Christchurch Marathon

[Christchurch Marathon begins - a few of the near 5000 runners passing the starting line between the Town Hall and Conference Centre. You get an impression of how cold it was from the clothing! As it happens, Christchurch, being very flat, has one of the world's fastest marathons with numbers of marathon runners achieving their best times here. This year, the world record time for the fastest superhero was broken by Robin (of Batman fame) in just under 2:44. Gotham City can sleep safer knowing the Duo can even protect against competitive marathon runners]
As mentioned previously, last week involved a trip to Christchurch, to watch some friends run the half-marathon & 10km run. Thank you to them for the lift, company and their relatives for a place to stay on Sunday night!

Lovely scenery on the way up - it often seems to get a bad press from New Zealanders as it is a lot flatter than the rest of the country, but really it isn't wildly different from the countryside in, say, Lincolnshire and is actually pretty scenic if you aren't desperate for lots of hills. Not to mention the great views of the Southern Alps in the distance for most of the way along the East coast.

[If I remember rightly, this should be looking due West up the Waitaki River to some of the mountains in the distance behind - I'm told that this, politically and historically, marks the beginning of the South (of the South Island)]

Christchurch is considerably bigger than Dunedin, having about 1/2 population of, for example, the Belfast metropolitan area. However, I haven't had enough time to find out much about the city, having spent most of my time there watching marathon runners struggling through the Winter winds! Saying that, I did stay in a hostel in the middle of town on one of the two nights, which I can highly recommend - Charlie B's. The staff were very friendly, nice old building and I found the facilities plentiful and clean. Great job.
[Punting on the Avon - I've heard it said that Christchurch is one of the most English cities outside of the UK and it felt a lot like I could have been wandering through, say, Bristol on an November afternoon. A lot of the architecture and ideas are distinctly English, even as opposed to the other Home Countries though, as you can see above, it contains an interesting fusion of ideas from around the country. I have to say I really liked what I saw of the city-centre.]

[Christchurch Cathedral - this photo shows the Cathedral sitting in the middle of Cathedral Square, a central landmark in the city. Apparently the name Christchurch was suggested by a certain Oxonian though, according to a plaque on the Cathedral wall, there were no shortage of Christ Church alumni there at the time to put it the idea forward! I was fortunate to be able to get to the Sunday Evensong on Pentecost, thanks to the help of friends. It brought back many memories of Corpus being, aside from the Sermon, word-for-word the same service from the Elizabethan prayer-book! Christchurch Cathedral also has a particularly good choir and it was great to have the opportunity to hear them too]

Incidentally, I'm aware that I haven't mentioned much about what it's been moving from the academic system in the UK to NZ recently, which is much of the point of this Blog. My excuse is that I'm still finding out! In summary though, the general approach seems a lot closer to the UK than, say, most European or American universities, as I had expected. Still, to avoid running too long, I'll save that for the next post and simply stick a couple of photos onto the end (the other point of this Blog)!

[Bridge in centre of Christchurch, possibly off Oxford Terrace?]

[Evening light on way back to Dunedin]
[Some coast close to Palmerston a little outside Dunedin - not the much larger Palmerston North, which would be a considerable detour to the North Island!]
[Dunedin from somewhere above the Leith Valley - you can just about see the Harbour there and the University is probably between the crest of the house-filled hill below it and the shoreline. Knox is in line with the furthest left houses but on the dark green hill beyond.]

PS I've experimented doing captions in grey - if this makes it harder to read, let me know!

PPS Thank you to those who have emailed and I intend to get back to you asap - this will fill in some blanks until I do :)