My hometown is Christchurch, New Zealand.
Christchurch is the biggest city in the South Island and is also known as The Garden City.
It is called The Garden City because it has lots of beautiful parks, gardens and tree lined streets. I live close to a park and love going over there to bike on the trails, play on the playground and play roller hockey on the tennis courts.
Another great thing is that it doesn't take long to get to the beaches. We love going boogie boarding and catching the big waves. Our favourite beach for boogie boarding is New Brighton. At New Brighton they also have a great playground with a whale pool and cool new water play area. There are also cool climbing nets and a pirate ship.
Christchurch is mostly flat but does have the Port Hills which had a big fire a couple of years ago that started on my birthday! It took two months before the fire was properly out.
Another thing Christchurch has been known for in the last nine years is earthquakes. The first one in September 2010 (when I was a baby) was at the Greendale fault and caused lots of damage to buildings. The next big one was February 2011 which caused further damage to buildings but also took lots of lives. The earthquakes has meant a lot of rebuilding in the city which includes the new Margaret Mahy playground which is one of my favourite places to go to.
