Discovering Christchurch by Double-Decker

Touring in an open-top bus

The big red open-top double-decker bus is hard to miss parked at the entrance of the Canterbury Museum. It seems like the rain (and the fact it’s pretty early in the morning for holidaymakers) has scared people from the tour, so we have the whole bus to ourselves: upstairs and downstairs!

As wise Wendy from the Mt Hutt Bunkhouse said only yesterday: “If you don’t like the weather in New Zealand, just wait 10 minutes.” That couldn’t be truer, as the rain stops just in time for us to go upstairs. Our guide, Ross, conveniently has a towel to wipe down the seats.

An earthquake city

From the get go, we can hear Ross speaking clearly on the mic as we set off for our tour around Christchurch’s inner city. Although we have walked around the Christchurch on previous visits, we are getting a huge insight into the city. As we stop at the crumbling remains of Christchurch Cathedral with parts of the roof completely collapsed, an entire wall broken away from the building, bricks in a pile on the floor, it is evident that this is still a reviving city. Christchurch experienced some pretty gnarly earthquakes, the most devastating being the 2011 measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale, that has turned much of the inner city into a building site. The cathedral was one of Christchurch’s main attractions and Ross explains to us why it is still in this state six years later.

Seeing the impact of Mother Nature

A reviving city

The sight of Christchurch’s cathedral, along with a few other destroyed heritage buildings, and a white chair memorial to the earthquake victims, represents an unfortunate past, but a lot of this tour is focussed on the rebuild – the revival of Christchurch city, which is pretty unique. Unlike many city tours with guides giving the same rehearsed speech that has been said for the past 50 years, Christchurch city provides the opportunity to talk about how a city can start again.

Ross points out where certain inner city precincts will be built, such as the entertainment and services. We also stop at sections of the city that have been beautifully restored, such as New Regent Street. The colourful buildings holding cafes and boutiques lining a street with a vintage-style tramway passing through holds charms of heritage style Christchurch used to have but with a modern twist. Nothing emphasises this more than the huge pieces of street art spray painted across entire walls of buildings, which have become a pretty famous feature of the new Christchurch.

Life in the retro bus lane

Our 50-minute inner city tour ends where it started, and we hop from one delightfully red double-decker bus to a proper beauty! Just like the ones you see in London, this red double-decker has the open section of the back of the bus where you can’t help but literally jump on! It even has “Piccadilly Circus” signed on the back.