Christchurch Trip Details

Driving in New Zealand

Driving in New Zealand (at least in south island) is one of the easiest tasks in the world. The only place where we had little bit of searching around to do was in Christchurch. With a good map you can you can negotiate even this with reasonable ease.
Driving on the left could pose problems initially (this is for the people coming from that part of the world where they drive on the wrong side of the road). Your wipers going off whenever you try to show an intend to turn and knocking your knuckles against the door whenever you want to change gears will constitute most of your problems. Even if you end up on the wrong side of the road after a turn, you have enough time to correct yourself. You will not be bumping into too many cars in this part of the world!
Most highways here have only two lanes. Which means that anyone moving an oversized load will hold up traffic - on both sides! We ran into a couple of people moving their houses on the Queestown-Dunedin route. We almost missed our train in Dunedin. Account for these sudden "slowdowns" in your planning.

Christchurch art gallery and museum (especially the stuffed birds section): You would need at least a day to give justice to this place. We had only a few hours to spare - woefully short.
Christchurch Cathedral and the adjoining square - quite a neat place to spend the evenings.

International Antartic Centre - An absolute waste of time, energy and money.
Willowbank wildlife centre - Apart from a very decent "kiwi" house, there aren't many species to engage you here.

For a veggie, the only dish that is authentic Kiwi and that you should not miss is a Pavlova.
You should not have any problems being a veggie in this part of the world.

We stayed at YHA almost throughout the trip. YHA in New Zealand are one of the best in the world - better than regular hotels in many other places on the planet. The YHA in Christchurch is conviniently located close to the Cathedral square and many other attractions.