City2Surf

When we were looking out the window this morning enjoying the view of the river, a skeeler came riding past. Nice. Hey, another one, how funny. Yet another one. Probably a family outing. Yet another one. And another and another and another… probably the skeeler club then. A pretty large club, if you ask me. What the… runners??? A whole lot of them, at that. Looks even like a marathon. But if it's a marathon, then why are skeelers racing past too? And bikers? And a guy in his electric wheelchair? And what about the juggling clown on his one-wheeled bike??!! And the heel-and-toe walkers? And the leisure walkers? The flow of people past our house just did not seem to ever come to an end, it looked like half of Christchurch was taking part. The atmosphere was pretty nice, too. At one time a little boy of about ten years old rang at our door, he asked if he could use the toilet because he needed to go do his #2 very badly!! :-)

The whole exercise turned out to be the City2Surf run, an annual charity tour. Its course starts at the city centre and runs for 12 km (8 miles) along the riverside towards the beach. The entry fee is 10 dollars. When you take part, it doesn't matter how you travel the distance (biking, skeelering, running, walking), as long as you get to the finish. Very nice initiative, I think we will be running or walking the course ourselves next year!