Tag: adventure

Christchurch, New Zealand-Day 5

Hurunui Hills Merino Sheep Farm

Sunrise from the front yard of our VRBO. Today will be exciting; Scotty is picking us up this morning to take us to his family’s Sheep farm! His dad, mom, Scotty and his brother run it. This is a 6th generation farm!
This is the VRBO that Jan found for us. It’s a beautiful house right on the water and was very comfortable!
This is the farm. i don’t remember the actual size of it, but it’s huge!
That’s Scotty, Jan, Lane and Joni in the picture. He told us this was the spot on the farm where he got married.
A group photo
Two of the three working dogs they use. These boys do the field herding together. They do not bark, they just follow their orders and do their job
This is their third dog. Her job is to get the sheep into the chute to go to shearing. She does bark since the sheep are already corralled. We have a couple of videos but unfortunately, I couldn’t get them to upload properly. If you want to see them work, just Google sheep herding dogs. It’s very fun and fascinating to watch!
When they’re off duty they are very affectionate. She loved belly rubs!
Rounding up a stray sheep.
More belly rubs, please!
The boys have them corralled, now her turn to get them in th chute.
In line to be sheared.
Look at those eyelashes! The Kardashians would be jealous!
The boys job is done, ready for a ride.
Scotty’s mom is the shearer along with the hired hands. Here she’s explaining the process.
Some of the shearing tools.
The shearing tool.
A bundle of wool with the awards it has won. They produce Merino wool exclusively and have earned many awards!
Many top garment producers around the world use their wool.
Here she’s showing us the fine threads they get from this wool.
Back outside, this is their family greenhouse.
A scarecrow of sorts!
They also have a few pet sheep. We think they aged out of being useful for wool, so now they live their retired life with treats and pets!
Grapevines over their back patio.
We had a lovely Crumpets and tea that Scotty’s mom prepared. She shared that her sons are encouraging them to retire and travel, but she isn’t interested in doing that because this is her office! Why leave it to travel!
We’re back in the van to go to lunch.
More sheep on our way. Interesting fact: sheep outnumber people in New Zealand 5 to 1! AND they’re delicious (the sheep not the people!)
Scotty took us to this winery where we had great wine and absolutely the best lamb shanks we’ve ever eaten. Sorry, no pictures, I was busy eating!

That’s the end of our adventures in the Christchurch area.

Christchurch, New Zealand- Day 3

Akaroa

We’re on the road again with Scotty, on our way to visit the beautiful town of Akaroa.
Our route took us through this tunnel. I’m sorry, I still think we’re on the wrong side of the road!
The trip there was very scenic.
This was kind of bizarre , they planted these trees in a perfect square! It’s called a forestry block, pine trees for future harvesting. This particular one is called the Damn Square of Akaroa.
These are our first glimpses of their beautiful bay.
My obligatory shot of a pier, love the shadow!
Interesting tree.
Every fisherman’s rules!
Downtown Akaroa, beautiful flowers everywhere.
We were intrigued with The Giants House. After a short debate about trudging up the hill to see it, we decided to go for it. After all, we came half way around the world to be here!
The artist, Josie Martin, who has lived here for 26 years found some shards of broken tiles or pottery while digging for a garden and she had the idea of creating some artwork from it. That plus when she began, the town and neighbors donated more. It expanded exponentially from there! She calls it The Happiest Garden in the World!
Jan and Joni “relaxing” on this tiled cement bench!
The more we explore and look, the weirder it gets!
I warned you! The farther you go the weirder it gets!
These two are Joni’s favorites, NOT!
Lane about to be eaten by a huge rabbit!
Jan and Joni catching a little shade.
I’m not sure exactly what this is representing?!?
Upward and onward!
Why not, an octopus next to an elephant!
There was actually a nice view of the bay from up there.
Yes, VERY steep stairs and no railings! They obviously don’t have OSHA here! BTW, I did not go down them!
The hands have it!
Those non OSHA approved stairs from down below.
For a little normalcy intervention, some pretty flowers!
And back to the non normal!
More Topiary.
Broken wine bottles? Use them too!
Sure, why not!
Jan making friends again! No, we’re not adopting him!
Dove Sentries?
Hopscotch anyone? This looks to be a work in progress.
Yes, these are real flowers!
Well, back down to reality!

Christchurch, New Zealand

I’ll start this post with a bit of an add for this awesome gentleman. Scotty of ScottyB Tours was our tour guide for our 5 days in and around Christchurch. He was a fantastic guide too! He was knowledgeable and very interesting to listen to. He knows the area extremely well and had lots of interesting stories along our journey. We highly recommend him if you are ever in New Zealand, he is available for tours anywhere on the South Island!
If your interested, his website is: http://www.scottybtours.com
Our first day was a tour of Christchurch itself. Our first stop was this place. The site was a building that housed Canterbury Television Station, King’s Education Language School, Hair Consultants, Relationship Services and The Clinic Medical Center. On February 22, 2011, an earthquake of 6.3 Magnitude struck the city and the building collapsed, killing 115 people and injuring many more inside. The site is now a memorial honoring the lives lost that tragic day.
This was part of the foundation of the building.
A memorial to those lives lost.
This is a church that they lovingly call the “Cardboard Cathedral”. It was designed and erected next to the memorial and it got its name because what you are looking at is the roof of the chapel
and those are 100 heavy duty cardboard tubes coated with waterproof polyurethane and flame retardant.! They sit on 8 shipping containers which form the base and walls. It was designed by a famous Japanese architect Shigeru Ban in association with a local firm Warren and Mahoney.This is their temporary place of worship while the original church is under construction to repair the damage caused by the earthquake.
Even the chairs that are the “Pews” are in keeping with the Japanese theme.
This is the Christ Church Cathedral which as you can see is fenced off while they work on it. Completion of the project is not until the end of 2027!
Local artists took advantage of the fencing and are displaying some beautiful artwork!
Next on our tour was the Christchurch Botanical Gardens. As you’ll see.
As you’ll see in the next several pictures it was very colorful, especially since this was the beginning of their fall season!
That is a huge tree! Especially compared to Joni and Lane!
Not all the flowers are real or life size!
Lane on the left, Jan in the middle, Scotty and Joni to the right.
Quite a variety of different color roses too!
We loved this fountain!
Some of the beautiful old buildings around the Gardens
There is also some interesting art pieces scattered throughout the city too!
Down along this river they have installed another memorial to those lives lost in the earthquake of 2011.
I’m not sure what this is about, kind of odd!
Christchurch is where a lot of the expeditions to Antartica leave from! They’re only about 3500 miles from there. It seemed weird that the farther south you go down here the colder it gets; opposite of where we live!
More beautiful flowers!
We had lunch at Delilah, a very cool restaurant with great food!
After lunch Scotty took us to this trail that lead to a great view of the bay.

That’s it for Day 1 of our Adventures with Scotty. Stay tuned for Day 2……..

Sydney, Australia (contd)

Blue Mountain Tour

The Blue Mountain Tour included Fantastic views of the Blue Mountains, the Hydro Majestic Pavilion, Scenic World, and a Zoo which had everything from Koalas to Kangaroos to a very large Crocodile!.

Hydro Majestic Pavilion
Beautiful views of the Blue Mountains on or way up.
Jan was particularly fond of this piece.
The views from inside were quite beautiful.
The color scheme and decor was quite “arresting”.
The billiards room with the biggest pool table we
have ever seen!
This place had quite a eclectic assortment of decor and furnishings!
I snuck a quick picture of the very elegant main dining room which we weren’t allowed to enter.
The main check in area. The is a living vine behind it!
Outside the building were ver beautiful landscaping and fantastic views of the Blue Mountains.
This fellow apparently can’t decide what color hair he wants!
One lone Cockatoo!
Young and vibrant
Older and not so vibrant!
Back on the bus with our fabulous guide Leonard and his little pal (I forget his name!)

On to Scenic World!

Our first mode of transportation was this Cableway
The glass floor was a bit disconcerting!
This formation is the famous Three Sisters
It was a beautiful ride but there seems to be an awful lot of slack in those cables!
It was very lush and green up there!
The next mode of transportation was quite different. It’s a Scenic Railway Incline and you can choose how inclined you want to be!
Three Sisters in the distance.
Once at the bottom there was nice wide path to follow with things to see on the way.
Lots of displays depicting the mining operations .
This was the original Scenic Railway Incline, not quite as plush and comfortable as the current one!
Here’s my obligatory lawyer picture of the working of the cable car.
Now they show this after we’re trapped at the bottom and have to take the cablecar back up!
On our way back up.
A bit cloudier on the way back up!

On to the Zoo

Of course they had plenty of these cute fellows & gals!
Just chillin’
This isn’t a baby Kangaroo, its a Tasmanian Pademelon.
Whatcha’ lookin’ at?!
Native language hyrglyphs? Your guess is as good as mine!
Tasmanian Devil, perfect name for this odd creature!
Koalas sleep most of the time! Kind of like cats!
No Zoo is complete without a VERY large Crocodile! You’ll notice he’s in that tank all alone! Such a cute smile only his mother could love!
And we finish with monkeys doing what monkeys do: monkey around!

To be continued with a more in depth look at the Opera House…