On our way home and more...

It was a lovely sunny day as we left Christchurch.  We visited a market and bought Harry what was meant to be 'the best sausage roll ever made' and some bread for our picnic.  We stopped near St Annes Lagoon and enjoyed the multitude of birds flying and floating on the lagoon.  Geese formations flew above as we munched on our bread and thought about our holiday nearly being over.

We stopped again later on to admire the view and the seals before ending up just outside Blenheim for another lunch (where we sat under a pine tree), a bit of a supermarket shop.

Then onto Picton where we wandered around the harbour and took photos of the ferry coming in.  It was an amazing trip over, the sun set, the sea was calm, Wellington and Makara could be seen clearly.  A rare voyage across the Cook Strait.

It was a bit of a let down to get back into the routine of getting up early and going to work but the week went quickly.  We wandered up Mt Kau Kau with Becks and Mike on a warm clear day.  It is the first time we have seen the snow covered Kaikouras, Mt Taranaki and Mt Ruapehu at the same time and of course we didn't take our camera.  We said goodbye to Becks and Mike came to stay for a few days.  We went to the Botanic Gardens for the summer concerts, the first evening was great music, but the second which Jim and Margot came along to was cold and the music 'not quite our scene'.  The lights were great, especially the bubble machine (all those young at heart tried to catch them).

Sharon and Aaron came back from Brisbane and we went for a barbeque at Marion and David's where I got some cuttings of a fuschia and some yellow limes. We went to Ken and Leighs for dinner, and a bike ride around red rocks (a bit of a challenge for a beginner mountain biker but fun even though I had to walk a bit.