A Day In Christchurch

This morning we awoke after a good night sleep to what looked to be a perfect day in Christchurch.  First order of business was a getting ourselves a big breakfast.  

We walked out to the restaurant here at Sudima, and found the host busily taking a room service order.  He was an incredibly friendly guy, and when we mentioned they looked pretty busy he said that yes, in fact they were really busy because staying here at Sudima currently are 40 Antarctic Researchers preparing for expeditions.  All 40 are isolating in their hotel rooms so as not to get sick prior to their voyage to Antartica, so they all are - of course - ordering room service for all meals.  Well talk about starting the day off with a completely unexpected type of coolness.  I had heard that many Antarctic expeditions launched from Christchurch but would never have guessed that at our hotel would be many of those researchers just days away from setting off to that frozen land!  

Breakfast was good, and immediately after picking up our rental car we headed for Margaret Mahy Playground in downtown Christchurch to burn off some of the boys energy reserves.  

I'm not sure what it is with New Zealand, but they just know how to make incredible playgrounds - and this may be the best we've seen yet - Reef & River were in Heaven!

The boys took on the extra wide slide together - with Reef sliding faster than River while they held hands making for a pretty funny descent.  Reef moved on to rockclimbing at the park, while River tried out various spinning elements.  Soon River was ready to reattempt the big wide slide with me, and we had a bit more success.  Reef meanwhile went off with Sharyl to zip on the "flying foxes" at the park.  

This though, was all a prelude to the boys favorite things, which they soon discovered.  For Reef it was the incredible three story tall corkscrewing tunnel slide.  He must have gone down it 20 times.  About the same time River discovered the "water park" with fountains you can run through, and a series of really cool water channels and little dams kids can open and close.  There were also buttons kids could push to turn on a big rush of water, which kept River fully engaged for over a half hour.

 

Being a New Zealand playground, where things are just done right, there were food trucks - so I grabbed a Mocha for myself and a Flat White (basically a Latte) for Sharyl as the boys continued to run wild.  

Eventually River got himself back on one of the little spinning elements, and though I was holding him steady with one hand, he fell off the side much more gently than many of his falls. But he must have caught the rounded metal edge with his nose on the way down because he came up with a gusher nosebleed.  So that ended the playground excursion for the day, though the boys clocked a solid 2 hours of fun.

River turned out to be just fine after a few minutes, though his shirt looked like he had been in a barroom brawl as it was covered in blood - and I had some blood on my shirt and pants from the event as well.  So it goes though.  

Off we went to Strawberry Fare, an incredible little restaurant that specializes in desserts.  Their lunch menu though turned out to be top notch, fresh baked sour dough, chicken Caesar salad, mushroom lemon and herb Risotto . . . we were stoked!

 River had fully worn himself out at the playground and passed out on the bench at our table the second we arrived, and stayed out until we loaded back into the car after lunch . . . so basically it was a peaceful lunch!  The food was so filling that Sharyl and I had no room for dessert - which is really unfortunate because more than half their menu is actually dessert items all made fresh in house.  I guess we'll just need to come back for dessert some day.

Next we headed to the Christchurch Gondola - just on the outskirts of the city, right near the water, the Christchurch Gondola takes you to a high ridge overlooking the port town of Lyttelton on the other side of the mountain. On our way up we spotted sheep all along the mountainside, and wandering on the road that people hike down from the top of the Gondola.  The Gondola was an impromptu decision, so we failed to bring our hiking backpack to carry River - and thus it turned out to just be a scenic stop at the top.  At the gift shop Sharyl picked up a new shirt for River which he changed into on the Gondola ride down, giving up his bloodstained shirt from the playground.

Next stop the Christchurch Transitional Cathedral.

Reef and River are passionate about cardboard box forts, and Reef is regularly adding to and modifying his box structures at home to suit his design vision of the moment.  So the Transitional Cathedral was a must visit.

Christchurch was struck by massive earthquakes in 2010 and in 2011.  The 2011 Earthquake significantly damaged the ChristChurch Cathedral which was home to the Anglican Diocese of Christchurch.  So the church hired a Japanese architect named Shigeru Ban to design a temporary cathedral for them.  The design drew on local resources, utilizing recycled newspaper to make giant cardboard tubes treated with a waterproof coating, inside them were placed local timber  for structural support.  Those giant cardboard tubes were set atop four shipping containers, which were converted into office spaces.  The result is a truly beautiful and utterly original take on a Cathedral, it is widely known as the Cardboard Cathedral. 

We were lucky enough to arrive just as the boys choir was completing some songs and a service was wrapping up.  After the service they locked up, but let us hang out inside and the priest talked with us for 10 minutes or so about the building.  He had been at the Church since 1980, and said he really enjoyed the open feeling and ample light the design let in.  They are proceeding with building a permanent Cathedral, but he hoped that the Cardboard Cathedral would be of use and service to the people of Christchurch in some way for many decades to come.

From the Cardboard Cathedral it was off to dinner.  We walked ten minutes to Smash Palace, a burger joint - which happens to also own a small brewery called Bodgie Beer.  The burgers and beer turned out to be a great way to end the day.  From there it was back to Sudima to get some rest before our first day on the road.