Christchurch and beyond

We decided to go to a place called Godley Head on the coast today, Dave had an idea how to get there, but of course the GPS had other ideas and wouldn’t take the place name to find us a route! Eventually got that figured out, then the silly Garmin kept turning off. Good thing I travel with a mechanic, who figured out the fuse to the outlet had blown, pulled over, replaced it, and presto, we were on our way!! When we got to the turn off for a Godley ahead, we were on a very long, winding narrow road, one side with a ditch, the other with a cliff drop off, so you really had to watch for oncoming cars and a place to pull off to let them by!! We eventually got there, and were treated to some spectacular views, looking down over Sumner beach, across the inlet, and of course, sheep! The terrain is wind blown and quite barren, and reminded me of parts of Wales or Scotland. There is an old WW2 military base up there, with lots of old buildings and gun batteries along the coast. On the way down, we saw lots of mountain bikers heading off down the trails, which are out in the open hills and totally different to the ones Dave rides at home.

We ventured on to a small town called Lyttleton which is the main port town in the area. There were some cute little stores, and a farmers market going on today so we strolled through there for a while, then stopped for lunch at the Lyttleton Arms pub - huge British influence here! Headed back to our place, where I crashed for almost 2 hours - I think the time change and the busyness of the last 2 weeks caught up with me! Dave took off for a walk through the lovely Hagley Park, and by the time he got back, I got my second wind and was ready to go again!

We decided to go back to the park (which is huge, actually bigger than Hyde Park in London), and walked along the River Avon for quite a way, coming out at the beautiful rose garden. We could hear music not far away so went to check that out. There was a big Wine and Food Festival happening in the park, with food trucks, wine vendors, live music and tons of people! We talked to a very nice security guard at the gate to ask her what was going on, told her we were visiting from Canada, and she said, “go ahead on in”! The festival was almost over anyway, but we got to spend an hour walking around, watching the shenanigans of the wine filled attendees, listening to the music (by a famous local artist named David Dobbyn), and checking out the food trucks. By this time, we had walked over 12km today, so picked up some dinner to have at our place, rested our weary legs, and had our first quiet night in!Read more