Day 34 - Fun in the Park

​It’s Saturday, so it is Parkrun day! I was strangely grateful for the 8am start as it promised to be another warm day today, and also enjoyed the fact that my apartment is so close to Hagley Park. Given that I would ultimately be visiting the park three times today, this was very convenient.

Hagley Parkrun is a big event, with well over 700 participants. Despite battling bitey insects and pollen, I even managed to overtake some people in the final kilometre. My time did not break any records, but I very much enjoyed my run around the park. 


As I was running, I saw the set-up for a big event, so did some googling and found out that ‘Christmas in the Park’ was taking place this evening. I like Christmas, I like parks, and I like music, so this sounded like excellent news. I noted 7:30pm and added it to my plans for the rest of the day. 

I had a bit of time to chill after parkrun. I had a lovely cup of tea at the cafe, and then a shower and some admin time in my apartment.

At around lunchtime, I set off back towards the park, albeit on a rather odd route, planned to pick up as many geocaches as possible. My route took me via the Art Centre, which was quite cool and included ‘Rutherford’s Den.’


 Within Hagley Park is the Botanic Gardens, and this is where I spent most of the afternoon. I visited the Rose Garden, and the Peace Bell, and generally saw lots of flowers, trees and pretty bridges. And picked up a LOT of caches. 


It was then back to my apartment for an hour or so, before returning to the park AGAIN for the Christmas at the Park event. The event was HUGE - seemingly all of Christchurch was in attendance. Coca Cola sponsors the event and was giving free drinks to everyone - I would love to know how many cans they gave away! 


The first half of the show was mainly Christmas songs. I’m not going to lie - it is weird to hear Christmas songs on a summer’s evening. 

Jon, from my tour group, arrived about half way through the first half, and we were able to enjoy the Food Festival along with the music.


The second half was a real mixture of songs - with everything from hits by Diana Ross to Lady Gaga, and from the Beach Boys to Bon Jovi. It was a LOT of fun, and got even better when the fireworks were set off to Viva La Vida.


It was a pretty special evening.

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