Mount Pleasant

It turns out I only had to postpone my hiking plans by one day. The sun came back this past Sunday and it felt as if Christchurch was in the eye of the scattered showers. I didn’t waste this opportunity by hopping onto the fastest bus to Mount Pleasant, a residential district that rests on a large hill.

Mt. Pleasant sits at the southeastern edge of the city and is home to many of Christchurch’s middle to upper class citizens. Expensive, tropical mansions stick out from the hilltops, bringing images of Los Angeles, Tucson, and the Caribbean to mind. In my situation, Mt. Pleasant is on the other side of town, but luckily, I only had to take one bus to get there. The ride took about an hour and the further the bus drove away from the city centre, the more tropical the area appeared. The suburbs near Mt. Pleasant appear as a Britianized Los Angeles.

Since I was travelling into ‘uncharted’ territory I had to guess when to get off. As the bus climbed & climbed, I decided to get off before it went down. Turns out, I made the right choice. When I stepped off the bus, I explored the district on foot, examining the layout, flora, and getting great shots of the valley below. Other people used the mountainous area for exercise; joggers and bikers shared the road with the speeding motorists.

The hillsides that couldn’t be used for housing were made into grazing land for the many sheep that populate this southern hemisphere country. They’re hundreds of them! All casually sitting & walking around eating grass, and never taking their eyes off of me until I snapped the picture. After I had enough of New Zealand’s animal majority, I hiked off to the summit of Mt. Cavendish.

(A local Mt. Pleasant resident smiles for the camera.)

A tourist trap sits at the top & bottom of this mountain: a gondola for the few who don’t want to hike the distance. As I approached the mountain, professional bicyclists whizzed by me at high speeds, taking advantage of the dips in the landscape. The panoramic view is exquisite: 360 degrees of Christchurch, Canterbury Plains, Southern Alps, Banks Peninsula, and the Pacific Ocean. I felt like I was on top of the world! Wait a second. Since I’m in New Zealand, I was feeling like I was on the bottom of the world!

Rather than take the gondola, I went back the way I came so that I could catch the #21 bus to take me back to the university before the cold night settled. Since I was tired from hiking up & down, I followed the wrong direction of the bus route for a bit before I remembered to change direction. By the time I caught the bus and made it back, night had come and I was in need of rest.

I was glad to have done it because the rain came back on Monday and everyday this week.