Punting on Avon River Delight yourself to the sophisticated luxury of the English Oxbridge, where cotton-shirted, straw-hat-wearing punters glide passengers across the majestic gardens of the riverbanks. This is indisputably the best way to experience the green strands and unequalled parkland attractiveness of downtown Christchurch, where a blooming kaleidoscope of colors bursts in the spring, the dropping branches of the regal weeping willows hang into the water, and the attractive stone bridges of the Avon above.