Views from Above

The scenic route begins & we head towards the port hills to travel along a road known as 'The Summit Road' - there is a reason for this, as it traverses the volcanic rim most of the way around Banks Peninsula which is slightly south of the city & is indeed the summit from which a lot of the Canterbury Plains can be viewed from.

First heading South East through the city with the hills in sight.

A quick stop to photograph the Catholic Cathedral - something that I said to Mallory I should do ages ago!

Cool - those hills are getting closer!

We've travelled up the hill & at the outer limits of the housing zone is this wonderful old Building "The Sign of the Takahe".

We get to Victoria Park & it seems a good place to start capturing some photo's of the City - from this point we can get a view of the western suburbs.

Victoria Park is at the top of the built up area on the hills - there are some stunning views & wonderful scenery from here. It is an area riddled with walking tracks - & I look forward to doing some of these on foot.

There are no frosts up here - so the Lucodendron & Proteas do well.

The Road .... I knew there was a reason I had started at the other end of the road in the past! It mean I wasn't constantly looking at rather steep & sometimes sheer drops from my side of the car -lol!

A bit further around on the road & we can see more across the east side of Christchurch out to the coast. It's a hazy day - & we are looking directly into the sun, so it was difficult to capture the Alps on the other side of the plains.

Because we are travelling the rim, there are views to both sides. This is a shot of some of the bays to our right on Banks Peninsula.

Swing around a bit & you can see the far end of the peninsula & over it to the open sea.

Back to the left - or rather the city side & we can see down into the Heathcote valley. In the distance is a stretch of land that doesn't quite join to the side we are on - it's most eloquently known as "The Spit" -lol! My Mum lived down there near the patch of green you can see, until just a couple of years ago.

Quite a bit further around & we can see the end of "The Spit" & the wonderful curve North of Pegasus Bay heading around to the Sothern Alps & the Kaikoura's.

Stoopid sheep -

Oh yeah & I just had to tease myself at the end, as far as we could get along the road we came to a clear uninterrupted view of The Pacific Ocean - so I waved to all my friends stateside ;o)