Christchurch take 2

Cathedral Sqaure sculpture, Christchurch, originally uploaded by herdingnerfs.

Back in the city, I re-checked in to the Old Countryhouse (TOCH) and settled into my new dorm. This would be my final bed of the trip and it felt weird to be leaving the fleeting lifestyle I love and returning to the humdrum of life back home so soon. Luckily it was a nice bed! All the beds in TOCH are handmade out of bomber bits of timber and have real sprung mattresses. I got chatting to a Canadian bloke who had just flown in - this being his first trip outside Canada. I was glad to be able to answer some of his questions, knowing how much I would have valued a friendly face 4 years previously in Hanoi on my first big trip.

The following morning i walked into town to have a good look at the town. Despite being here 3 years ago, I never had a proper nosy around so I was keen to have good mooch. For some reason, A lot of people take an instant dislike to CHCH, in a similar way to Auckland. I personally find them both very amenable cities, as cities go; me not being a city person. I wanted to check out the art gallery mainly because of the cool building, so that's where I headed first. On the way out I bumped into two German girls from the hostel and together we checkout out the craft market in the arts centre. This is a good market - check it out if you're in town.

Back in the hostel I started the laborious task of compressing all the crap I had accumulated in my car into a single rucksack for the journey home. Having ditched all the junk and carefully arranged my gear to tessellate with great accuracy inside my pack I sighed with relief that it all fitted. I'd have to wait til the morning to find out if it was overweight.