Christchurch

I flew down to Christchurch yesterday. Due to some international law/foreign policy mishap, Rama will be joining me later. In fact, at this stage i still don't know when he's flying into Christchurch, so it'll be a bit of an adventure.


Anyway, i get 1 day to explore Christchurch on my own. It's a nice English town, fashioned to be a replica of a nice English town. There's a river - Avon - and English-looking buildings. Very quaint. In fact, i had a nice romantic walk by myself down the river yesterday - it was very nice. Truthfully, other than "nice" and "quaint" i can't think of any other way to describe X-church.
Oh, they have a tram - that's the scenic attraction. Since i've taken trams since I was a kid in Minsk, that didn't particularly appeal to me. And the churches are nice too - but i think i've seen enough in my lifetime.

BUT! Christchurch is right next to the Banks Peninsula - and that's where i went today. Took the Gondola up to the top of a mountain (same as a Heavenly gondola, even same Doppelmayer company makes it) so the ride itself wasn't much. The scenery, however, was astounding.

I rented a mountain bike at the top and wanted to take a leisure road down. small note - just like cars, bikes are reversed too - the brakes are swapped. that accounted for one of the first falls.

New Zealanders take their mountain biking seriously. What i thought would be a leisurely stroll turned out to be a fun experience. Somehow i ended up in the section for downhill riding - and it's marked just like ski slopes - blue/black/double-black diamond. I kid you not - i came up to one of them, laughed and turned around. Thankfully, i met a local who took me down an "easier" route, which resulted in only a few falls and tumbles and shaved off a couple years off my life.