Christchurch is often said to be like a small English town... but it's a very odd one. Some parts of it are like Oxford or Cambridge (you can even go punting down the River Avon) but neither Oxford or Cambridge would have allowed the planning disasters that have occurred in this town. Certain streets are very pretty, but turn 90 degrees and it's totally ugly. There are some decent restaurants, but it doesn't seem to have much of a heart, it's just some streets that happen to be beside each other, and some supposed tourist attractions dotted around. You can, for example, go on the "Historic Tram" but it just goes round in a 15 minute circle looking at some streets before returning to the main square.

And what a weird main square it is, featuring a re-fronted old building which now hosts Starbucks, some nice greenery and the Cathedral - again all rather mis-matched.

The Botanical Gardens are nice though. Turns out we like a good Botanics. This one can be accessed through the town museum, which is also worth a visit, featuring a replica street from ye olde Christchurch (or as ye olde as you can get in a country that has only been inhabited for a few hundred years). There's also a decent art gallery and Arts Centre, featuring the floating house, pictured, handily over the road from where we're staying.

The hostel, Thomas's, is good. They sorted out our transport from the airport despite us landing at 10pm which was pretty neat.

Then we picked up our hire car (a MASSIVE one in comparison to the North island car) from Jucy rentas and hit the road once more.