Christchurch

Today's been my first full day in NZ and was always scheduled to be a city day.  Those of you who know me well, will be amazed to hear that I was the first campervan on the campsite to be up and about this morning.  In fact, I was showered, dressed, breakfasted and walking into the town centre by 9am!  It seems jet lag is good for something, after all :-)

It was easy to feel right at home in Christchurch city centre.  For starters, there was a scottish bagpiper playing outside the cathedral - the only tune he played that wasn't in our band set-list was Amazing Grace.  Then there was a scottish street-theatre act trying (relatively unsuccessfully) to draw the crowd in to interact with his show, and the very british-style town crier in full dress ringing his bell and starting his announcements with "Oyez, oyez, oyez."  Finally, there was a Starbucks on nearly every street corner.  Well of course I went in and had a latte - I think my own personal challenge may be to drink in as many different Starbucks's as possible :-)

Slightly more difficult to adjust to are the christmas decorations.  For some reason, a fully decorated christmas tree and models of santa and his sleigh look incongruous when surrounded by people in shorts and t-shirts!

This afternoon I decided to venture further afield but still in the tourist safety-zone, so I took the gondola ride up to Mount Cavendish and had a gentle stroll along some of the paths.  Visibility not great today as the cloud base is quite low.  But I took some photos anyway....this is looking out over Lyttleton harbour with the Banks peninsula rising to the left and the pacific ocean just in the gap on the horizon.

Now I need to decide where I'm going to aim for tomorrow.  Definitely time to leave Christchurch and I know I'm heading south.Time to start researching distances and campsites, I think!

TTFN.