Christchurch 1

Well, here we are in New Zealand, and we could be forgiven for thinking we were in England. Chestnut trees, the River Avon, punts on the river under the willows (with “genuine Edwardian punters” wearing straw boaters [hats]), roses in the front gardens --- and RAIN!! It’s also cold. We’ve been told that this has been the worst summer in years, and I actually got my long underwear out today, bought a pair of gloves at the market and we have made good use of our umbrellas. Christchurch is a lovely small town - we are staying at a Youth Hostel very close to the centre of town (the photo with the tram was taken just outside our hostel. The building you can see is part of what used to be the University and is now the most incredible arts centre). We have discovered that Youth Hostels tend to attract a rather different crowd than plain “hostels”. There has been a different, more pleasant, atmosphere at the Youth Hostels we have stayed at, they tend to be cleaner and quieter and the staff are more helpful. Getting around town is easy as Christchurch is fairly small and we can walk to pretty much everything. There is a tourist tram that runs in a circle through the main attractions - nothing like the trams that we rode in Melbourne which were genuine transport vehicles. There is also a free bus that does a figure 8 through the city and takes me to the grocery store. We’re planning to take a bus out of town so that we can go tramping (hiking) but will wait until the rain stops! We discovered when we arrived that the World Busking Festival was taking place all week, but we haven’t seen much due to the really dreadful weather.
Our first night here, we happened across a wonderful Irish pub called The Bog where there was a fantastic blues duo playing. They were incredibly talented - so much so that we stayed until they closed the pub!
We spent some of our second day here sorting out our communication technology! We had been assured in Australia that our cell phone and internet stick would work just fine in NZ. However, when we tried them, nothing happened and the NZ communication people told us that we needed to buy their stuff. So we are now on our third cell phone (remember the lost one in Queensland?) and our second internet stick. However, we are in contact with the outside world again.
We retreated to the Canterbury Museum on Friday to avoid the rain and I could see that John wasn’t that excited (especially given that all the children who were hoping to see the buskers had also been dragged to the Museum!) However, it really is a lovely place with an incredible range of exhibits - Japanese artifacts, a really good Antarctic exhibition, news reporters’ photographs, Maori weaving. In fact, we only “did” about ½ the Museum and intend to go back next week - an easy feat as it is almost next door to the Hostel. We are also very close to the Botanic Gardens (another outing for John to get excited about!)
We “did” the Botanic Gardens on Sunday and it was a great success (although, of course, it rained). They have a little electric train called The Caterpillar with a very entertaining and interesting driver who told us all about the trees and plants as well as the history of the gardens. It is a huge place and we were very happy to be driven around it - I’m quite OK with being a “senior” and taking advantage of all that that descriptor entails! The other riders on the Caterpillar were certainly closer to the geriatric condition than either John or me!
We also went to a few of the busking venues, but think we are probably getting old and grumpy (see above) - there were an awful lot of extremely enthusiastic young things juggling with swords and standing on each others’ heads, and maybe it was the weather and maybe it was just us, but we don’t think we’ll go to any more. You have to admire that they keep going under all kinds of circumstances and the crowds are huge, so they certainly won’t miss us.