This gallery contains 15 photos.
Originally posted on Gardening Nirvana:
Looking down over Queenstown, New Zealand Every cliché you’ve heard about New Zealand is true. There really are more sheep than people, the hills really are that green, and the water really is that clear.…
While these happy campers paddled across the lake Kelly, Danella and I wandered along the edge, helped rescue a tourist in trouble in the water and generally enjoyed the sunny day………..
On Monday, four members of the Wanaka Crew spent a couple hours kayaking on Lake Wanaka. What a blast! Photo credits go to Alys, Danella, and Joanna as I left my camera and phone on shore. Information about Lake Wanaka was taken from various online sources.
Lake Wanaka covers an area of 192 km2 (74 sq mi) and is New Zealand’s fourth largest lake. It is estimated to be more than 300 m (980 ft) deep. The clarity of the water is remarkable, especially to one who is used to the New River and Claytor Lake, which are full of organic matter. The name Wanaka is Maori and means ‘The place of Anaka’, a local tribal chief.
At its greatest extent, which is roughly along a north-south axis, the lake is 42 k / 26 miles long. Its widest point, at the southern end, is 10 k / 6 miles. The lake’s western shore is…
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A day trip to Queenstown to collect the last of our guests from the airport and then do a bit more sightseeing is captured beautifully by Laurie and her camera once again………..
With Alys’ husband due to fly into the Queenstown airport, the 7 of us piled into two vehicles and drove the 68k into the city.
Can you guess who my seat mate was?
Along the way, we passed Bradrona, the famous “bra fence of Cardrona”. The collection of bras started around 1999, when four bras mysteriously appeared overnight on a fence along the Cardrona Valley Road. It wasn’t until an unknown bra thief began cutting them away under the shadow of the night that the fence gained its notoriety. Every time they were cut away, even more were added, and the bra count has reached over 7000. The infamous fence was rebranded to “Bradrona” in 2015 to raise money for breast cancer and $30,000 has been raised by people leaving donations in a box at the site.
What a powerful monument to say the least. While we did not leave our bras, we did…
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I’m running so behind! If you are still interested and not keeping up on Facebook – here is Laurie’s account of our day long journey to Lake Wanaka and our beautiful holiday house – check it out!!
After organizing 7 people and packing up 2 cars, we were off to Wanaka (sounds like Monica or Hanukkah). As is typical for New Zealand roads, the route was curvy and the scenery beautiful.
A brief stop along the way allowed Siddy to get a(nother) treat.
By 2pm, we were ready for a late lunch, and Monteith’s Brewery Bar in Alexandra was the perfect stop. We enjoyed puppy friendly al fresco dining accompanied by Murphy’s Irish Stout (for me) and followed by a yummy flat white.
Soon enough, we were back on the road but another brief stop, this time at the Clyde Dam, offered some nice photo ops. The Clyde Dam, New Zealand’s third largest hydroelectric dam, is built on the Clutha River near the town of Clyde
With 45 minutes to go, we let Siddy enjoy the breeze.
And THEN we arrived at our temporary home.
What an…
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Fabulous architecture and a dog – what more do you need? Laurie works her magic again ……
After a wonderful day Experiencing Dunedin and Otago Harbour, we slowed our pace with a lovely walk around the University of Otago.
With the first students being accepted in July 1871, it is the oldest university in New Zealand, and the third oldest in Oceania.
With over 20,000 students, the University offers Bachelor, Master, and Doctoral degrees in Health Sciences, other Sciences, Business, and Humanities.
I’m not sure which was more impressive: the architecture or the trees! The stone, while of a darker color, reminded me of Hokie Stone.
The walk was peaceful, offered wonderful scenery, and was the perfect way to end our day.
Now here’s an adventure everyone can enjoy – again it’s from Laurie’s post, go see what fun we had on the four passenger trike ……..
Pauline arranged for the most fun outing: a 5 person trike ride around Dunedin and Otago Harbour! This bike chick loved it, as did everyone else. What a blast!
We met our guide Andrew, owner of Experience Dunedin at The Octagon in the Central Business District of Dunedin, and soon we were off.
Andrew obligingly hit the gas and we found ourselves hooting out loud with excitment!
The roads were curvy and changed elevation frequently, and I was reminded of riding back home in southwest Virginia. Well, except for the “wrong side” of the road thing.
The views of the harbour were incredible and these photos do not do them justice.
Alys took some great photos with her selfie stick, so please visit her blog to see more!
Thank you, Pauline, for arranging for this fun, fun outing, and to Alys for treating us!
This gallery contains 16 photos.
Originally posted on Gardening Nirvana:
I’m having the time of my life! In some ways this journey began two years ago. During a Skype session, the Blogging Babes, as we’ve come to call ourselves, dreamed out loud of a trip…
Day Two of our reunion, again through Laurie’s lens – what a great photographer this woman is! ❤
When we finally went to bed, I can honestly say that I don’t remember my head hitting the pillow. Eight solid hours of sleep later, I was wide awake and feeling pretty good. Even still, it takes more than 8 hours to recover from that long day of travel, and I was glad that we had a low key day spent exploring Pauline’s world, including her family.
We awoke to see Danella’s patio garden. Even though the day was overcast, the flowers beckoned and my camera was soon put into action. I’ve never taken my laptop on a trip before but I knew that I would want to share photos from the camera, not just the phone.
Danella provided coffee and toast (perfect with fresh tomotoes!) and soon Pauline and Siddy joined us. That Siddy! He is adored by everyone that he meets. What a sweet puppy!
After a…
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The Blogging Babes reunion is well underway. Allow me to share with you a post put up by the effervescent Laurie who is currently enjoying her first visit to this part of the world. We are posting daily on Facebook if you want to get all the latest news and updates and once we are settled in Wanaka I will have time to put something together too. Until then, enjoy!
The 40 hour travel day was worth it! And we’ve only been here 2 days.
Often times blogging equals journaling and the posts from this journey will definitely serve that purpose. I want to look back when I’m 80 and be able to remember this trip of a lifetime. Join me as you like, and of course, feel free to comment, too.
The first leg of the trip had me leaving my home in Radford and driving to Roanoke at 4am. A four hour layover at Dulles Airport outside of Washington, DC gave me the opportunity to enjoy the scenery and an airport bar / restaurant.
The five hour flight to San Franciso was uneventful, and soon I was having a joyful reunion with Alys.
We were both so impressed with Air New Zealand. The plane was enourmous and new, the service from the flight attendants was wonderful, and the…
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Blogging is a wonderful thing isn’t it folks? We all start our blogs off with a certain outcome in mind, a certain reason for putting up those first posts and I wonder how many find those initial thoughts and intentions are changed or widened and deepened quite soon after that innocent and hopeful beginning. I bet none of us thought when we started out that what would really happen is we would build a community around our blogs, make new friends and sometimes even get to have real adventures with them.
In just two weeks two bloggers from the USA and one blogger from Canada will make their travel worn and weary ways to my little home in New Zealand for a celebratory reunion.
We all met through our blogs here on WordPress.
Alys from Gardening Nirvana
Kelly from Boomdeadda
Laurie from Life on the Bike and Other Fab Things
Three years ago we all gathered in Washington DC and met up for the first time in the flesh. There was a core group, which included Julia from Defeat Despair, but we also got to meet and spend some time with other bloggers albeit briefly and of course there was Lisa from Arlingwords who toured us enthusiastically and knowledgeably around Washington DC – it was a fabulous time filled with amazing women!
You know, I got to see many amazing things on that trip – my first to the States – but the memories that stay most strongly with me are of the people. My friends of course, and on one memorable afternoon, the many friends of one of those friends, but also left deeply etched into my impressions are of all the folk I encountered incidentally and accidentally and in passing. Everyone was so NICE – friendly, interested, well spoken, polite. They all happily posed for photographs, took photos of us, for us and seemed genuinely pleased to meet someone with a strange accent from a little known place near (or in one case IN) Australia. Everyone said ‘Thank you!’ so convincingly I arrived back home saying ‘THANKyew!’ too.
Now it’s my turn to return the hospitality. It’s a smaller group sadly, but still it is set to be great fun. We will spend just two full days in Dunedin before travelling ‘up Central’ to the mountain plateau town of Wanaka which will be our base for nine days and from which we will explore the beautiful places all around the area. While there’s an unending choice of things to do and see I believe there will also be some crafting time and jigsaw puzzling time and crocheting time. We are having a very hot summer this year and currently the temperatures are the highest that have ever been recorded in that area (I’m hoping that by the end of February they may have dropped a little) so sitting quietly creating things might be all some of us can aspire to.
There will be more than just the four of us going on this little adventure. My ED, Joanna and her partner Steven are driving down from Wellington to be part of the convoy that heads west into the high plateau. My YD, Danella, recovering well with her mangled leg will also be coming, but not driving. Siddy won’t be driving either, though his head will be out the front passenger window and his backside on someone’s knee at all times…….
An added extra will be the arrival of Alys’ husband Mike flying in from California for a couple of days as we wind down our time together.
It is going to be FABULOUS!
Before we go up country there will be a couple of days to explore Dunedin City.
There’s this fun trike/ motorbike that takes four people at a time up and around the hills of Dunedin to admire the views with ‘Experience Dunedin Tours’ This photo from their website experiencedunedin.com
There’s a chance to check out the model for this proposal at the museum – this is my favourite plan ever for a city in this country (Yes, there is no sound) It has already progressed from being a thirty year plan to being possible in just six! I may yet live to see it soaring majestically at the head of our beautiful harbour
On March 1st we head up and west to the Lakes District and the heart of Tourism Capital We are hoping to fit in a few fun adventures between exploring gold mining towns and tourist towns and wine and cheese tasting; There will be barbecues preceded by margaritas and lake paddling accompanied by Siddy. There might be gondola rides up the sides of a mountain, kayaking, bungy jumping or a more sedate visit to a lavender farm. There might even be some adventure cycling for some fit folk……….. There WILL be wineries and cheeseries and lots of food. There may even be some shopping. Mostly there will simply be the chance to enjoy each other’s company – how fabulous is that?
We’ll keep you posted!
Thanks for coming by today, I love that you did!
The Contented Crafter 