The Garden City
Christchurch is the gateway to the South Island: a flat city of parks and gardens on the Avon River, rebuilt after the earthquakes of 2010 and 2011 with new architecture, laneways and street art. The TranzAlpine train, Akaroa and Kaikōura start from here.
Christchurch was founded in 1850 by the Canterbury Association as a planned Anglican settlement, and its early builders gave it Gothic stone buildings, a cathedral square and a river they named the Avon. Hagley Park and the Botanic Gardens, laid out in the nineteenth century, earned it the name Garden City.
The Māori name Ōtautahi refers to a seasonal settlement of Ngāi Tahu on the banks of the river.
Earthquakes in September 2010 and February 2011 destroyed much of the old centre and took 185 lives. The rebuilding has given the city a new face: Te Pae convention centre, Tūranga library, the Riverside Market, the Margaret Mahy playground and long riverside promenades.
The Transitional Cathedral, built partly of cardboard tubes by the Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, has become one of the city’s best-known sights.
The Avon River winds through the centre, and punts poled by guides in Edwardian dress glide past the Botanic Gardens. Heritage trams loop through the city, and New Regent Street keeps its 1930s pastel shopfronts.
Christchurch Airport is the main international gateway to the South Island. From the city, the TranzAlpine train crosses the Southern Alps to the West Coast, the Coastal Pacific runs north to Kaikōura, Akaroa is 90 minutes away on Banks Peninsula, and Lake Tekapo and Aoraki/Mount Cook are about three to four hours by road.
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