Christchurch - Auckland flight. 9pm. dep. Packing for flights. Am. cloudy but clearing. Walked to town museum. V. good, explained French element. Drove to Lyttleton for lunch via scenic road & other winding roads. Spicy tom and lentil soup. Place v. grungy. Drove to airport.
For some reason neither of us took any photos at all on our final day in New Zealand. apart from these two at the Jucy offices at Christchurch airport.
Maybe we packed our stuff away ready to stow on the aircraft and were reluctant to undo all that careful packing. It's a shame really because we had an eventful day. For the past month, although we had been busy, it had been relaxed schedule. Apart from catching the ferry across the Cook Straights and the drive from Queenstown to Milford Sound in order to join a cruise which departed in the the mid-afternoon, we had no time pressures at all. Today was different, we needed to drop-off the car at Christchurch airport, catch the evening plane to Auckland then an onward overnight flight to Shanghai. It's only when you are faced with a scheduled existence how luxurious the times you have spent simply living moment by moment become. True, we had not wandered about aimlessly for the past month, we had stuck to an itinerary, all our accommodation pre-booked, but apart from that we travelled at our own pace, took time to stop and stare whenever we liked. It had been great, wonderful, and now it was coming to a close. I did feel somewhat melancholy as I loaded the bags into the boot for the last time, but felt strengthened too. We have to come back here again, we agreed.
Though we had a deadline to meet, our flight to Auckland was not ntil 9pm, so in reality once we had checked-out of the apartment we found ourselves at a bit of a loose end. We visited Akaroa's small museum. It was well designed and informative with sections covering the Polynesian settlement of the area and subsequent history of the local Ngā Taeng people. The biggest section covered the 'French connection' but equally interesting were the panels explaining how botanical research in the area in the late nineteenth century had contributed to the understanding the chronology of continental drift by comparing the flora found hereabouts with plants from New South Wales.
We considered visiting Christchurch, but the thought of wandering around a city was not appealing so we opted to take the back roads around the north coast of the Banks peninsular to Lyttelton. Our guidebook mentioned that the place had reinvented itself over the previous few years from being a workaday port into something of more bohemian with ethnic food joints and artsy cafes.
It was a good thing we had time on our hands, the 45 mile trip took almost twice the time estimated on Google maps, partly this was the result of the road being even more wiggly than on the map, it was spectacular too, so we kept stopping to admire the view, then somewhere near Governors Bay I turned left instead of right and we ended up lost among Christchurch's outer suburbs. I was mid-afternoon before we reached Lyttelton..
We were expecting a cute little harbour, in fact Lyttelton has to be the South Islands's premier deep water port with extensive container handling facilities and a significant oil storage depot. It certainly was much bigger than Picton in the north or Greymouth on the west coast. The town centre is situated on the hill above the port with view of the green mountains that surround Wakeraupo, the local name for the long fjord more prosaically marked as 'Lyttelton Hbr.' on our road atlas. As you might expect from a busy port the main street was somewhat workaday, not unpleasant but utilitarian and quite dilapidated. I suspect this was the case even before the destruction wreaked by the earthquake in 2011, now the boarded-up buildings, vacant lots and graffiti daubed hoardings added a slightly post-apocalyptic vibe to the down at heel atmosphere.
I think it is this slightly grungy, post-industrial look that is driving the place's recovery. Just as the warehouse sprawl of Hackney Wick in East London is slowly becoming gentrified by hipster in-comers, I could see the same happening in Lyttelton.
Burgeoning hipsterdom certainly defined the place we chose for lunch.. The Lyttelton Coffee Company is located in a small industrial building in dating from twenties. It opened in 2007 but was totally wrecked by the earthquake. Helped by local volunteers it was repaired, re-designed and reopened within six months. The interior is airy and open plan, antique industrial sized coffee grinders are placed like sculptures among the tables. It is a monument to New Zealand's obsession with great coffee, the only place on the planet that might compete with Italy as somewhere that regards a perfectly made espresso as the pinnacle of human endeavour.
The lunch menu is what back in the UK might be regarded as 'old school veggie', but the place's commitment to home grown organic produce and foraging gives it a more contemporary feel. It is distinctly alternative, glancing around at the nearby tables central casting was fully represented, a stick-thin twentysomething with a shaved head wafting past in loose fitting ethnically patterned frock and Doc Martens, her hipster boyfriend in a big checky jacket sported a prophetic beard, nearby a long haired biker in faded double denim, his shirt sleeves raggedly cut back to reveal exuberant tattoos, and us, the inevitable over-aged grey haired backpackers. There was a small terrace at the back overlooking the dockside cranes. We opted to eat there because there is always something going on in a port.
We opted for soup, spicy tomato. It was very very spicy. Gill is not one to hold back on the chilli but even she commented on its searing heat. it was the sort of dish that after the first few mouthfuls provoked head to foot perspiration. So hot that we were unable to judge whether the coffee really was one of the best to be found on the South Island as a Tripadvisor reviewer had intimated.
Time to head for Christchurch airport. We returned our trusty Fiat Punto to the Jucy depot, not before patting the bonnet and saying thank you. Off we trotted to the terminal, not exactly a hike, but well over a mile away and somewhat hard going with a small rucksack each and trundling wheelie holdalls along behind us. Christchurch airport is compact but busy. The passengers were predominantly backpackers, the majority under thirty. Most of them glowed with health and looked super fit, reflecting the South Island's reputation as the world centre of adventure sports. I felt elderly just looking at them.
The terminal had come-up with a neat millennial solution to the problem of what to do with crowds of people hanging about waiting for connecting flights. What happens usually in airports is that people in-transit snooze all over the place, occupying benches, comatose upright on uncomfortable departure lounge seats or flat out on the floor. What the Christchurch airport management had done, realising that the bulk of their customers were young, was to reduce the number of seats and provide piles of beanie bags here and there. When the place was quiet they were stacked up, if it filled up people simply helped themselvesand made themselves comfortable. A classic Kiwi solution, ingenious, sociable, simple and cheap!
We happily joined the millennials on the floor cushions. We had a five hour wait ahead of us. In fact it turned out to be longer, around 7.30pm a message flashed up on the arrivals board announcing that bad weather in the North Island had delayed the flight from Auckland by 45 minutes. Since this aircraft was the one we were meant to depart on at 9pm. to connect with the overnight service between New Zealand and Shanghai any delay would be a problem. We only had 50 minutes in Auckland to transfer between the domestic and international terminals. The way things were looking it seemed we were destined to miss our flight.
In fact by the time we took-off we were well over an hour behind schedule. These things happen, we agreed, consoling ourselves that it get would sorted out somehow even though it might result in us having one day less in Shanghai than planned. About 40 minutes before we were due to land the Captain announced that the flight to Shanghai was being held at Auckland until we arrived, but onward passengers would need to proceed immediately to passport control on landing. On arrival we were ushered off the plane first, a group of two dozen or so. The majority were backpackers but there were four older couples, three Chinese and us. The millennials sprinted for the international departure gate.. The rest of us hurried along behind at a high speed waddle traversing the terminal's retail sprawl like a gaggle of over-wound clockwork penguins. Everyone made it. Breathlessly we shuffled into cabin, the second last couple to board; in serried rows stretching back towards the tail 300 pairs of eyes regarded us balefully. So, these were the renegades from Christchurch who made us sit on the tarmac for over an hour, I sensed them thinking.
It had been a long, exhausting day. The only up-side was I felt exhausted, for once I slept well on an overnight long-haul flight. At least I must have done for I have no re-collection at all between joining the plane at Auckland and standing in line to collect a short stay visa form from an unsmiling official at Shanghai Pudong's glitzy international terminal.
