Christchurch is full of streetnames based on British cities and famous authors. I'm immensely fond of the beautiful architecture, nicely structured layout and easy-going laid-back nature of Christchurch... I absolutely love the cathedral building. But the problem with a city this English is that it also feels compelled to emulate English weather. :P

Actually I'd say it's more variable (very hot and steamy one day, cold and wet the next, it's very sudden for not just a decline in temperature/weather but a total change) ...but it's definitely taking an English approach to "Summer". Of course, it's the summer holidays here so you can expect terrible weather on that account :P

I'm enjoying chilling out and not touring around every day, though. And the rain is a good thing I think, judging from the dry grass all around the place and the hills look positively brown, when they're meant to be green.

Having passed lots of orchards and fruit growing areas, I still find it amazing that all their fruit comes from Aus and the US. All countries seem to do this. I'm sure there must be a logical way of saying "Look. Spain. You export 500 oranges. You import 100. Scrap that and just export 400 and keep 100 ok?"

I'm probably missing the economical nuances of it but hey. Either way it's madness.