Chch

Apart from the late start, the train to Christchurch was uneventful, but it was the most kiwi thing I'd ever experienced.  New Zealand really does "punch above its weight" -- with only 4 million souls, it's 125th in terms of population but 52nd in terms of GDP.  This is accomplished by doing things slightly differently, using "number 8 wire" as the kiwis say.  So when it came to creating an "observation car" for its scenic train, it didn't go for a fancy carriage wrapped in glass.  No, it went for a freight car where they literally cut out holes for windows.

Stepping into the car, the wind and noise was horrific, and yet it was packed with people.  The train runs in winter and they warn people it gets freezing cold, but thankfully it was summer  We went through several tunnels and it was almost pitch black, but you could still see the walls less than a foot away.  And you know what?  It was just as cool as those fancy glass carriages.

The other very kiwi thing is that the train provided a brilliant audio commentary on the landscape and Maori history, but it wasn't on the whole time so there was a TV in the corner that showed the train's progress, and a green bar was displayed when the audio commentary was on.  So I'd take off my headset, then  twenty minutes later someone would see the green bar and I'd scramble to get my headset on only to catch the last two minutes of the commentary, with no idea what they were talking about.

We arrived at 9pm and my plan was to grab a taxi, but of course there were five of us and no taxi would fit all of our luggage, never mind us.  Thankfully there was a shuttle van, and he took us to the back of beyond before dropping us at our Airbnb.  It was actually quite nice -- the other three drops were in town, so we got to see a teaser of Christchurch.  The first impression was that it was flat -- built on the Canterbury plains, there wasn't a hill in sight.  The second impression was that it was quite large; the CBD (central business district) was significantly larger than Wellington's.  it was bounded on the west side by Hagley Park, which is bigger than Hyde Park in London, and only slightly smaller than Central Park in New York.  The third impression was that there was no nightlife at all.  Even at 9:30pm, and just after sundown, there was very little traffic and everything was very quiet.

But the biggest impression was that everybody rode Lime scooters.  If you're outside the US, you may not know what these are: Electric scooters that you can rent by the minute and leave anywhere you want.  In October, Christchurch and Auckland were the first two cities in the Asia Pacific region to get them.  (Presumably they skipped Wellington because the scooters don't do well on hills.)  Less than three months later, it seemed nobody in Christchurch was walking but they were all buzzing around silently.  The kids immediately wanted to try them out.

We got to the Airbnb and found six bags of groceries waiting for us -- I'd ordered them online before we left -- so we made a quick meal and went to bed.  I'd even asked the owners to leave us some milk so we we could have cereal in the morning.  Considering we got a 3-bed house with full kitchen and living room for about the same price as a hotel room, it was remarkable.  The only downside was that it was 5km (3 miles) outside of town, which was too far to walk, and the Lime scooters rarely made it out this far.  (We couldn't have used them anyway.)  There were too many of us to take a taxi or uber, but there was a regular bus service into down and for excursions I'd signed up to yoogo.

Zipcar hasn't come to New Zealand yet, so instead we have a couple of regional start-ups: yoogo in Christchurch, Mevo in Wellington, CityHop in Auckland.  (We also have "Roam," which is like Airbnb for cars.)  Yoogo had three advantages: No sign-up fee, all the vehicles were electric (so no fuel cost) and the daily rate was less than the cost of a car rental.  I expect the latter was because Christchurch was so busy, the car rental agencies had really jacked up their rates: It was $95/day for a yoogo and $105 for a rental car.

But the first day we didn't need a car, we just caught the bus into town.  We spent the entire day being tourists: We took a tram ride around town, checked out the cathedral, punted along the Avon, had ice cream at the Arts Centre and on New Regent St, did a little shopping and had lunch at Burgerfuel.  (This is one of our "go to" places in Wellington, so it may seem odd to go there on holiday, but keep in mind we have to cater for two vegetarian coeliacs. We'd looked at four cafes before choosing Burgerfuel.)

(I should note we don't go out very often, and in fact it had been so long that our 14-year-old ordered his regular children's burger, only to realise that he's grown significantly and that no longer fills him up!)

We enjoyed Christchurch so much that we didn't get back to the house until about 9pm.  I was shattered but my partner somehow had the energy to make dinner (a green curry with rice) and we ate it at 10pm, huddled around my laptop watching an episode of Doctor Who.