Touring, Day 2

Monday, September 14th
Today, we started out by touring down town Christchurch. Driving on the left was both stressful and disorienting, even for me in the back seat. Our first stop was Christchurch Cathedral. This beautiful cathedral has a lookout point at the top of one of the towers (which we unfortunately did not get to see since the Holy Communion was in 15 minutes). I saw a hilarious note pad in the gift shop that read “Man cannot live on chocolate alone, but woman can.” We then drove to the botanical gardens where we ate lunch while being occasionally sprayed by the nearby fountain.
After lunch, we toured ‘Rutherford’s Den,’ the place where Rutherford began his studies on radiation. There were some neat demos of his early research and a simulated lecture in one of the old lecture rooms. Did you know that Brazil nuts are slightly radioactive, that students of this university in Christchurch had to wear gowns and mortar boards during all lectures, or that Rutherford’s research led to the invention of the smoke detector?
After an informative tour, and after dropping off some maple syrup for the daughter of a friend, we headed off for Akeroa along a beautiful (and terrifying) winding road. It reminded me of driving in Ireland, only instead of rock walls on either side of the narrow road, there were cliffs (and no guard rails!). We found a nice hostel in down town Akeroa and cooked up some supper. Unfortunately, since this hostel does not have wireless internet (and dad can’t seem to crack into one of the secured networks :P), I will have to post this entry tomorrow.