On Sunday, we drove to Christchurch, the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand with over 400,000 people in the urban area and another 350,500 outside but in its jurisdiction. The city was founded in 1856, and named after Christ Church, Oxford, as pilgrims came from there for whaling, and like their old home, they laid out the town around a church and a central square. 
This huge cathedral was ruined by the earthquakes in 2011 (and still hasn’t yet begun demolition or repair).
Christchurch is a vibrant town overflowing with vitality and joy. Although there are still remnants of the vast destruction brought on by the earthquake and the horrific shooting at their Mosque in 2019, Christchurch’s resilience in the face of natural and man-made disasters is an inspiration.
We stayed in a lovely B&B just two blocks from the downtown district, and used their loaner bicycles to ride all around the downtown area on Sunday and most of Monday. On Sunday, we saw the downtown trolley, the Bridge of Remembrance, the 185 Empty Chairs memorial for those that died in the 2011 earthquakes, 
the Anglican Cardboard Cathedral which is temporarily replacing the destroyed downtown cathedral, a city summer concert on the lawn, and had dinner at the funky Smash Palace while listening to the band on the green.
On Monday, we took the bikes to the Christchurch Botanic Gardens, then paid to hop on the tourist tram to see all of these huge gardens and hear the background history on many of the trees, bushes, and flowers. 
Beautiful! They even have many redwood trees from California, cork trees from Portugal, and an oak tree planted from an acorn given to them by Queen Victoria 150 years ago. 
From there we took a punting boat ride on the Avon River that peacefully meanders through the gardens and the center of town.
This is in many ways an international city and we’ve met and talked with people from Africa, Dubai, Colorado, Arizona, Montana, Texas, and more. After dinner tonight, we took the box of our leftover pizza with us and with a purpose – and gave it to two homeless guys on the street. They were so happy with big smiles. They thanked us, and we talked together for a bit.
Geographically, we are now closer to the South Pole than the Equator, and only 1,500 miles from the Antarctic Circle. Yet, we are only 3 hours later than Pacific Standard Time, but a day later. It’s a little trippy to think about!
Tomorrow we go further south to Dunedin to prepare for our five day bicycle ride across the South Island of New Zealand. .