteveneaux, a two-roomed cottage built by an early French settler, which bears the imprint of his homeland in its architecture.
