From the air. It's a sprawling city,
a checkerboard of streets and
parks of buildings and houses
while on the ground it's a different picture,
including meandering streams in quiet
lanes where children walk and play,
peek out of curious places,
and a New Zealand news crew struggles
like the rest of us to explain what makes
Christchurch so very different.
It's the sense of. Beauty and calm.
That's the first thing you
notice about Mona Vale,
the Englishness of it all seems
to fit with the tourist view of
Christchurch as the English city.
Christchurch has the reputation of being
the most English city outside of England.
People here seem to be quite
proud of that legacy.
You can see it in their architecture
and many of their customs,
and unfortunately today you
can also see that reputation
in the English style rain.
But then that's what's so nice about
being on an island if you
don't like the weather,
just wait a few minutes,
it'll change and right on schedule.
Here comes the sun.
Not that everyone cares or paddles
for shelter at the first raindrop,
but then who wants to go
punting in an English style rain
when you're punting or polling?
It's better to have the water under
you then all over you and the river
Avon in Christchurch couldn't be more
beautiful than under a sparkling winter sun.
There are a lot of people.
Going down the wide street
looking for Meadow mushrooms.
The clear weather also fires
up the action at speakers
corner in Cathedral Square.
Another old English tradition,
public speaking and heckling
in the city square.
It adds color for the tourist
or lunchtime stroller and a
chance to bump into a lot of
interesting people and people
who are just a lot different.
Oh yeah, you gotta have
something on your head.
Well, it seems to make the birds
happy and if you look around,
it's not really all that unusual.
Maybe just another wee bit of tradition.
And tradition is strong,
especially in Christchurch,
where you sometimes feel the
page has been turned on you and
you're suddenly in a story about
England instead of New Zealand.
Everyone seems to look the part.
And they seem to play the same games.
Well, what I like best about it
all about being in England down
under all of a sudden is here when
they're getting ready for high tea.
And what are these?
Thank you, it's called
the sign of the takahe,
an old tutor style building,
now used as a tea room.
Their tradition is obvious.
The view from the windows and the
grounds absolutely marvelous,
but it's not so much what
you see is what you get.
This is the kind of tradition I
could get used to some of the
other things I've seen around
town that I'm not so sure about.
They say it's good,
but don't ask me what it is. Well,
alright, thank you very much. Bye bye.
I don't know. They
tell me we speak the same language,
but the longer I'm here in New Zealand,
the more I seriously doubt that you see,
we've been looking for an auto Body Shop.
It's nothing serious,
but they tell us we're looking for
the panel founders later in the week.
We want to go hiking.
They say no, you're not going hiking.
You're going tramping for headache.
We wanted to go to the drugstore
while we had to go to the chemist,
and there are a few other things that make
me wonder if we're really all speaking
the same language bottle shop for liquor
store was pretty simple to figure out,
but some of the others were simply
mystifying. No boots either.
For future reference,
jandals are the same as flip flops or thongs,
market rooms or health clinics for
children and As for body shops.
Can you tell me where we find a Body Shop?
Body Shop you know for the car or a puddle?
Because you mean panelbeaters? Yeah,
OK. So a little got lost in the translation
anyway, about the time we
got it all straightened out,
we were busy asking about
tailwinds and airspeeds.
Was time for one of our hosts.
Air New Zealand to take us back home.
We were back in the air again
looking down on the other land
down under time to relax and
dream about all that we've seen.
We've got a lot to tell him back home.
Trees.