Another gorgeous sunny blue sky day in Cromwell (no wonder it is orchard country). I am heading off for 5 – 7 days for a bit of a walk about to give Linda and Mark a break and me some time for me to see more New Zealand. I had been here back in 2004 and saw a lot of the south island and this time has mostly been to visit my girlfriend, but I wanted to see more of Dunedin and also Oamaru which I have never been to. As I wait for the bus, a cranky English couple stand separated from each other, also waiting for the bus but clearly having a bit of a tiff. Man, I don`t miss that. But I digress (that will be another post).
Yeasterday, all of us (parents, kids and me) headed to the A & P show in Wanaka (A&P stands for Agriculture and something – perhaps products). Wanaka is another quaint lakeside town about 45 minutes from Cromwell, also, surprise, surprise, surrounded by mountains. I just can`t say enough about the maountains around here. We hooked up briefly with Roland, Marlena and their little one, Lilly.
I love these agricultural shows. Animals, products, people. There was a horse show just finishing which made me long for my horse riding days and oddly Britain. Well there is a significant British influence here. But is was most fun watching the sheep shearing (oddly the man was NOT wearing rubber boots!), and the Jack Russell race. What a hoot and chaos. The poor horse pulling the dead rabbit! It was dying to just squash the yappy dog that wouldn`t leave it alone at the end of the race.
There were all sorts of booths with Merino wool clothing, which is a specialty of New Zealand. Finely spun Merino wool is made into summer clothing and it is cool and light to the touch – you have a hard time believing it is wool.
We finished the day with a great BBQ at Roland and Marlena`s, who lease a property on the Pisa Station, established in 1859. The day I arrived they had had a tornado touch down and just miss their house. So Roland using his fine German engineering skills, built a lovely dining table from the scraps of their destroyed shed and fence. Gotta love it. All in all, a good day. Besy was pooped!