This is a very nice little city – clean, pretty, interesting. Maybe it reminds me of Boulder, but with better weather, or Austin with better scenery. Nicer than either, though. Maybe a very less ancient Cambridge England. We really like this place.
We came into the port of Lyttelton, a very well protected harbor in an old volcano caldera. The ship goes up a fjord to get into the caldera. To get to Christchurch they put a tunnel through the wall of the volcano to get to the city in the flatland outside the volcano. To the west are snow capped mountains along the fault line. The Antarctic storms hit the mountains and drop their moisture, so Christchurch has much less rain than the other side of the mountain.
We took a tour of the city consisting of a ride in a punt (a very shallow boat poled by a punter) on the River Avon seeing ducks and flowers, etc. Then a museum and gift shop and then a ride through the downtown on a streetcar that was a rolling teahouse. Tea, cucumber sandwiches, the whole thing.
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