We drove down the coast the two hours to Christ- church, and went up in the gondola that goes up to a high point, just where the Banks Peninsula starts. We had a great view of the city, northwards up the coast, down into valley to the port of Lyttelton on the other side, and towards the Banks Peninsula (remember from the first New Zealand blog - where Barrys Bay and Akaroa are). 
We stayed on the coast in New Brighton that night, and walked out on their long pier the next morning before heading to Lyttelton, through the tunnel at the base of the gondola. This is an operating port, so there were a few big container ships being loaded/offloaded, the waterfront was stacked with containers and lifts scurrying around moving them on and off the ships, and there were parking lots full of brand new cars, and tug boats moving things around in the water. Our destination in Lyttelton was the Time Ball. This is a remnant of navigation in the 1800's, before GPS and modern innovations in determining one's location on the open seas. This place was like a little castle, and on the top was a post with a large (2m diameter) sphere on it. At precisely one o'clock in the afternoon every day (the exact time was transmitted from Grenwich via Aukland) this ball was dropped. The ship captains could then set their clocks and from then on they could determine where they were on the open ocean, knowing that they had set their clocks to the correct time in Christchurch. Anyway, it was a very interesting tour, and something I hadn't hear of before, these Timeball stations. http://www.historic.org.nz/Timeball/indexTimeball.html
Back to Christchurch, we went to Canterbury Museum, which was just fantastic, and free, as many of these types of things (museums, art galleries, etc) are in Australia and New Zealand. As I said in another post, I often think that museums are just the same old thing, just with variations in local culture, but I am always pleasantly surprised with what can be displayed in a museum. This one had a lot of NZ (Maori) history, plus a replica of an historic Christchurch street, birds, geology, an interactive children's area, and a recreation of a couple's house from down Invercargill way where they had over 1500 polished paua shells, plus lots of kitschy souvenirs, in their livingroom. The shells and contents of the house have been donated to the museum, and the livingroom was recreated for the display. The paua shell is particular to NZ, and once polished is really beautiful, and used for whatever they can think of, especially in jewellery. http://www.canterburymuseum.com/
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