Location

New Brighton, is an eastern suburb of Christchurch, located right next to the beach. It has a nice surf beach and good hot pools on the waterfront. Unfortunately this town was affected quite badly in the Christchurch earthquakes, and so a lot of the main street shops are abandoned and shut down.

Pets/House

For this house sit we looked after Bruno, a cavoodle and Mr Tolley, an exotic persian cat. Bruno was a cute little dog who loved human affection, however because we was still in his puppy years, it meant he loved to chew things. He had a lot of toys he could chew, but one night he stole some of my clothes and shredded them to pieces. Bruno slept in our room at night and he was very sensitive to noise. He would bark at the smallest sound which made our sleeping quite interrupted. Apart from these challenges he was a good boy and had a loving nature.

Mr Tolley was a very cute cat with a scrunched face and a lions cut. This meant that everything was shaved except his face and the tip of his tail. He was a very cuddly cat would wait outside on the door step for us to return home. His favoruite place to sleep was on our bed and he would sleep for ages during the day and spend his nights exploring.

What We Did

The reason we went to Christchurch is because James' sister was getting married. A lot of James' family travelled over from Australia so we spent most of our days catching up with them and doing activities. On the day we arrived, James' mum picked us up from the airport and we went to the international antarctic centre. It was really awesome and we had a lot of fun. We got to see little blue penguins and huskies, we went in a storm room and on a hagglund ride.

The one thing James' nana wanted to do in Christchurch was hop on the city tram that takes you round the centre of Christchurch. We decided to join her and it was quite cool. Christchurch has a lot of interesting buildings and big graffiti art.

Christchurch is known as the city of gardens and is home to gorgeous botanical gardens. It has a beautiful clear river running through the middle and a lovely rose garden. It is a great place to explore, and unfortunately we didn’t get enough time there.

Since we were staying in New Brighton, we went down to the beach quite often and they had the most amazing fish and chip shop called the pier fish and chips. There was also a huge pier that you could walk to the end of.

On our final day in Christchurch James' mum drove us into the hills so we could have a view of the sea and city. It was extremely windy and quite cloudy, but it was still an impressive view.