Honeymoon Day 7 - Christchurch

On Day 6 we took an Air New Zealand flight down to Christchurch to begin the south island leg of the trip. It was interesting flying domestic in NZ especially because of the security checkpoint. Many people in line were surprised it was "taking so long", because their flight was leaving in 30 minutes and they were still in line. Also, it was much more like security used to be in the US - no restrictions on liquids, no having to take clothes off or laptops out, just a scan of yourself and your bags.



The flight itself was pleasant, with some good mountain views, tea and pretzels (somehow this was the only place NZ had pretzels. They weren't in stores but they still served them on planes). Once we landed in Christchurch we got our next car, which, despite being an SUV, still couldn't fit both of our suitcases in the trunk, and checked out the city.
 

We had lunch at a pizza place in an area of town called Re:Start, which is a sort of walking mall area made out of shipping containers. A large earthquake hit Christchurch in 2011 and caused a devastating amount of damage to the city. Much of the city is still under reconstruction even today. The parts of the city that have been rebuilt though are quite nice, and there are lots of parks and gardens. We spent some time lazily watching the ducks at a nice river park after lunch.



The one thing that I wanted to see in Christchurch was the Cardboard Cathedral. After the earthquake caused irreparable damage to Christchurch cathedral, a Japanese architect was hired to design a temporary structure to use for concerts and civic events as well as religious ones. Eventually, they did decide to make it a permanent structure.


As the name suggests, the cathedral is built, in part, from cardboard - large cardboard tubes to be precise, which form the A-frame roof with the help of polycarbonate. Shipping containers were also used in the wall construction. It was a very neat place, quiet and contemplative like every church I've been to, and really inspirational. It was also quite beautiful in its simplicity, and though they didn't have a handbell choir, I did drop a coin in the box to help fund their new carrilon bell tower.


By the time we had made it back to the hotel, there wasn't a whole lot else we wanted to try to do, so we checked out the disc golf down the street for a nice relaxing afternoon of sun. This course was beautifully maintained and well marked (they even gave us a map at the aquatic center in the park). I'll leave you with some good pictures from the afternoon, leaving out those where Charlie had to go get his disc out of the small canal - whoops!





The baskets for all of the courses we visited in NZ were these curved-bottom ones made by RPM- the same NZ company who made the discs I bought while there.



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