Lovely day in Christchurch

ChCh

Sunday 2 December, lots of people about but not so much car traffic. John dropped me off at the Botanic Garden on his way to the airport to deal with the rental car and I strolled around marveling at the trees for an hour and a half. I began to wonder if the world’s climate was like NZ’s is now when all these temperate climate trees first evolved, because they grow so well here, no matter where they are from. So many huge trees, and none of them older than 140 years—the very first tree planted in the garden was in 1868, and it is an enormous red oak, must spread sixty or seventy feet in all directions, and almost as tall as wide. There is an avenue of giant sequoias (common name for them here is “big tree”—pretty accurate!) that are the biggest I have ever seen outside of the really old ones in Sequoia Nat. Park in California (we’ve been seeing giant sequoias throughout NZ in parks and beside roads). Trunks easily 8 feet in diameter, trees over 100 feet tall, and none of them could be more than 140 years or so. Douglas firs, too that are really big. Atlas cedars, Monterey cypress, coast redwoods (young and straight, not showing their ultimate potential, similar to young kauris here) hornbeams, horse chestnuts, northern beech, Dutch and Scottish elm trees, etc etc—all bigger than any I have ever seen before. The phrase “in the presence of trees” kept running through my head, and I felt energized just walking around them. I wanted to kiss them all but was pretty self-conscious about that (I could just see the headline--“mad American woman taken to asylum after indecent encounter in garden”).

I was really aiming for the NZ section of the garden, still determined to learn some of these local trees and other plants better. There were so few labels in that section, grrrr, I started to growl. Dozens of hebes and coprosmas, but all these different podocarps, what are their names??? You kind of have to be a plant nut to understand my frustration. I guess they figure everyone knows the local flora. There was a section where there were three varieties of native beech planted together and labeled, so I was able to compare them.

After that John and I together went to a bookshop for an hour or so (our favorite date, a bookshop) and then to the Christchurch Arts Centre, where we shopped for the first time since arriving. We actually bought a painting, kind of a bold move. Two fellows sitting on a typical cottage porch in the late afternoon, low sun on their legs. One is holding a beer bottle, and both are smiling. You can see the low evening sunlight on their legs but their face are more in shadow. It just seemed to capture something about kiwis and kiwidom for us—the open, free feeling that seems to pervade this place and the people.

I mentioned to John at lunch something that I’ve been aware of in myself—a feeling of freedom around asking people how things work here, what all the different names for coffee drinks mean (except for the basic Italian names, they have come up with their own), what different kinds of beer taste like, how to operate the pay phones, simple things that are handled differently in different countries. At the start of the trip we were having a lot of trouble using our debit card, and people were completely okay with it, running tickets through in several different ways until one worked, patient—like we were in this “together”, even if there was a line of people behind us waiting to pay. There have been times in England or France or America when if I was ignorant about this kind of thing I would be likely to encounter impatience or some other negative response and end up feeling like a yokel, a bumpkin, or just being angry and making judgments all over the place in return—but that is never the case here. People just inform me without any kind of loading. Even in places that look very hip and are full of thin beautiful young people sipping expensive drinks (not that we spend much time in such places!) we have yet to encounter a supercilious attitude. (Have seen lots of young people looking goth or punk and pierced and tattooed, with discontented looks on their faces, only in cities though, Christchurch seeming to have the largest number of them.) “Airs and graces” do not seem to exist here. As a result it feels more democratic than any place I’ve ever been. We have seen homeless people in Christchurch, but only a few, and only men.

We weren’t looking forward to coming to Christchurch because we got so very slowed down and relaxed in Fiordland and the Catlins that a city of any size seemed like too much energy to take. The first couple days in Dunedin we felt as if we had come off a long retreat and had a hard time re-entering the busy-ness of life so quickly. But we had a great day today (2 Dec), strolling the arts center and the city art gallery, which is very nice, some interesting stuff. It’s almost brand new, just opened in 03. Interesting building.

The physical Englishness of Christchurch is so self-conscious, at times it feels like a stage set. Oxford Crescent, Cambridge Crescent, most of the streets named after English towns—or colonial cities (Colombo, Madras, Barbados). The gothic style cathedral, the college buildings in Edwardian and Victorian styles. The river that meanders through town is the Avon and they actually wear straw boaters and punt on it, just like on the Cam! The central business district, around the Cathedral Square, is all modern buildings and sort of tacky—reminded me of King’s Cross in London, English in an entirely different way from the stately college buildings. The square doesn’t have the open feeling of a square in an English or European city. The cathedral is almost the only English-looking building there, the rest pretty generic office blocks. It’s not exactly a great public space. But further to the west at the arts centre and the gallery (museum) and the big park/garden area, it’s really lovely.

We have one week left in the South Island, and we plan to spend it almost entirely in the countryside, on the coast or in the mountains. But tomorrow morning we’ll first go to Smith’s books, three floors of used books (hoping to find some local natural history that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, did I mention the cost of books here, yikes, I hope they have good libraries!) and back to the botanic garden for another stroll. We pick up a different car tomorrow and then we’ll be off North, probably next stop Kaikoura for whale watching or something like that, plus cliff walks and plain relaxing.