Christchurch

Christchurch is like Adelaide. I was warned of this – not entirely disagreeable – fact by tourists in Queenstown (I was not told of the prohibitive costs of taxis though) and New Zealand's second-largest city entirely lived-up to the comparison (I am told that Adelaide is also, appropriately, its sister-city). Christchurch is also meant to be “the most English town outside of England”. I am not sure who comes up with these pithy monikers, but he's a bit hit-and-miss: other than having borrowed pretty much every place-name from the Old Country, it struck me as being in no way Albion-like: the grid-streets, the explicitly-Australianesque terraces of houses and shops, the non-English modern architecture, the most-un-English river (called Avon, but far more picturesque than its name-sake – and more cleanly so than the Cherwell or the Cam, which both have stretches of overgrown dankness, whereas the antipodean Avon contends itself with a few well-spaced willows and other such delights. It's picture-book-England, but not England as-is).
Which is not to say that it isn't a lovely town – it has a lovely gallery (pretty collection of pre- 19th century art: nothing headline grabbing, no Caravaggios or even Cimabues here – but then one exepcts none – but some nice European landscapes and New Zealand portraits and, occasionally, vice versa), some superb restaurants (the Dryden-recommended Cookn' with Gas, despite its demented name, was a highlight) and even the odd nice shop (look up Plume if you're ever there – a mix of the New Zealand-designed Nom*d and Zambesi with the more familiar though surprisingly leftfield Dries van Noten and Mrtin Margiela; why the Antwerpers should sell particularly well here is a bit of a mystery). The only gay club in the city is typically provincial, in a “where everybody knows everybody's name – and what they look like naked” way.
I also spent a day doing the Tranz Alpine, a train that crosses the local Alps – and, indeed, the South Island (one soon gets the sense that, to the extent that people were exiled here, it was for lack of imagination more than anything else) daily, first from East to West and then, an hour later, the other way. The terminals are less remarkable (especially Greymouth, on the appropriately named River Grey in the West) than the journey in the middle (“one of the top six train journeys in the world”, the phantom moniker-maker informs us; one assumes that “ten” was felt to be too many to be interesting and “three” too contentious to be believed). It is certainly picturesque, with valleys, gorges, rivers and hills aplenty. Again, sit-down tourism of the best kind.