New Zealand Trips

Christchurch explorer

4 to 7 days

From the
New Zealand travel guide

Christchurch has that unusual mix of urban civility and wild abandon just beyond the doorstep. Spend a few days pinballing between downtown bars, shops, museums and galleries, then hit the road (Jack) and chase down some mountains, whales, lakes and forests on this 650-750km trail.

Winging in to Christchurch with a week or so up your sleeve, there’ll be plenty to keep you entertained, both urban and wild.

Hit the city running with a kick-ass coffee at a High St café, then a juddery circuit on the city’s tramway to assess the lay of the land. Jump off at the Arts Centre and have a sticky-beak around the galleries in the area. Other essentials to check off your list include the Canterbury Museum and the Christchurch Art Gallery, and don’t miss an evening session in the kooky bars in Lyttelton and restaurants in Sumner.

The Avon River cuts a lazy, inoffensive ribbon through town – check the flow in the Botanic Gardens or push off into the stream on a punt. Close down the day with some boozy wanderings around Poplar St and SOL Sq.

Swarm into the shops on High St, before chilling your bones at the International Antarctic Centre, or paddling a Maori canoe and tucking into a traditional Maori feast at Willowbank Wildlife Reserve.

Enough city already? Take a trip out of town for a ride on the gondola, then cruise out to the formerly volcanic Banks Peninsula – explore Francophile Akaroa with its wildlife-rich harbour, and the peninsula’s photogenic outer bays.

Spend a few nights on the rambling road: head a couple of hours north for some whale-watching and crayfishing in Kaikoura, wander west to Lake Tekapo and the snowy heights of Aoraki / Mt Cook, or south to check out the zany boulders at Moeraki (don’t miss dinner at Fleur’s Place).

by Charles Rawlings-Way, Lonely Planet author