Friday, after a few long and tedious telephone calls, Mike discovered that the luggage was indeed in Christchurch. Somewhere. The airport promised to deliver said luggage when it's precise location was nailed down. Jet lag was horrendous on Friday, to the point of extreme politeness between the two travellers. Es decided that it was time to enact an intervention, and took us on a tour of some of the towns and churches on the Banks Peninsula. Pea was in the process of making his wonderful bread as well as preparing for work, so we were free to leave the premises knowing that someone would be there for the bags. (they arrived at three).
We set off about noon, temperature which had been cool in the morning, was beginning to rise, but it was quite windy yet. We had a bit of difficulty finding the churches--we think we zoomed by the church in Gebbes valley as we made our way down from the Canterbury plains to the sea. The next church, in Teddington also remained elusive--we did find the larger church in Diamond Harbour.
The drive from Diamond Harbour to Port Levy was hair raising to say the least.
We discovered the mountain cow, a distant cousin of the mountain goat. The roads were as winding and turning as those of Cyprus, but the traffic is much lighter and all that we found were paved.
We took a look inside the little church in Port Levy. The altar candles were all askew--Es posited that this was a result of the earthquake as the church had not likely been used since easter. The graveyard was quite lovely--the ground covered with a pine cone shaped like a rose.
The scenery, although frequently frightening is stunning.
We drove back up the coast again back to Governor's Bay and handily found the church there. St. Cuthberts's, a heritage building and one of the original churches in this diocese and province, was badly damaged by the September 4th quake. Its historical importance may be a factor in any re-building decisions.
We stopped at Diamond Harbour for a drink, Mike and I had a drink, Es was given a fizzy something as we were NOT letting her even have a sip of bad stuff-- and returned home to our own jammies.
One tidbit of information that I learned today was.....one has to wear more sunscreen in NZ, as the ozone layer is much thinner. (remember the hole in the ozone layer in Antarctic?)\
Day Three we hit the floor running out the door to the A&P, no, not the grocery store but the county fair or Agricultural and Pastoral, this time in Ellesmere. It was a good sized event. Tractors, sheep, chickens. sheep, beef cattle, dressage, not to mention alpaca. The elongated chap on the left is not poor photography on my part--but a very long necked example of duckhood, an Indian duck. I saw limousin and charolais cattle, as well as this lovely beast below the Galloway -- a beef cattle. They are probably found somewhere in Canada, but I have yet to have the pleasure of seeing one.
On the fair food front; I had my first A&P sausage there. Absolutely disgusting--large grey slug on a piece of cold white bread, ketchup, fried, onions and NO mustard. The people serving it were lovely and informative, but trust me, don't waste your money on the product. The lamb on a hotdog bun was marginally better, but still processed. Es munched (and gave me a bite) of a fresh Cornish Pasty. (She`d done this gig before....). Next time I am trying the lamb on a bun which Es has approved as appropriate. I did buy some alpaca merchandise there, as well as some delightful garlic product.
At one point a sheep escaped the pen and bolted for freedom--I have never seen any thing jump so high in my life. We also got to see an Alpaca decide that it was NOT GOING TO BE SHOWN and promptly sit down. The owner picked up its hind legs and `wheelbarrowed`it toward the pen. Alpaca then plopped down on its front legs and was eventually picked up by its by then absolutely disgusted handler. I really like these folks, they remind moe of e-woks from the second "Starwars" movies.
We left for home about noon as Pea had to go to work. Mike and Es worked in the garden all afternoon in the lovely weather. I had done my garden stint the day before, and simply enjoyed the day.
No comments:
Post a Comment