Christmas & New Year's

This is what we were like at Christmas - SO hot we melted!

    
New Year's we did our big tramp on the Hump Ridge Track down in Southwest Fiordland - we got three relatively fine days in between masses of rain and flooding.


 

 
Pretty much all it's done this week is rain.  The weeds are loving it.  I'm not!

Changeable Weather

What a funny few weeks of weather.  One day 30 degrees with a scorching nor-west wind, the next day we're back into our winter clothes and there's snow on the hills.  And so the pattern goes.  One of these days soon we'll settle into something approximating summer and I'll start watering the garden!

One of the good things about living here is that the roses take on a life of their own at this time of the year.  They flower later and longer than in town (especially if I can be bothered watering) and December is really when they come into their own with their first flush.  The garden at the front of the house is planted with mainly fragrant plants of one sort or another and all the roses there have fabulous fragrance.  

My favourite is the rose that is trained along the front of the balcony and under the windows.  Arriving at the house you're met with this froth of white and sitting on the balcony in the sun you are surrounded by an intense warm smell of roses.  Gorgeous.

Garden at front of house

Looking along the front of the house

 

Frothy, fragrant white rose on front of house

The rose arbour at the end of the tennis court

Rose arbour in full bloom

In the meantime, Mary and I have been concentrating on preparing for our Hump Ridge Track experience, doing long walks across the river on Tinline Downs.  Spectacular views and some rugged country mean we're enjoying it (on the whole) and I think we'll be ready for the main event in early January. I'm even running twice a week, which is a first in many years. Craig, on the other hand, hasn't done a thing in the way of getting his fitness up, so I think he'll be crying like a baby half way up the hill on day one of the trek.  

Going uphill from the Lottery River

Heading down towards the Lottery River for lunch

Wildflowers on the hill

Mary and the dogs up high

In between working in the garden, climbing hills and getting fit, I've actually been working on our Chocolate Fish business and am in the process of changing the Burbury Suite into a board room and meeting room for Chocolate Fish clients.  We've also just about finished painting the kitchen and laundry - photos to come!

 

Canterbury Anniversary Weekend

Friday's known locally as "Cup Day" - which just goes to show how important horse racing is in this part of the world.  Not only is Friday the last day of a week long horse racing  programme in Christchurch, it's the Canterbury Province Anniversary Day, so a public holiday for the region, and is also the start of the Canterbury A&P Show.  

Not really being that much into the races, we stayed home and pottered around the place.


A lovely warm day on Friday was a great start to Kate's horse trekking season, with her guiding a group of riders down from Mt Lyford to stay at our huts overnight.

The huts from the Lottery River

Wood burning BBQ in front of the dormitory and kitchen blocks

Outdoor bath and shower enclosure

Mary and I walked the dogs up the Lottery River to test out our tramping boots in water crossings, and mucked around checking out the red volcanic rocks and searching for fossils in the river bed.  We found some beauties up the side of a bank, and plenty more in the gravel of the river itself.

Red volcanic rocks on Lottery River

Fossils from Lottery River

On Saturday, Mary, Kath and I walked the dogs along the river and up the steep hill behind the huts.  Mary, Craig and I are walking the Hump Ridge Track in Fiordland in January, so Mary and I are on a 'get fit' regime so we don't die en route, especially with the first day of the 3 day track being entirely up hill.  Side benefits of the 'get fit' regime are that we go places on our back doorsteps that we don't usually go and the dogs get a really good workout as well as us.

On our walk, I was reminded of two things:  1) I need to get a new coat to take tramping and 2) we have some amazingly interesting plants in NZ. 

Along part of our walk is a large stand of prostrate (or dwarf) kowhai, Sophora prostrata.  It's pretty much found only on the east of the Southern Alps, in lowlane to montane areas from southern Marlborough to South Canterbury, and there's this big patch of it lining the track in our back yard.  Even better, it's in flower at the moment!  It's similar but quite different from the other species of kowhai that we have growing on the property, with a much denser growth, all entwined and zigzagging, tiny leaves and flowers, and a completely different flowering period.  The large kowhai on the way down to the river flower in August/early September, while the prostrate kowhai flower in October/November.  So, two completely different variants of a native plant within 1km of each other - one relatively common, the other significantly less so.

Sophora tetraptera (southern kowhai) and native wood pigeons

Sophora prostrata (prostrate kowhai) bush

Sophora prostrata (prostrate kowhai) flowers

Onto more prosaic things.  On Sunday we went on the Rotherham Garden Tour (a fundraising tour for the Rotherham school) of 8 gardens around the district.  Garden tours are not my natural habitat but it turned out to be very interesting, especially towards the end of the day when we encountered a massive thunder and lightening storm!  We went to private gardens you'd never get to see normally to gardens which are extensions of commercial nursaries.  

Large formal planting

Mass plantings

Pond with arboretum behind and gunnera in front

Rhodo Direct sales area

A small part of Rhodo Direct's show garden

A 'no lawn' garden - a huge rock garden filled with glorious spring colour

A large sunken lawn, edged with large rocks and planted rock garden borders

It all ended up with me inspired to do some weeding.....the rose garden on the bank behind/above the back patio is now pristine!

 
 

Spring has definitely sprung!

The garden has really sprung to life over the last few days - the delphiniums have shot up, the herb garden is in full flush, the rhododendruns have a wonderful show, and even some of the roses have started to flower.

The garden immediately to the right of the front steps of the house is looking particuarlarly good at the moment.  

Two different colours of delphiniums (deep purple and a bright sky blue) are reaching out towards the sky; purple irises are flowering beside them; the forget-me-not is just reaching the end of its best colour and flowers; and the strange old single white rose with its huge scarlet thorns is starting to come into its own.  

The first of the roses has overnight bloomed with several of its incredibly fragrant, deep rich burgandy roses.  Stunnning!

 

Over at the rhododendron patch, new flowers are showing daily.  The old old bright pink rhodo has almost finished flowering, some of the mid-season plants are in full flower, while others are yet to open their buds.  The younger plants in the patch behind the post and rail fence are all blooming now - a couple of them have been knocked around by the winter snow but they're all flowering and showing potential to grow into a fabulous grove in the coming years.

Out the back of the kitchen, the herb garden is lush and green, with pink flowers all over the thyme, the sage starting to show its purple buds, dill shooting away with its marvellous feathery fronds, the marjoram looking strong and healthy, and the italian parsley is pretending it's going to bolt for the stars.





The lawn is growing like crazy - poor Pete's been on the mower twice this week alone!  The horse chestnuts in the lawn have their gorgeous spires of pink and white flowers all in show, with an equally lovely fragrance wafting on the breeze.

I won't mention the vege garden - it needs some work, but probably not this weekend as the weather is supposed to turn from the warm summery weather we've been having to something that invites you to stay indoors - so that's what I'll do!

What a sunrise!

For the first time in a long time I was up before the birds (jet lag does that to you sometimes).  Walking down to the kitchen the hall was ablaze in gold and red, and walking outside to see the sky reminded me of what a stunningly beautiful place we live in!

Fiery sunrise through the macrocarpas by the orchard.

Pink nor-west clouds above the rhododendrons at front of the house