We decided to venture into the Canterbury Museum, whose 1869 -1876 building had caught our attention. Housing what is considered a comprehensive selection of Antarctic relics, not to mention several rooms dedicated to the Maori cultural inheritance and mounted birds from the Southern hemisphere seemed interesting enough for us to spend some hours in its premises, which we did.
The first gallery we explored was the one dedicated to the reconstruction of the life carried out by the first settlers to New Zealand, who are said to have to have arrived 800 years ago. There were some replicas of the flightless bird moa hunters are supposed to have encountered. I found the gallery to be very interesting due to its recreation approach.
We then moved onto a gallery extensively dedicated to poumanu and the importance it has had and it still has as an enduring treasure in the Maori culture, having had a thorough look at some of the poumanu crafted artefacts, including some hand weapons, which symbolise unity.
One of the last galleries we visited was the one dedicated to the Antarctic exploration, which again reconstructed some of the eventful scenarios therewith related. The bird section was equally interesting particularly because a lot of information related to some rare species and their nesting was provided.
Prior to having walked along the reconstruction of a 19th century Christchurch street and a collection of furniture dating back to the old days I still made it to the gallery featuring a fairly interesting Oriental Art collection. I was particularly fascinated by the ivory sculpted miniatures.
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