The Temptations of Christchurch (Feb. 23 – 25)

Christchurch, our next destination, is a pretty big city, the largest in NZ’s South Island as a matter of fact. That’s good news for us, as in the larger cities we’ve usually been able to find a Couchsurfer to crash with for a few days. We got lucky again in Christchurch (or Chch, as it’s inevitably abbreviated here) as Tony, a signwriter in his late 30’s, agreed to put us up in his house over the weekend.

Cathedral Square in Christchurch

Tony was another great Couchsurfing host; he was happy to show us around the city, and we got together for several meals. On our first night at Tony’s, his mother and aunt stopped by for dinner and some Trivial Pursuit. Tony turned out to be a very good cook (a useful bachelor skill), and the game was good fun as well. His mother and aunt are two spunky ladies; their banter was unstoppable, and pretty funny to boot. In the end Tony’s mom ended up winning, though to be fair it’s tough for us Yanks to play the New Zealand version of the game when we don’t know much about famous cricketers, Australasian geography, or which NZ politician accused a US senator of having “uranium on his breath.” (Note: we now know that was David Longey, in case that comes up for you in the future)

Tony and his friend Carrie at our Kiwi barbecue

Still, good times, and Tony and I were up late that night going through my MP3 collection to put on his computer. He mentioned he was putting together a playlist for his upcoming birthday (we won’t say which one, but it’s a biggie…) so I hooked him up with a bunch of music. It felt good to be able to give something back to Tony for allowing us to crash his couch, even if your average copyright lawyer wouldn’t give it his blessing. Tony ended up spending several hours that weekend cataloguing and ripping his CDs to his computer; I’m afraid I may have created a bit of a monster there, hehe.

I suppose I should talk a bit about Chch. As its name implies, the city has an abundance of churches, seemingly on every other street corner, and was founded by the Canterbury Pilgrims. The city is centered around Cathedral Square, which is a really pretty city feature that also is a bit of a pain in the arse to drive around, especially with all the one-way streets in the city. Though on the positive side, we did end up seeing more of the city for that reason.

On our second day in the city, the weather remained crappy from the day before, so we decided to finally see the consummate New Zealand icon – the kiwi bird. We visited a small aquarium and kiwi house in the city center, where we were able to observe two female kiwis in their habitat. Kiwis are flightless, nocturnal, and live in burrows – this makes it very difficult to ever see kiwis in the wild. So for the price of NZ$14 each, we were able to cross the kiwi off our list of “must see” critters in New Zealand. We also took in the Art Gallery, and Becky got an excellent t-shirt featuring a Mickey Mouse/Maori painting from the gallery. We first saw the shirt in a magazine about New Zealand last year, and thought it was really cool, so we had to get to the gallery. Since it was at an art gallery, of course the price was a bit exorbitant, but Becky probably won’t end up buying herself any other NZ souvenir-type things, so I had to cajole her into buying one. I’m convinced she’ll thank me later.

I also ended up moving some product this weekend. A Chch restaurant had inquired about one of our ales, so I stopped by their establishment to discuss prices, promotions, and whatnot. The owner, Bruce, was a really enthusiastic guy, and we talked for awhile about their restaurant, NZ beers, and business; he’s energetic and a bit of an inspiration to talk to. He was also quite happy to recommend half a dozen other places that would probably be interested in Renaissance, and in a nice surprise, sent me back with a few extra NZ microbrews to try.

Andrew checking out the competitors - all in a day's work

I ended up stopping by one of the places he recommended that day, a wine and specialty beer store on the outskirts of town, and had a terrific meeting with the gents that owned the place. Long story short, they’ll also be carrying our products soon. Not a bad couple of hours for a neophyte Duff Man. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention that we got to The Twisted Hop, a great brewpub in Chch that does hand-pulled real ales – I now have the t-shirt to prove it. If you’re ever in Chch and you like beer, The Twisted Hop is a must-stop. After a busy day, we didn’t end up doing much that night, but we grabbed a couple of Hell pizzas with Tony and hung out at his place. We can highly recommend their Mordor pizza, but if someone tries to convince you to get extra chili peppers on a Mischief, make sure you have large quantities of beer around to put the fire out on your tongue.

Now that's what I call security!

On Sunday, the weather magically improved in Chch, so we checked out its famous Botanic Gardens. Owing to the country’s British heritage, Kiwis apparently love gardens. As far as gardens go, they were pretty nice, and were the right price, (i.e. free). Luckily, we were at the gardens while a Futuro exhibit was on. If you’ve been desperately searching for a house from the 70’s that people would mistake for a UFO, look no further. Though you might have trouble getting your hands on one, since they only produced about 100 in their brief history.

Good air and fertilizer makes the flowers grow tall in Christchurch

Tony also offered to take us for a spin in his 1971 Ford Fairlane, Shelly, on Sunday. With it being such a nice day, we were happy to have a local show us around, and so we headed off to Sumner, a great beach area outside of Chch where there were actually people on the beach! Seriously, that was probably about the third time that we’ve been on an NZ beach with more than a handful of people. We also got over to Lyttleton, a port town over the hills that was having a street festival, and then roared back through town before having a barbie back at Tony’s. All in all, a really good weekend in Chch, with good hospitality, good food, and even a spot of good weather. Cheers Tony!

Shelly is one flash car