Arrived in Christchurch probably stinking to high heaven after a day wandering around Hong Kong followed by about 13 hours of flying. Cleaned off my stink and went for a walk around the town. Discovered that Christchurch seems to be more or less a hub for the South Island - guide books generally tell of activities that pick you up from Christchurch and then drive you 130 odd kilometres away to somewhere else. Saying that though, there was nothing really wrong with the town, just quite quiet.

Met up with Mr Rich Lowe the next day who had flown in from Singapore and we spent the day again walking around to see what Christchurch had to offer. Walked into the art gallery which had various ages of art pieces, including televisions sitting on the floor, a chair with a clock in it, and sardine tins cut into shapes of willies and fannies to put it bluntly. I've never really understood art, apart from the old pictures when they didn't have cameras. Walked through the park, and after a couple of hours and streets later we realised we had wandered nearly the whole of central Christchurch. Had dinner at an Irish pub, visited the bar in the hostel then called it a night.

After taking Mellissa's advice from an information centre, we decided that we would spend the next day in Christchurch doing some sort of activity. After about 10 seconds of deep thought and deliberation we decided on hiring bikes to cycle around the town. This then turned into one of the longest and most difficult bike rides I've ever done - seeing as the last time I rode a back for any amount of distance was last year on a similar day of "activity" in San Fransico.

Cycled down to Sumner Beach which was of course further than it looked on the map, then decided to cycle up to the top of the mountain to get a decent view of the city. Obviously cycling to the TOP of a mountain involved cycling up hill, and very steep hills and very long hills. We managed kind of ok to start off with, although were overtaken several times by much fitter and more experienced cyclists, but after about an hour of continuously going up hill (including sit down time, what are we doing time and walk with the bike time making it look like you were stopping to check something on your bike whenever a car drove past and not infact walking with the bike because your legs were unable to cycle any further) we reached the top. And it was well worth it, the view was amazing backed by the sense of achievement of cycling up the hill.

After admiring the view, we now had the fun part of continuing down the other side of the mountain, and this time being able to cycle very fast downhill! This was great fun. Getting down to the bottom we ended up in a little town, hence the name -Lyttleton. This reminded me a bit of an old wild west town...I don't really know why though. Even though on the map we knew the only way to get back to Christchurch was through a tunnel and even though the map clearly stated that there was NO CYCLING in the tunnel, this didn't really cross our minds until we got there and realised that we definately could NOT cycle through the tunnel. This unfortunately meant we had to go back over the mountain! By this time my newly formed quads were like jelly, and my arse was in a lot of pain. But we had to go back over and so we set off again. It was much harder the second time, I had to walk on occassion because the wind seemed to be blowing me back down the hill as opposed to me making any forward motion. Rich (he works in a gym) was able to cycle to the top without stopping which was impressive, but I wasn't as far behind as he thought I would be when he saw me walking (i did manage to cycle more than walk)! So again we had the pleasure of going back down the moutain the fast way which made it all seem worthwhile.

Managed to get the bikes back just before deadline, I did feel like throwing it at the girl in the shop shouting that I never want to see, touch or ride another bike in my life, but I restrained myself and instead went to lie down in bed. Off for fish and chips now as a reward and to put back on any calories we may have lost today.