Page 5 of 5
Christchurch, New Zealand
All that you can't leave behind
Home to a lively arts scene and a certain fetish for all things British, Christchurch is much more of a Queen's town than Queenstown (conversely, you're more likely to hear "Christ! Church!" in Queenstown as your tandem glider heads out of control toward a local steeple). This is Cathedral Square, Christchurch's geographical center, a square with a cathedral and a needlessly tall, not especially interesting modern sculpture.
Due to various scheduling quirks and the basic geography of New Zealand's incomparable South Island, I visited Christchurch on three separate and distinct occasions. Each visit was totally different, experiencing multiple facets of a multiple faceted town. This is from the middle visit, the bed and breakfast and garden visit, where springtime in Christchurch often proved as gracious as imagined.
Punting on the (Avon) oh please do come they say. As small and hard to see in this picture as it is quaint, the Avon River meanders about central Christchurch, far too shallow for anything but punting, as the hard-to-see guy with the pole suggests.
On a completely different trip to Christchurch, I had enough time to visit the International Antarctic Centre, a kind of welcome center for a continent not all that far away, Christchurch is considered the closest major city to Antarctica and is often the place where supply trips and rescue missions originate, so there is some legitimacy to have the center, er, I mean centre here.
Inside you can learn all about Antarctica- it’s big and cold according to what’s in the centre. And to drive home the cold part, they have a room at Antarctica temperature that you can go inside and then quickly leave, unlike the real Antarctica.
Three hours west of the east coast lies the small outpost of Arthur's Pass, on the divide, in the mountains, surrounded by waterfalls and forest as it cowers beneath spectacular glacial peaks. A great base for day hikes, it is reachable from Christchurch on the spectacular Tranz Alpine Train, self proclaimed to be one of the world's most scenic train rides. The Arthur's Pass experience can be especially spectacular and rewarding, except when your time there is met by a cold, harsh rain and equally harsh wind, your skin red from the rain pelting you at an unpleasant 45 degrees, your Gore-Tex outer shell slowly caving into the cold, into the rain, into the wind. It is then you realize that other than planned but now impossible day hikes there is absolutely nothing else to do in Arthur's Pass other than waiting to board another train for the spectacular ride back to Christchurch.
New Zealand's largest city, where the America's Cup is taken seriously and the balance of the populous hopefully realizes just how lucky they are, is really not the best place for a tourist. There's just not much to do other than buy some kick ass rugby shirts, visit a few moderately interesting museums, try to figure out a legitimate reason to stay in New Zealand and visit this place, Auckland's star attraction and the tallest structure in the Southern Hemisphere (take that, South America and most of Africa), its Sky Tower. Not as tall as Toronto's CN Tower or as ignored as Sydney's similar Tower, Auckland's tower still has its thrills, its moments where a see through floor could briefly fool even the most tired of travelers, even one time bridge jumpers who foolishly claim that they have absolutely no issues with heights far more excessive than this.
One of the last of the New Zealand slides, where an all consuming dusk greets the Sky Tower as seen from my extraordinarily small but centrally located hotel room.
The International Date Line can do wacky things when tested. After leaving Auckland's deserving International Airport at a reasonable 6PM on Friday and spending just over thirteen hours in an Air New Zealand plane, I found myself standing before a stressed US Custom official at 8AM that same Friday in Los Angeles, watching silently as my luggage was thoroughly searched yet again. So, at 11AM Friday I was either on Queen Street in Auckland, searching madly for that one missing Triple J CD I arbitrarily decided I so desperately wanted, or I was here, standing high above Brentwood in the hard to define courtyard at the Getty Center, listening to a guide desperately trying to explain away an arbitrarily designed curve as anything but arbitrary.
This, as already (partially) explained, is the reflection of the Getty Center's interior courtyard, probably the only Richard Meier designed building(s) that could not accurately be described as truly soulless.
On a generally deserted friday afternoon downtown, just one block from the Los Angeles Subway's Red Line and two blocks from Rafael Moneo's nicer than expected unfinished cathedral is celebrated local architect Frank Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall. Obviously still under construction, this design well predates Bilbao and was previously known as a personal favorite. In person, not finished, I remain a little unsure. I expect another visit, some time from now when I will walk its halls, wander about its lobby, maybe even stay for a performance, then quickly make rash judgmental decisions about how successful it is only to change them later.
While not really magic or a mountain, Six Flags Magic Mountain contained the prime reason I included a lengthy stopover in Los Angeles. A prototype roller coaster named X, a coaster which excited me to the point that I would describe it to anyone I saw, often using confusing props and hand gestures as many of you could easily attest. Happily buying into the hype, I believed it was to be the most amazing coaster experience I could ever have or hope to have, it would change my life, even somehow change the world itself. Unfortunately it did not, it was not open and held no promise of opening as promised, apparently the prototype ride was injuring passengers on test runs. Still I held out hope that it would somehow open that day, my disappointment only mitigated by views such as this, the legendary Fort Le John, public restrooms cowering under the shadow of Goliath, also closed for technical reasons.
Here at Los Angeles International Airport (also known as LAX), there is only one continent (and no more oceans) left to cross on this JFK —> LHR —> KWI —> BKK, then BKK —> REP, then PNH —> KUL —> MEL —> ADL, then ADL —> ASP, then ASP —> SYD, then SYD —> CHC —> ZQN, then ZQN —> CHC, then CHC —> AKL, then AKL —> LAX, then (finally) LAX —> LAS —> JFK route.
It has been well over two months since I was gone, as I write I sometimes find it hard to remember details yet hard to forget an aching feeling that I should still be there, or at least not here. I have always found the only painful thing to traveling is the harsh, unavoidable reality of returning.
That said, it's back to Milford Sound for one last picture- the mountains, fjords and waterfalls slip into memory as the boat retreats from those spectacular, haunted waters.
Here we go round again
If you joined this trip late and want the full experience of visiting Angkor Wat, Tonle Sap, Phnom Penh, Bangkok, Kangaroo Island, Uluru, Sydney, Queenstown, the Milford Track, Christchurch, Auckland and Los Angeles (or if you want to keep circling the globe forever and ever and ever), just click below to go on back to Cambodia and see where this month long trip started.
