Full Day Christchurch Garden Tour

Admire the beauty of Christchurch, New Zealand, nicknamed the Garden City, and its neighbouring areas from the comfort of a deluxe mini-van on a full day Christchurch Garden Tour to the Botanic Gardens and Lyttleton Harbour. After collecting you from your accommodation, we travel through Christchurch and around the city centre where reconstruction has been going on after the 2010/2011 earthquakes. Learn why the events happened, its impact on Christchurch, and the promising plans for the years to come.

We travel to Port Hills, a volcanic ridge that overlook Christchurch, and show you spectacular views of the city, the Lyttelton Harbour, the Canterbury Plains, and the Southern Alps in the distance. We descend into Lyttelton Harbour for a look around a private garden that has been thriving since 1865 and encounter a wonderful variety of exotic trees, camellias, shrub rhododendrons, and a fantastic selection of plants native to New Zealand.

A short journey over the crater rim, and we set foot in a 15-year-old private garden with a distinct New Zealand feel and a largely formal arrangement. Inspect the many plants native to New Zealand as well as hybrids of exotic varieties cultivated in the country, all planted within the evergreen borders of totara hedges. We then head back to Christchurch city where we break for a laidback lunch, and resume our tour at the Botanical Gardens where you’ll encounter some of New Zealand’s biggest, tallest or oldest exotic trees of their kind. Survey the thought-provoking sculptures, enchanting colours and memorial plantings that commemorate the country’s local and international history.

We will set foot into another public garden teeming with colour, history and tranquility if time allows. Finally, your guide will drive you back to your accommodation and wish you goodbye.