Greetings from Christchurch

Hello everyone!

We landed in Christchurch (ch-ch) two days ago and have been having a marvelous time. The city is very much like Victoria, BC in every way. The people, the cuisine, the architecture, all of it.

We’ve cruised around and managed to take in almost all of the city. I’m short on time, so here’s the reader’s digest of some of the interesting things we’ve discovered.

• Possums are apparently pests down here. Most of the wool for sweaters is blended with possum fur; it’s quite soft.
• Drip coffee doesn’t exist. You order a “long black” and get a long pull of espresso instead.
• Nothing in this country that was built by European settlers is more than 150 years old. It may look like it was styled after the older buildings in Europe, but it’s relatively new.
• It’s always windy.

We’re off today on our first real ride (we did a short 20k ride yesterday, it didn’t count). Pedaltours is dropping us off about 75k out of Ch-Ch and we’re riding to the alpine village of Arthur’s Pass. We’ll climb about 1500 feet today over 85k. It’s guaranteed to be beautiful!

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