Feb 14th - 17th

Feb 14

Happy Valentine’s Day.

Ours was low key and another wonderful day in NZ.

We started the day slowly, which was wonderful, having breakfast with our host, Stephen. Then, we were off to an outdor market, very few organic items there at two vendors, but it was interesting to see what they did have, lots of food stuff, such as honey from their own hives, and olive oils and marinated olives from their own groves. Even fresh fish, both fillets and whole fish, was being sold; so was fresh meats. We bought a whole local fish, as I planned on cooking dinner. Stephen had to work, so it was just the two of us for dinner. I baked the fish, stuffed with sliced garlic, fresh thyme, and fresh rosemary; I put a bit of olive oil and the garlic and fresh herbs on top of the fish as well, and covered it with aluminum foil. Yum! I served it with cauliflower which had been steamed with whole cloves of garlic and the all of it mashed with a bit of salt and pepper to taste, and some fresh greens, like kale but not kale, which I had sautéed with a bit of olive oil and garlic. Tasty. The cauliflower is suppose to be a healthy mashed potatoes, and we like the dish even more than we do mashed potatoes.

Our afternoon had been spent with Stephen until he had to leave around 2:45pm. Then, we left to take a look at Christchurch. We plan on going back on Tuesday, as there is much to see and it’s mostly all in the same area downtown. It was fun driving around exploring. We’re going to take a walking tour to start, when we go in again.

Feb 15

Akaroa is a harbor town a bit east out of Christchurch. It was settled by the French, so, it still has that influence. As usual, we took our time getting there, stopping to explore galleries and taking photos along the way. It’s so incredible as all the vistas here are eye candy. Before reaching Akaroa, we stopped at Hilltop Cafe for lunch, where the view was indescribable; the sight of the many coves and small towns along Akaroa Bay, with a peninsula in the middle of the Bay is so difficult to describe – Art took several photos which will be put together as a panoramic photo, so you will see it too. Go to their web site to see what it looks like. Lunch was delicious; Art had green-lipped muscles (I kept a half shell for my bead embroidery project) in a garlic sauce, and I had a fabulous tomato basil soup. I got the recipe, from Laurie, the owner, and it will be in my cookbook; I need to tweak it a little bit and hope it will be as tasty as theirs was.

Finally, we arrived in Akaroa, a really nice small town with lovely galleries, clothing stores featuring merino wool and possum combinations, and a great waterfront. We got there too late for any of the harbour cruises, but it was so raw and cold out that that was fine. We walked around, in and out of stores, walking along the water, and holding hands. We went into one store, Brereton Jewellers , featuring blue pearls, which are farmed using abalones (called PAUA here), so the colors of the mabe pearls are gorgeous and their luster is high quality. Think about the colors in an abalone shell where the colors range from a fuchia, to greys, to greens, and to shades of blue. Really lovely. Greg, who is one of the jewelers, making settings for their mabe pearls, was informative, both about the pearls and suggestions for us of where to go sightseeing further south. You can see what they do at the above link.

One suggestion he made was that we skip Lyttleton and go to Sumner to have dinner, which is what we did, and the drive there was gorgeous, taking the long way back to the Hilltop Cafe before continuing on to Sumner. We actually ate dinner in Christchurch, as the restaurants we found in Sumner didn’t suit what we were interesting in eating. However, the trip was worth it for the fabulous views we had.

Another special day in NZ. We really like it here a lot and highly recommend others to come explore.

The following was added on another day.

The 16^th

The 16^th found us in Christchurch.

We spent the morning with Stephen at home. He gave me a healing session and it was amazing. I’ve been having some discomfort with my left hip; I had trouble crossing my ankle over my right leg. Now I can do it easily. I felt a softening and an opening while he was doing his energy work. Yes!

We left him close to noon, so we could get to Christchurch for the 1PM guided walking tour. It was a beautiful sunny day in the high 60s – what a day for a stroll. It was very informative and I really like the architecture, much of which is Gothic. We ended up near the Botanic Gardens, so that was our next step. I really liked much of the Gardens, but a goodly portion was open spaces with huge trees around; some were Sequoias, which was a big surprise.

Then, off to another market, an organic market. It’s a bit different here than in the States. A health store is strictly supplements and an organic market can be either just produce or both produce and other products. I’ve found other items here that I’m enjoying, such as chick pea flour chips.

We got back to Stephen’s in time for me to make a dinner of quinoa with rosemary and olive oil, the combination of leftover cauliflower and greens, steamed fresh broccolini from the Sunday market, and cold leftover fish, which was really tasty cold.

We’ve tried to watch some of the Olympics but they’re showing only very short bits at night. If you want to see them, you need to be up at 5:30AM, which I’m not planning on doing any time soon. Our days are too filled with wondrous sights and events to have to cut them short due to getting up early and being tired.

Feb 17

We had hoped to leave Stephen’s by 10am and were only 20 minutes late. I needed only some hummus to round out our supplies, so we went looking for an organic market we had heard about to see if we could score some there. We found it and the veggies and fruits were great – we ended up buying some more fresh produce, but that’s all they sold. So, we were then on our way to Lake Tekepo. However, we had to pass through Rangiora and I needed a head, so we stopped at the market. While there, I took care of business, Art bought some more wine and water, and I found my organic hummus. Good score.

Today was a bit warmer than yesterday but very overcast, so our trip to Lake Tekepo was not as long as it could have been. We stopped once to look at a river, which was such a beautiful shade of blue, not quite a turquoise. Actually, Art shot some video of it as well as a couple of stills.

Miracles do happen – I mentioned that I wanted to find a picnic table for lunch that had toilets near it, as we hadn’t seen anything like that on this leg of the trip. I closed my eyes for a few minutes and low and behold, around the bend was exactly what I wanted. It was too cool to eat at the tables but we used the facilities and ate in the car under some lovely trees.

We next stopped at a place that advertised jewelry with a big sign out by the road. We drove in to see a house with a smaller building next to it, designed the same as the house. A lovely lady greeted us. They import silver jewelry and some hand made from a woman in Christchurch. It was okay, but the best was that we started to talk. We were going to Lake Tekepo so we could take the Stargazing Tour tonight. There’s a great observatory here on Mt. John, and they do night tours of the sky with powerful telescopes. While talking, she gave us a postcard from the tour, and what a sight it was. We all live with too much illumination around us to see our night skys clearly. Unfortunately, it’s raining, so they canceled the tour for tonight. We’re soooooooo disappointed. On the other hand, it means an early night and a good night’s sleep so we can rise early and be ready to leave for Mt Cook and the Tasman Glacier Tour tomorrow.

One other tidbit. We saw a sign for Hanging Rock Bridge, which caught our fancy. It was only 11 kilometers down a side road, so off we went. We stopped at an historic site of an old Kiln from the 1870s. It was big and looked a bit like the tower of a castle – just the tower, not the whole castle. The view opposite it was beautiful – more photo ops. Continuing on, we finally reached Hanging Rock Bridge and decided that we missed something, as the bridge was nothing special. The countryside was. I started to think that we had wasted our time, and then it hit me that it wasn’t wasted, as we were together, talking and laughing.