New Zealand

Days 1 and 2: Christchurch

Christchurch's international airport (CHC) is 10 km northwest of the city centre. Taxis and Uber both operate from arrivals; the journey takes 20 to 30 minutes depending on traffic. If you have a rental car booked for the South Island, collect it here on arrival; all the major operators have desks at the terminal. You will need the car from Day 3 onward.

The 2010 to 2012 earthquake sequence killed 185 people and destroyed or damaged roughly 80 percent of the central city. The rebuild that followed over the following decade was one of the most ambitious urban reconstruction projects in the Southern Hemisphere and it is genuinely interesting to walk through. The city is not a ruin; it is a finished modern city built on a destroyed Victorian one, and the tension between what was lost and what was built in its place is visible everywhere and worth paying attention to.

The Botanic Gardens are the single best thing in Christchurch and are free to enter. The 30-hectare gardens sit within Hagley Park on the banks of the Ōtākaro/Avon River and contain themed collections ranging from New Zealand native plants to a rose garden, water garden, herb garden and woodland walk. The daily free guided tour runs at 1:30 pm from the visitor centre and covers roughly 90 minutes; it is worth joining for the botanical context even if gardens are not normally your thing. The gardens open from dawn to dusk.

Punting on the Avon is the most enjoyable way to see the gardens and the rebuilt city simultaneously. Boats depart from the Antigua Boat Sheds on Cambridge Terrace, a heritage structure dating from 1882 that has operated continuously through the earthquake rebuild. Punting tours take approximately 30 minutes; kayaks and canoes are also available for self-guided paddles. The boat sheds also serve as a café.

The Canterbury Museum is free to enter and worth two to three hours: the "Christchurch Street" recreation of an early settler streetscape is one of the better museum exhibits in New Zealand, and the natural history and Māori taonga sections are substantial. The Quake City exhibition (separate entry, approximately NZD 20) covers the earthquakes themselves through survivor interviews, live footage from the day of the February 2011 event, and physical artefacts including liquefaction samples and collapsed building sections. It is confronting and well-made.

Cathedral Square remains a work in progress; the Christchurch Cathedral, badly damaged in 2011, is in the final stages of a painstaking restoration. The square itself is worth a walk through to understand the scale of the rebuilding effort even though it is not yet the civic centrepiece it once was. The nearby Tūranga central library, opened in 2018, is one of the most architecturally ambitious buildings in the rebuilt city and worth a look.

The street art circuit: the earthquake demolitions left enormous blank walls across the city. Artists were given access and what followed became one of the more significant outdoor art collections in the Southern Hemisphere. The Street Art Guide available at the visitor centre or through the Christchurch City Council website maps the major pieces with their locations and the artists' names. Walking this circuit takes two to three hours and can be combined with the cathedral and museum visit naturally.

For the ridgelines: the Cashmere Hills south of the city offer the best views over the Canterbury Plains and out to sea. Drive or bus to the Sign of the Kiwi café at the top of Dyers Pass Road (a heritage stone building dating from 1916, now a café, open daily) and walk east or west along the Summit Road for the full panorama. The walk along the Crater Rim Track from here gives a clear sense of the extinct volcanic landscape that formed these hills.