We got up early for a walking tour round Christchurch city centre. Early was 8:15 after being kept up by a plonker with the noisiest campervan door in the universe.

We fuelled up at a great cafe, Vivace, getting a sufficiently large caffeine hit from their bowls of latte to keep us going for the day!

Our route took us past most of the major sites. We started off having a look round the cathedral before following the tourist tram route up the beautiful pastel coloured, Spanish style New Regent Street. Next up was a walk through Victoria Square with its famous (in New Zealand, on a Tuesday) floral clock (only about 6 hours wrong). After crossing the Avon (with a punter struggling against the current) we dropped in for a beer at the Belgian Beer Cafe. This was a nice place to relax for half an hour. It was nice to be sitting amongst professionals having their lunch, something which really reminded us of home.

After our break we spent an hour or so exploring all of the galleries at the Christchurch Art Gallery. This was pretty good. I'm not an art expert by any means, but there were plenty of different things here to keep me entertained - especially the cool red glasses! We popped down to the Antigua Boat Sheds, but the punting didn't really grab us - it didn't really look as good as the Cambridge punting so we gave it a miss. Our final indoor endeavour was to have a look round the Canterbury Museum (dodgy link?). This was a good mix of cultural and natural history. There were exhibits about the Antarctic expeditions and displays of all of the New Zealand birds! There were also some interesting oriental exhibits. It was diverse enough to keep us there for an hour or so before spending the rest of the late afternoon wandering around the Botanical Gardens. These had our favourite: a herb garden, and a cool world peace bell that I liked (to wear). It's made from donated coins and medals from over 100 countries! The idea is that lots of countries will get them and share the love.

We finished the day with a mega curry at the East Meets West food hall. A taste sensation after all our bland cooking (no room for a spice shelf on the bike!)