After our tea and cake in Christchurch we wandered around the town a little and walked through the botanical gardens which were really lovely. The weather here is perfect for that sort of thing – it’s very fresh and bright which makes for quite pleasant walking weather, and it was nice to sit in the rose garden for a while in the sunshine. The centre of Christchurch is quite eclectic in its style; in some parts it feels quite provincial, in some it’s reminiscent of European gothic quarters and in others almost American. Certainly seems like a lovely place though.
When we finished exploring the town centre we decided to go for a drive in the hills around Christchurch and wow, we can understand why Peter Jackson found this place so attractive. The hills whose foothills the town is situated in are more dramatic than anything we’ve seen in the UK. Huge rolling hills, clear lakes, sheer drops and lush pine forests form a beautiful backdrop for the city which lies on a huge plain forming the vista all the way to the Southern Alps which can be seen miles away in the centre of the country. It’s difficult to do justice to how beautiful this country is and we haven’t even been much beyond Christchurch yet. We sat for a while on a large rocky hill which gave fantastic views over the landscape and, needless to say, took a lot of pictures. This evening we had dinner and played Rummykub with Jessie and a former foreign student of theirs, Komiko, who has come back to visit.
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