It's about 9:30 Monday night and I'm sitting in our living room in one of our two comfy chairs, next to our snazzy cardboard coffee table (no furniture shipment yet). There are windows and patio doors on two of the walls which allow me to look out over the strip of city lights coming from houses along the peninsula between the ocean and the Estuary (where I had my sailing lessons). A couple of hours ago I could see the ocean and the mountains in the distance. Amazing.
Yesterday we spent the day with a University of Canterbury colleague and his wife, along with a former colleague from Ohio State and his wife who were visiting. We drove a short bit out of town and stopped at Pegasus Bay Winery, which we learned has won many, many awards which is saying a lot given the amazingly high quality of NZ wines! Walked through the gardens which were filled with native plants (who knew you could get figs off a tree and not just from the grocery store? don't get many of those in Toronto or Columbus), and tables for elegant dining outdoors. Then for some wine tasting. The six of us went into the wine-tasting part of the restaurant. Looked much like a very nice stand-up bar except that wine was on tap. What a concept. We sampled a sauvignon blanc-semillon blend (excellent) and then a riesling (excellenter). I looked around to see who to pay for the samples. No need, wine samples are free. I actually live in this country???
After that, our friends took us to a great place to tramp (read: hike) not too much further along the road. We're used to hills in Christchurch but driving off the main road towards the coast reminded us of our visit to Kaikoura a couple of weeks ago: vistas, vistas, vistas. Anyway you turn provides an incredible picture.
We started out on the trail only to see a sign saying "Any dogs found on this trail will be shot." Ouch. I guess they're serious. Thankfully, we left our kids at home. We climbed over a couple of fences with the aid of conveniently placed ladders and then headed out on our tramp. After a short walk we came to a fork in the path. We were told that the one to the left was about an hour walk leading us down to the beach though was pretty steep going down so as wonderful as it would be hanging out at the beach, we would face a tough climb back up. To the right was a gentler hike that would take us to places with great views, also about an hour in length. Being the tough souls that we are, we chose the right path, er, the path to the right.
The views were pretty amazing: hills, valleys, ocean. It was also peaceful. The only other people we saw were a middle-aged couple resting on comfy recliners made of bent over tall grass by the side of the path, and a family with a small dog (not shot, as far as we could tell.). As we proceeded along the trail, we discovered that some of the valleys weren't very dry. Turns out that following the leader meant that your shoes/boots got even wetter than the person in front of you. Being the renegade and taking to the right of the water sometimes paid off, and sometimes meant that you'd discover an even deeper and muddier hole. Squish, squish, squish.
After about an hour out, there was consensus that we should head back. As much as I was enjoying myself, I have to admit that I was also looking forward to heading down all those hills that my legs had felt on my way up. I'm still not sure how it happened but there were more hills to climb going back. How is that possible??? Some of us stopped regularly on the way up; always important to admire the view. :) It turns out that this tramp would rate a 2 out of 5 on a scale of difficulty according to NZ standards. Boy, do I have a ways to go!
Cheers folks,
Beth
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