A few years ago I did the gap year thing and spent a year traveling around the world. One of the places I went was New Zealand, where I spent a month backpacking around the north and south islands, first on my own and then with a Contiki tour group (that is a whole other story by itself).
I’d come via Melbourne, and flew into the sleepy little citylet of Christchurch. It was an idyllic, open and olde worlde meets moderne little place filled with, it seemed to my touristy wide eyes, shiny happy people. I took to it immediately. From its latticed sculpture in the main square, to its rugby bar called The Holy Grail (you can always count on the Kiwis for dispassionate objectivity when it comes to rugby), to its very British grammar schools complete with blazers and boaters and its artsy cafes, I fell in love with the place.
My first day was spent wandering the city and exploring the Antarctica centre. Because where else would you learn about Antarctica?! Though truth be told the only part of that which had any lasting impact on me was the snow dome where you could don snow gear, play on the snow slide and experience a simulated snow storm. (Turns out, snow storms are not particularly fun...)
It was on this day that I also had the most delicious fish and chips of my life at a little shop by the river, and was given a cloud-like tiki from a really sweet Maori lady. I was replete.
I’d marveled at the cleanliness and idyllic perfection of the city all day, so I thought nothing of walking back to my hotel later that night. However, the clean street I’d walked down that morning had transformed itself as dusk had fallen.
Somehow, I’d managed to choose the one hotel on Hooker Lane. Standing, slouching and lolling about down this street was a series of prostitutes, all open for business at orderly 20 metre intervals.
At first I was passing pretty young girls in skimpy outfits and high heels and didn’t think overly much of it, but the further away I got from the city centre, the older the women got. Young miss things gave way to the matronly, the boiled chooks and then the elderly, and I knew I’d hit a whole new level when the women suddenly got younger. A closer look comfirmed that they were now also men in drag, and they too proceeded to get older and hairier as I continued my walk.
I began to wonder how this trend would continue, and envisaged the next horse-faced elderly man in a scraggly dress being followed by an actual horse in drag.
I reached my hotel before Hooker Lane ended, so I never did find out what the Ultimate Hooker Level looked like... sometimes I wish I’d just kept walking. Perhaps the street was so long it simply curved back in on itself and I would have found myself at the beginning of the selection again, like a sushi train...
Christchurch. City of Fishy Delights.
