Christchurch
After a good night’s sleep and breakfast, the three of us decided to look around the fair city of Christchurch, but only having a small local map, we needed to go to the main business district to try to obtain a better street map.
When we arrived in the Central Business District (CBD), we could only park our car near the Botanical Gardens, (Hagley Park) and the “Canterbury University”, the building of this university was commenced in 1873, when it was part of the “University of New Zealand”, but even then we were not able to stay there long!
I did find out though, that I could leave my car in a car park, at the other end of the Botanical Gardens for as long as we needed, the problem with that was my mother’s mobility, at her advanced age, she was not able to walk very far or fast!
We did have a little luck though, as while we were exploring the park, I discovered a Kiosk that was run by the local council and where I could cheaply hire (FREE) a motorised wheelchair we could use within the boundaries of the park. This allowed us to see much more of the Botanical Gardens, including the “Hot House,” where even in the cool climate of Christchurch, they could grow the plants of the tropical regions of the world!
In this hot house we saw some of the most exquisite Orchids I have ever seen, as well as tropical fruit growing, in an area where it has been cold enough to freeze water, even now when it was autumn, we already needed warm clothing, and yet here was a banana tree with fruit on it.
Autumn colours were everywhere outside! It almost looked as if a giant artist had spilt his tray of paints when it was full of reds, yellows and gold colours, yet still allowing him to dot the gardens with very colourful flowers\
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