Christchurch - the outdoors

A good bit of our time in Christchurch was spent doing outdoorsy things. During the day on Thursday, we walked through the Botanic Gardens for over an hour - and we still didn't see everything. And we also stopped in the garden cafe after our bus tour for a lovely outdoor lunch. 

The gardens were quite big, and after walking through all of the construction and chaos of the city, it felt a bit odd to be in a place that was so immaculate and put together. It felt miles away from all the destruction, even though it was just a few blocks.  

There were some amazing roses growing in the rose garden: huge and so bright!  

There were also some sequoia trees in the gardens that were massive too. They clearly like this NZ climate. 

The gardens were really peaceful and lovely. And we also got to experience all the South Island seasons in the day: it started out really chilly, then got really warm during our walk - almost up in the 90s, and by the evening it was cold and rainy!

In the afternoon, after our garden ramble and earthquake tour, we headed outside the city to ride the gondola up the mountain. The gondola was what I would probably call a cable car, but either way, it was super fun.

 
 The ride up to the top was probably just two or three minutes, but it was pretty steep!

Up at the top, in true New Zealand style, you could walk all around the mountain top with only a couple fences around to keep you from going right over the edge. There were also a couple sheep hanging around too!  

  

At the top here's a nice big building with amazing views and a walkway around almost the entire outside. There was also a cafe and a conference area. Lots of long hikes start or end from the hilltop, too. 

 

We could see all of Christchurch from the top, and lots more.