Ali does Christchurch

---

Well my first day in Christchurch is drawing to a close and overall it's been quite chilled. I think this city is quite chilled nothing looks like it happens quickly but that's really what I needed today. 
After arriving so late last night and for the first time feeling the time shift, probably because I went straight to bed rather than seeing anything first, I woke up late and was all fuzzy. I'd meant to go up on the gondola and hire a bike to come back down. But I couldn't face it so after finding my hostel and dumping my stuff I wandered the streets and bought a tram ticket, I sat on the 1920's tram travelling round the city remembering the last time I took a tram, it was in Lisbon, the difference was that today I was a tourist, in Lisbon the trams where working, filled with people just trying to get home. A very noticable difference when today 90% of the voices on my tram were English. 
I've had some great beer today though, before I left Oz Sarah gave me a list of things to do in her home town, 2 of them were pubs and I've been to them both today, the food was mediocre but the beer was fantastic, after a week of fizzy lager some beer has been great the Ginger beer at Dux delux was absolutly fantastic well worth all the travelling. 
After my slightly boozy lunch I went to the botanical garden and just wandered around, stopped and read my book when I felt like it, looked at the trees and hunted for wildlife, it was a great way to spend the day. 
Tomorrow I'm aiming to do my gondola/mountain bike trip and possibly the Antarctic centre, but time will tell after that I'm going to get the train to the west coast and go see the glacier, which I'm really looking forwards to.   

---