Christchurch to Omarama, New Zealand (March 2018)

Kristin and I took a 2-week escorted bus tour in New Zealand with Grand Pacific. I flew from Korea and Kristin came from Chiang Mai to meet up in Auckland. There we flew together to Christchurch, the starting point for the tour.

Christchurch is the largest city and the Canterbury provincial capital of South Island with the population of 400,000 inhabitants. It is the oldest city built in 1856 first by the English and later by the Scottish. The Canterbury Province has Canterbury Plain with a lot of green pastures, naturally strong with sheep farming and lately dairy farming. New Zealand used to have 77 million sheep, but due to the growing dairy farming, the number of sheep New Zealand has has been reduced to approximately 30 million.

The city is sitting right on top of the fault time where Australian Plate and Pacific Plate meet. The city is gradually rifting apart by the earth plate movements.

As a result, Christchurch has experienced numerous earthquakes. In 2010, the city had a 7.1 magnitude earthquake at night and later a 6.4 magnitude during the daytime in 2011, which destroyed or taken down 200 buildings and 12,000 homes. NZD50 billion will be required to rebuild the city. This cost is funded by three insurance company, the government and EQC (Earthquake Commission).

Ironically, the earthquake damaged many churches but some casinos and brothels have remained intact. Hmmmm....

White chairs represent 185 victims who lost their lives dur to the earthquake.

Also, Christchurch Transitional Cathedral was established on the site where a church used to be until a permanent church is built.

We stopped over at Canterbury Museum that had a cute garden.

We had a lunch stop at Geraldine, a small town for tourism. We bought two wool hats for Amanda and Joyce.

Lake Tekapo is located at 700+ meter high, making it the highest lake in New Zealand. The lake scenery was breathtaking with the views of the snow capped mountains. Retirees are gathering into this small town. We saw a statue of Collie, the sheep dog and visited a cute church that had a beautiful view of the lake. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photos inside the church.

Lake Pukaki is one of the next layers of lakes, receiving water from Lake Tekapo through the channels. The lake gave us a breathtaking views of Mt. Cook, the highest in NZ. It was said that 22 meters of Mt. Cook fell off, probably due to an earthquake.

As we were passing through another small town, I had a Kodak moment to take a photo with a big trout.

Throughout the tour, we saw a lot of tiny motorhomes, like this, and it would have been fun to drive around New Zealand, probably drying up clothes on the vehicle...?

I saw a sign of the government's Zero Waste Strategy, but apparently it is not working. We saw a lot of cigarette butts on the ground. The tour guide Geof blamed Chinese tourists.

We also passed by Lake Ohau and Tekapo Military Camp for training soldiers that do not have winter, like Singapore. This place is also known for gliding. Geof said that 100 gliders gather and pack the mountain in this place close to Omarama.

We stayed in Omarama, a small and cute town. We saw the statue of Shrek, the Sheep. It was a sheep lost and later found with long uncut wool. When it was found, the sheep looked so big and became a celebrity. It eventually died due to old age. Obviously.