Two years ago, October 15 2005, Melody and I became husband and wife. To celebrate, I planned a day of activities that would be near and dear to her heart. Not everything went as planned but the day was a smashing success nonetheless. I’m a little worried about next year’s anniversary… how am I going to top a day in New Zealand?

Orana Wildlife Park

To start, we headed out to Orana Wildlife Park. It’s like a zoo, but different. I’m not sure how it’s different, but it wasn’t called a zoo so I assume there was a reason.

The drive to the park took us around the Christchurch airport and into a more heavily wooded area. As we rounded one bend there was a brief break in the tree line and I positively squealed like a schoolgirl when I saw the snow-capped tips of the Southern Alps off in the distance. I’ve seen mountains a million times before, but seeing the sunlight glint off the white peaks was a treat just the same.

The wildlife park was decent. (I’m not much of a zoo person, but Mel liked it).  At least the weather was pleasant and there weren’t many other people there. The highlight of the day was the Lion Encounter: for an additional $15 per person you could tag along for an up-close, in-your-face view of the lion feeding. Basically, they loaded 20 people into a steel cage, hitched it up to a truck, and then drove into the lion enclosure. Then, a park worker inside the cage with us began tossing chunks of raw meat to four very large and very hungry lions. The lions were on all sides of the cage AND on top of it. Steel bars or not, it’s quite unnerving to have a ginormous battle-scarred lion crouch a foot above your head, look you in the eyes, and snarl. The message was very clearly “I’ll take this already dead stuff if I have to, but put just one pinky toe outside that cage and I’m having man-sushi tonight!”

It was an amazing experience. For me, the best part was when two of the lions had a mild disagreement over which of them was going to eat a certain piece of meat. We had quite the ringside seat as they sorted it out :)

Click here for Orana Wildlife Park photos. 

Punting in the Park and the Botanic Gardens

The Avon River runs right through the center of downtown Christchurch. Its banks are host to flora, fauna, park benches and the amazingly well-kept Botanic Gardens. The river isn’t deep at all and a number of companies offer guided "punts" down the river. A punt is a narrow wooden boat similar to a canoe. A punter stands on the back of the boat and uses a long wooden pole to propel and steer the boat for the benefit of its passengers.

This struck my fancy as a romantic thing to do before dinner, so I made a 4:30pm reservation. Unfortunately we were given flawed directions and by the time we finally found the push off place, it was too late. (The walk through Christchurch city center was pleasant though, so no biggie)

Since we missed the punt we strolled over to the Botanic Gardens and spent an hour or so wandering amongst them. The gardens were awesome… Christchurch makes Columbus look downright depressing.

And finally, dinner at Strawberry Fare

To finish off the night we had dinner at Strawberry Fare, a restaurant famous for its decadent desserts. For once I don’t have anything negative to say about the food… our dinners were fantastic, the wine was like "velvet" (in Mel’s words) and dessert was worth every calorie. Service was great, and I didn’t even have to tip! (There’s no tipping here… it rocks)

Tired, happy and with full bellies we made the 15 minute drive back to our B&B. We were soon asleep, both of us dreaming of an incredible day in an amazing city.

Click here for more Christchurch photos.

Next: we travel south to Lake Tekapo!