Day 97

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The forecast for the weekend was for bright sunshine and high temperatures, but it was distinctly overcast when we woke in the morning, and so after a bit of breakfast, we decided today wasn’t the best day to head to the beach, so we drove into the town centre and parked up and then went off to do the touristy stuff. We were stood right by a tram stop when one arrived, so we jumped on and off we went. The tram itself does a small loop around the key sights in downtown Christchurch, it has 11 stops and your ticket is valid for 2 consecutive days, you can jump on and off at any of the stops, and there are trams every 8-12 minutes, so it’s a pretty good way of getting to see whats around that you want to go and see next. Stop 1, Cathedral square, with a market and so on was our first stop, we had a coffee and worked out what we wanted to do. After that, it was back on for a loop back to stop 10, New Regent St, which was a street with mostly cafes on it, so that was lunch sorted. From there, we know that stop 3 had the Art Gallery, Stop 4 the Art Centre with its craft market, stop 6 was Hagley Park where they were busily setting up some sort of open air concert, and so we had a few more stops as we went around exploring. The Art Gallery was very good, some very interesting exhibits including one in reception which was two giant poles slowly turning around and, when they get close to parallel, there was a metal plate on the wall and they’d generate some sort of high voltage and arc out against the metal, so you’d hear the buzz of the power being generated, then the crack and buzz of it flowing into the metal, before the crack of the spark stopping when the distance between the two got too much. Very odd noise for an art gallery. The art itself was the usual mix of odd things, traditional paintings, odd sculpture and video based. Worth a look, but we’d only 45 minutes until the gallery closed, so we’ll go back tomorrow to finish off. After that, we decided that we wanted to go punting on the river, something I’d never done before, and we ended up with Martin from the North East of England as our punter, having studied in Cambridge he was well qualified to do the job, too! So, that was a pleasant half hour looking at the city in a different way. After that, we decided, having found out a bit more about it, that the free concert at Hagley Park would be worth a look, so we got a tram back to our car park, and drove, as it turns up, about 500m up the road before we were fortunate enough to find street parking, and then we wandered to the park, where there were thousands and thousands of people congregating. We pulled up a bit of turf and took our seats, dinner was from one of the many food stalls around the perimeter, and we settled back for a couple of hours of classical music, army bands, choral works and some theatrical productions, before the entire event ended with an arrangement of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody with fireworks! From there we headed home exhausted, having had a really good day out in town. Tomorrow, more of the same, and heading to the beach hopefully if the weather is good.

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