Outside || Luke Hemmings

Chapter 77

'What are we going to do?' I asked as I followed Luke.

We had been walking around Christchurch for 15 minutes but he didn't want to tell me where we were going.

'Just hold on one more minute,' Luke mumbled.

'It should be somewhere around here' He stopped walking and looked around, pointing to our left when he found what he was looking for.

'We're doing that' he said.

'What's that?' I asked.

'Those are Segways, and we're riding them'

'We are?'

'Yes, yes we are' Luke smiled.

We walked to the little store where Luke talked to one of the workers.

He introduced himself as Graeme.

He led us to the front of the store and grabbed the first Segway, taking it outside and looking at us.

'Have you ever been on a Segway before?' he asked.

Luke nodded 'I have once but it's been a while'

Graeme nodded and motioned for him to come closer.

'It's just like driving, once you know how it works, you'll never un-learn it'

Luke and I smiled and I watched as Luke easily got on the Segway.

Together they explained to me how it worked and by the time they were done explaining Luke was happily riding around waiting for Graeme and me to get on a Segway too.

It took me about 20 minutes to get on the Segway and figure out how to use it.

When I did, Graeme took his own Segway and smoothly stepped on it.

'Alright, let the tour begin' he smiled happily.

He turned around and we followed right behind him.

We were riding the Segways for about 20 minutes when Graeme slowed down and eventually stopped, turning around to face us.

'In 1840,' he started, looking at the massive house behind him.

'Herriot, McGillivray, Ellis, Shaw with his wife and McKinnon with his wife and child, stranded in New Zealand after their boat crashed. Being with 8 of them, they decided to establish their own farm. They were the first Europeans to enter New Zealand. They lived here, in Riccarton house. In 1841 they left the house to farm somewhere else and in 1843, the Dean brothers, Gebbies and Mansons started living here. They were the second group of Europeans here in Christchurch. Until a few years ago the house was used as a restaurant, café and function centre but sadly it's been closed since the earthquake in 2011'

Graeme talked some more about what happened during the earthquake and what has been damaged and after we got some time to look at the house and had taken some pictures of us with the house, we moved on to the next place.

We followed the Avon river to the next place and stopped in the middle of a place called "Mona vale".

Graeme told us a story about a woman buying the property from a man named "Frederick Waymouth" in 1905. The woman, Annie Townend, named the property "Mona Vale", after her mother's house in Tasmania. Annie was George Moore's only surviving daughter and he left her 1 million pounds when he died.

With the money, Annie bought more land to make Mona Vale even bigger, Creating a botanic garden and a bath house. Annie Townend died in 1914.

Luke and I were both amazed with all the historical information and the fact that it was a beautiful place, even after the earthquakes, only made it that much better.

We followed the Avon river even further after that and ended up in Hagley park.

Hagley park is the largest open space area in Christchurch and was created in 1855.

Graeme told us some more about the people who created the park and why it was special, and after that the tour was over.

Graeme had been smiling widely the entire tour, clearly loving his job.

'So now that we're here and we have this big open space,' he said, his smile only growing bigger.

'I think you should do a little race'

I looked at Luke and then back at Graeme.

'The first one to get to the end of the park wins' he said.

Luke and I looked at each other, a grin spreading across both of our faces before we turned our Segways around and raced each other to the end of the park.
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A/N:
EVERYTHING I've written about the history of these places is true (or at least...it's what wikipedia said)...I just felt like I had to point that out.