After Flo and I spent the 2nd last day in 2010 in Kaikoura, we drove to Christchurch as the next place to see in our Travel Month. We were booked in for a dorm in the YMCA Hostel near to the Botanical Gardens.

We checked in, bought groceries, washed our clothes. Later we had clothes hanging all over in our room which we still had for ourselves what should change the next day.

It was already dark but we still went for a stroll around the near sights (Bridge of Remembrance, Cathedral Square, and Cathedral). I think we both were tired from driving all day, so we decided to go to bed instead of trying to find a place to party.

On New Years Eve we started a marathon of sightseeing. I really enjoyed our first sight: The Christchurch Arts Centre, old buildings in which nice artists were presenting their art. We continued our tour to the Canterbury Museum which I found quite boring, but it was free, so we had to do it and some of the military art was pretty good. Afterwards Flo and I went for a walk through the lovely Botanical Gardens just outside the doors of the Canterbury Museum. We saw many flowers and especially in the middle the enormous collection of roses. Cathedral Square had to be seen by light, we wanted to check mails and organize our next days and the travel back to Wellington at the end of the Travel Month so we had to go to the library. FREE INTERNET. 😀 After we finished this

huge step we wanted to see the Cathedral from the inside – lucky we did that. At night we were at this concert on Cathedral Square to celebrate New Year with some hundreds of Kiwis and all kinds of nationalities. We managed to meet Andy and Yannick again, got to know Julian (another ICYE exchangee from Germany who started in Jan ’10), his girlfriend, “Zip-Sarah” and Nicole. I had great fun dancing and celebrating New Year before and after the fireworks. It was great to be there with people I knew.

New Years Day was full of excitement and fear-fighting in the Adrenalin Forestin in the North West of Christchurch. This high wire garden was absolutely worth the money. Keeping my bungy jump in mind, it was still challenging jumping from a 20m high tree into a net of ropes. The best things were the flying foxes.

The plan was to drive to a DOC campsite south of Christchurch, which was hard to find, but we did after driving on gravel roads for about an hour…

The city Christchurch won my heart right at the first night. The CBD with the – now world famous –Cathedral Square was lovely. I liked all the old buildings which gave the city a certain flair I’ve never seen before in a town in New Zealand.

I love you Christchurch:D