Campercan Day 5

It was another summery-feeling day today!  We walked to Cathedral Square in downtown Christchurch to visit the information center to get some advice on the best way to see the city.  We were trying to decide between a walking tour, bike tour, bus tour, or the grand tour which used all modes of city transport including the tram, punting boat, and gondola.  We ended up doing part of a self-guided walk and got a quick lunch from a greek place before we departed at 2pm on a 1964 London double decker bus for a tour of the city, some of the older homes like Mona Vale and Deans house, and Sumner beach and Lyttleton harbor.

 Earlier in the morning, after coming out of the visitors’ center, we heard a street performer guy speaking through his microphone getting set up and ready to start his show so we decided to stay and watch.  He advertised as the show as being comedy, magic and doing freaky stuff with his body.  He was from Scotland and so he changed into his costume of this goth-looking kilt, knee high leather boots and some random spanish bullfighting jacket.  His first act was to make a burning cigarette disappear inside of some woman’s sweater he borrowed from the crowd...pretty impressive.  Next he blew up a rubber glove with air on top of his head until it exploded (after about 4 tries)...not as impressive.  Next he swallowed an entire 4 ft long skinny inflated balloon...just plain weird!  And his finale was having a random good-sized man from the crowd stand on his chest while he was laying topless on a pile of broken glass...just crazy really.  When he stood up, some of the glass was actually stuck into his back and he was bleeding from a couple places, ouch.  Oh and he also made this cute little girl copy him for a little while and paid her $5.  He believed his show was worth $5 and asked everyone to put that into his bag if you enjoyed the show, or if not a couple of gold coins.  I’m sure he came away with a decent amount of money for doing some pretty random things.  For a pretty small square, there were about 4 or 5 different kinds of street performing or preaching going on at the same time!  I’d never seen so many different acts in such a small space! 

After our bus tour we did a bit of shopping, although there was not much open still at 5pm, then decided to do another bit of the city walk, along Cambridge Terrace along the Avon river to the botanic gardens.  Christchurch is known as New Zealand’s garden city (and most English city) and even won the world title, I believe in 1996, to prove it.  I’m pretty sure we now have photos of almost every plant in the garden!  Luckily there were also some adorable ducklings with their mother playing in the Peacock fountain to observe as well.  One duckling nearly walked over the top of my foot while making its way into the water. 

After the gardens we walked back through town and to Little India for dinner.  We walked in just in time (at about 8:30) because the place was packed and there happened to be one table open in the corner that we added a third chair to.  A lot of people kept coming in after us as well!  The food was delicious, which explains why it was so busy!  After dinner we walked back to Stonehurst, where we were staying, and happily climbed into bed.  Another full day meant another night excited about bed time!

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