Christchurch

---

Slept in a little but decided to get going and to check out Christchurch. Absolutely stunning day, and all was well with the world.

Armed with my map I wondered acroos the main Cathedral square and up the main Mall shopping presinct. This didnt take very long. So I decided to follow the tram line since there was only one doing a loop and Id guess that it would take me through all the scenic places in christchurch. Just had to make sure I dodnt get run over by the Tram.

Walked past the Old University buildings, lovely, felt like being back in Oxford. Unlike the other cities in New Zealand Chrisrchurch has still managed to retain all of its old victorian timber buildings and the patks are far nicer.

Stopped to watch people punting down the river then went through picturesque Regent street and Victoria park. Found a statue of robert Scott (Second man to the south pole, just beaten, died on the return journey) which was interesting as he was a very patriotic englishman.

after an hour and a half Id essentially done the loop and seen everything. So I had lunch down the mall.

Went out later to buy a t-shirt souvener and on the way out I bumped into Neil (who was checking out bar opening times to watch the cricket world cup) He told me that the Canterbury museum was worth doing and was free. So I spent an hour and a half in there. I t was good. Sort of a scaled down version of the Te Papa in Wellington. The Antartic expo was the best bit.

Now being only 3:00 I decided to go to the cinema. Saw Letters from Iwo Jima (not much else on) and it proved to be agood choice. Really great film, probably the most important war film to have come out of hollywood in the last ten years (down to the human elements of war and being done from the japanese perspective it forces out the normal American Patriotic overkill you get in more recent war films - dont get me started on saving private ryan!).

It was about 6:00 wehn I left the cinema and despite the sun being out it had gotten quite cool.

Wen back to the hostel and spent time on the internet. Then cooked some food watched a bit of TV then read before going to sleep.

---

Photos

katey and I
Its a small world.

Comments

[Devs]

Giant?
Have you grown about two foot on your trip? Or have you been hanging out with midgets?