Today was suffused with the color of growing things. Shilpa, Chris and I took Peter’s advice and walked over from our hotel to the Riccarton Bush. This is a patch of primordial forest which was set aside by the Dean family when they homesteaded this part of New Zealand, and has been preserved ever since. It is about a 45 minute walk from the center of Christchurch, right in the middle of present-day suburbia. It was perfect for a group of people looking to readjust from the splendors of the Dry Valleys. Instead of being immense, dry, and shades of brown, blue, and white with only the wind blowing through, it was intimate, aromatic, green and filled with birdsong.
Breathing in the earthy aromas and taking in the verdant scenery of the Riccarton Bush.
We finished our excursion at the restaurant housed in the old Dean residence, which had some of the best eggplant lasagna, chocolate dessert and apricot tea ever. And we sat in the middle of a rose garden, under an arbor topped with pink blooms. What a perfect closing parenthesis to our Antarctic experience.
Taking time.
Shilpa, Kristof and Chris enjoy a luncheon with tea under the arbor in the rose garden.
what a contrast to your life during the last two months! Wow! It’s been so nice of Chris to have loaned you his camera so we could follow your life. Tell him thank you from me. Muttertier