Today’s walk started at Mona Vale, and Christine and I agreed to meet at the car park there. Since I last visited a new and larger car park has been opened with a gateway through to the garden.
The flower beds are looking magnificent, all carefully tended by staff from the Christchurch Botanic Gardens.
Along the path towards Fendalton Road is a memorial to Alastair MacLeod.
It is an Armillary Sphere where the shadow of the central staff is supposed to indicate the time. Not today, because the weather was cloudy.
Further along we crossed Waimairi Stream where one householder has a rowboat moored.
We walked up Royds Street to Straven Road, then along Weka and Tui Streets, past Christchurch Boys’ High School and many impressive houses, into the grounds of the magnificently restored Riccarton House (former home of the Deans family).
On the riverbank we were delighted to meet two families of Paradise ducklings, the first with eight stripey babies.
At the Kahu Road exit we saw a large oak tree which was planted by Jane Deans in 1897 to mark the site of the first house on the Canterbury Plains built by William and John Deans in 1843.
Matai Street West led us past the Britten Stables, currently for sale, across the railway line, and back to the Mona Vale car park. This easy walk took us and hour and a half, and we could have spent longer if we’d explored Riccarton Bush, the only podocarp forest remaining in Christchurch – perhaps another time.
Exquisite gardens on the way
enhanced our city walk today
Ruth's Reflections 
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