Today we're gonna be taking an open-top double-decker bus tour of Christchurch City.
This morning we are leaving the little township of Methven and are making our way to the largest
city of the South Island of New Zealand which is Christchurch.
We're having a meet-up in the Botanic Gardens with the team from Hassle-Free Tours for a
double-decker tour of the city but because we're here early it gives us plenty of time
to check out the beautiful rose garden.
Christchurch is known as the garden city of New Zealand it has tens of gardens scattered
all around the city and it is known for having some of the most beautiful ones of the country
but we'll get back to that a little bit later on this week when we are gonna give ourselves
plenty of time to explore this gorgeous Botanic Garden.
And despite the weather being really rainy our tour is right on time and we are jumping
on with the team from Hassle-Free Tours in their doubledecker tour of the whole city
of Christchurch.
Whatever the weather Robin and I are super keen on top of this open top double decker
bus so we can ideal views all around the inner city of Christchurch.
Aside from being the Garden City, Christchurch is also known as being the most English city
outside of England so it only seems appropriate that we are touring around in a big red double-decker
bus just like as if we were in London.
Throughout this city tour we are seeing all the major highlights of Christchurch from
Cathedral Square to the re:START mall which is a whole shopping mall made out of shipping
containers.
However, a tour around Christchurch is a lot different to other city tours around the world.
Christchurch has some earthquakes between 2010 and 2011 which really did devastate the
city and you can see scars of that earthquake still evident seven years later.
We see some of Christchurch's heritage buildings absolutely devastated by the earthquakes but
nevertheless there is a lot of new builds here in Christchurch and a lot of examples
of how the city has revived.
We see one of my favourite streets here which is New Regent Street which is full of colour
lots of cafes and a tramway going right through the middle.
We also see a lot of street art as well just to show that this is still an awesome and
vibrant city.
In total we spend over an hour going all around the city centre of Christchurch stopping at
almost every major landmark both historical, touristic and even places where the earthquake
struck so hard.
In my mind Christchurch is a really underrated city in the mind of most backpackers.
Most backpackers think that this is the best place to work work which is true there is
heaps of work in the area and it's also a pretty cheap city to live in there is also
a lot to do around the town and this is why we decided to take a tour around the city
just to get a bit of an overview on everything there is to do here and be able to plan the
best trip ever for this week that we're gonna be spending in Christchurch.
Our next stop for this tour is in the suburb of Port Hills and this really cool point is
a hilltop viewpoint called the Sign of the Takahe lookout.
There we can see all the surrounding area or at least if it was a beautiful weather
we could have seen that but right now we only see clouds so after taking a couple of pictures
we hop back in the bus for our next destination.
Throughout this tour our guide Ross has been giving us non-stop commentary of everything
we're seeing as we are driving through Christchurch and he's telling us now about the next suburb
we're gonna be heading to which is Sumner Beach.
Sumner Beach is not only a famous surf spot here in Christchurch it's also backed by these
awesome volcanic cliffs and we're gonna be exploring more of Sumner Beach as Ross is
parking up the Double-decker bus and giving us about 15 to 20 minutes to check out the
area.
As you can see by the weather it's clearly not summer in Sumner but we get the time to
explore Cave Rock which is a volcanic cave right on the side of Sumner Beach and it gives
us much welcome shelter form the rain.
Rock Cave is pretty cool and pretty fun to explore but Sumner itself is also an amazing
suburb of Christchurch.
It's the perfect summer resort where you can get your ice cream your fish and chips walk
alongside the beach hand-in-hand with your lover all those summer activities are done
by people living in Christchurch right here in Sumner.
And funnily enough we are not the only ones looking for shelter from the rain under this
cave.
We see also some little native bird it's really cool to spot some wildlife while doing a city
tour of Christchurch that's quite ironic when sometimes hiking in the most remote forests
of the country we can't find anything.
We wrap up our tour right back in the city centre of Christchurch and we are now making
our way to Jucy Snooze where we're gonna be spending the night.
Look how cool that is.
I love it.
I don't have to talk to a single person to do all of that.
Tomorrow we are crossing the majestic Southern Alps in one of the 10... oh hell...
Tomorrow we're crossing the majestic Southern Alps in one of the world's 10 best ahhhhh.
Tomorrow we're crossing the majestic Southern Argh!!
Tomorrow we're crossing one of the majestic ... not one of the... train journey arghhhh!