Christchurch is an amazing city on the East coast of the South Island of New Zealand. This is where we started our 2 month long trip of the South Island. We stayed for a week. We had a great time and we would love to go back to explore further!

Here are some of the things we did;

• The Margaret Mahy Family Playground; an awesome playground for all ages! It's huge and has all kinds of things, from massive slides to zip lines and water areas. It's also the largest playground in the South Island!

• Hagley Park; this is a huge park with beautiful trees and great walkways. It's an awesome place to throw around a ball or have a picnic. The park also is where the beautiful botanical garden is situated. It also hosts many activities like festivals, sports events and much more.

• Cricket Match; we were able to land some tickets to the Blackcaps vs. India game and it was a blast! Me and my friends were even able to get autographs from four different players (during the game.. they were good multi-taskers)! Even though we didn't stay for the whole entire game (which was planned to be 8 hours), it was amazing seeing just a couple hours of it! 

• Christchurch Tram; this is a really fun way to explore the city! It's a cool old-school tram line that does a loop through the city and explains different buildings and churches.

• Christchurch Gondola; a really amazing way to view the city from the top. It has a cool ride up with amazing views and a cool walk down. From here we walked back into town (stopping by the Tannery for lunch), which was a fun hike. We opted to get a pass that included the tram and gondola, it is cheaper then buying tickets individually.)

• Tūranga Library; what an amazing library! It has so many different areas, and a huge selection of board games. Also, for kids, there's a massive lego area with tons of legos. A must when in Christchurch! (And there is a great coffee shop inside)

• The Tannery; this is a really cool historic building with tons of different shops and restaurants. A good place to have lunch and go shopping!

• Christchurch farmer’s market: this takes place on saturday from 9am-1pm at the Riccarton house and bush. It’s a beautiful setting by the river. There are many food and craft vendors. We enjoyed some delicious bacon butties (a must when trying foods in NZ!). Eventhough they don’t have many fresh produce stalls, we enjoyed this weekend market.

• The Riverside market: This is a popular market with many restaurants and food stores. (You can also find some nice souvenirs). It is near the shopping streets and very popular. You can grab a bite to eat and head down Litchfield street for shopping or a stroll by the river nearby.

All in all, Christchurch is an amazing city! I really enjoyed it, and I definitely think it's a cool place to spend a week in (if not more).