New Zealand Travelogue, Part Three: Otago Wildlife & Christchurch Citylife
New Zealand Travelogue, Part Three: Otago Wildlife & Christchurch Citylife
My second day in Dunedin started out with some much-needed rest and relaxation. I had been going non-stop with little rest and early mornings for the two days that comprised my journey to Aotearoa New Zealand, so it was nice to sleep in and take it easy. In the afternoon, I went on a tour of the Otago Peninsula with Elm Wildlife Tours that highlighted bird and sea life much more prominently than I expected. I had thought it would be more about scenic landscapes, how nice to have scenic landscapes that are also full of life!
I’ve never been much into birdwatching because my vision isn’t very good; had I known this would be a major component of the wildlife tour, I may not have signed up — presuming I wouldn’t be able to see the birds. However, with the help of binoculars and a guide adept at spotting and directing us towards various birds, I was able to see almost everything and it was really amazing to witness such a variety of birdlife, some endemic to New Zealand. I also enjoyed stories of the Moa, a large, now-extinct bird that used to wander around these lands.
Highlights included taking a boat out to an Albatross colony — seeing these long-winged birds for the first time in my life — as well as walking out to Allans Beach and coming upon an adult sea lion taking a snooze, entirely uninterested in our presence. The biggest highlight was seeing a penguin in the wild for the first time in my life. I may have seen some in captivity at zoos while growing up, but on this trip we saw a Yellow-Eyed Penguin up-close at a rehabilitation centre and another from a distance on the beach at Penguin Place Conservation Reserve. It is so much more fulfilling to see these animals in the wild than in a cage. I greatly enjoyed exploring and think photos are worth more than a thousand words in this case, so I will let them speak for themselves.
The tour concluded around 8pm and I was soon to bed after that, foregoing a compelling indie film screening in favor of sleep — I had to wake up at 5am the next day to begin my three-day journey North.
Friday morning I set out bright and early aboard the InterCity bus from Dunedin to Christchurch, a six and a half hour journey that was thankfully broken up with a comfort stop a third of the way in and half an hour for lunch after the second third. I was dreading being cooped up on a coach for six and a half hours, so the breaks were a welcome surprise and made the journey quite pleasant.
Part of my reasoning for taking ground, rather than air, transport was to see as much of the country as I could over the relatively short period of time I had to explore before beginning my residency in Auckland. The drive was quite scenic, but it wasn’t as novel as I had hoped for — consisting of landscapes similar to what I was familiar with in Scotland and Washington state. Some wild areas, but mostly fields of crops, sheep and cattle.
Upon arriving in Christchurch and walking the short distance to my hotel, I passed through the hip Riverside area of the city centre, full of large pedestrian walkways and loads of bars and restaurants. Because of the 2011 earthquake that took Christchurch by surprise and destroyed much of the city, almost all of the buildings in the city centre are newly built. It gives the place a very fresh cosmopolitan feel. Personally, I am more a fan of historic architecture, so I was less impressed with the structures but appreciated the resilience of a city destroyed and rebuilt.
I got a roaring good deal on a hotel, but when I arrived at the address I was very confused because it appeared to be a YMCA. Not ‘Hotel Give’ that I had booked. It turns out The Y re-branded a bit to appeal to a different market (like me). The renovations they had completed were nice, it was a really well-appointed accommodation, the problem was that since it was still mostly a YMCA hostel with very low prices, it was full of young party people. I had a comfortable private room, but felt like I was trapped in a college dorm. After dropping off my bags, I went back into the city centre to see what I could see with the limited time I had.
Wandering led me back to the hip riverside area I had passed through earlier, I felt out of place here in a very different way from how I felt out of place at The Y — in this case, I just felt way too uncool to be there. Lots of trendy places and trendy people, things I generally find repulsive. However, searching on Google Maps showed anywhere else I wanted to go would not be within walking distance and I was not up for venturing too far out.
I ended up at Riverside Market, a really interesting business concept consisting of a large open space with stalls for various vendors — like a food hall, but the stalls were only about a third of the size as the ones you would find in a traditional food hall. So there was a lot of variety packed into a small place. I was a tad overwhelmed by the prices, but ended up finding a good deal on a couple slices of pizza.
While enjoying my slices, I started talking with the people sitting next to me — talking with locals was my main reason for venturing out — and learned a few interesting things from them. Firstly, that Christchurch is a surprisingly affordable place to live. An illustrator I met said that many artists and creative folks were moving down from Auckland and Wellington because of the cultural scene and affordability. The two always seem to unsurprisingly go hand-in-hand, but I was a bit surprised since Christchurch actually has a larger population (about 382,000) than Wellington (about 212,000). The difference must have more to do with Wellington being the capitol and more of a major port and business hub than Christchurch. The illustrator also told me about XCHC, a creative co-working space and art gallery that reminded me a bit of the CCA in Glasgow, a place for art much more vibrant than traditional galleries and museums (where art goes to die).
I was disappointed that I didn’t have time to engage more with the cultural scene in Christchurch, but at least I learned a bit about it and perhaps I will have a chance to return one day. After dinner, I made my way back to the hotel and was grateful that the noisy youth had quieted down by 10pm and I was able to get some rest before making another early start the next morning.