I never get sick of the view

I decided I was going to make the most of today and get out and do something. I woke to another clear blue sky so, after walking down to hand in all my pre-employment forms, I took the car out towards the Port Hills, the northern rim of an ancient volcano cone. I'd heard that the gondola is one of the must-do things in Christchurch, and given the clear day, I thought I'd go and check it out.

I wasn't disappointed. The view was stunning, providing a 360 degree panorama of Christchurch, the Canterbury Plains and Lyttelton Harbour. As I've mentioned before, I love views, I never get sick of landscapes and views, and the one from the summit of the gondola was right up there. I love the way you can see both the sea and the snow-capped mountains at the same time.

There are several walking tracks from the gondola station. Given I had nothing else planned and the weather so beautiful I thought I'd take in a bit of nature. It really was just stunning. My vocabularly is nowhere near sufficient to fully explain how I felt up there. I can see me getting a gondola season ticket, to be honest, and getting to know all those walking tracks a lot better.

Along the length of the crest of the Port Hills runs the Summit Road. It was created after a long financial and political campaign by a bloke called Henry George Ell who wanted to share and preserve the natural beauty of the Banks Peninsula. After I came back down the gondola I wasn't ready to return to town so I decided to drive a bit along Summit Road. In the end, I drove the whole length of it. Around every corner was another amazing view and each road down back into town seemed too early to take. I can't wait to take Joanne up there and show her.