Another day out in Lyttelton

Our friends Don and Liz arrived in Christchurch on Friday; they are staying the weekend here before continuing on their travels further down the south island. We took them for a trip to Lyttelton on Saturday morning, meeting up with Phil and Lou at the farmers' market (where I once again got great amusement from the Dog Parking Area) before heading on to the port to watch the ships for a while.

Although it was a beautiful day, blue skies and sunshine, there was a bit of a smog or fog hanging over the town itself. I'm not sure if that was natural fog or the produce of the wood burners that heat many houses here. There has been some bad natural fog over the last week or so, closing the airports in both Christchurch and Wellington at various times, but I think this one can be blamed on the chimneys.

After a leisurely time kicking about in town and drinking delicious hot chocolate from the Lyttelton Coffee Company, it was time to head back to Christchurch. Skry and I were invited out to a winter solstice dinner party, where we got to celebrate the fact that from here on the nights should be getting shorter and the days longer. Honestly, the winter days here are so much longer than they are in Ireland that it doesn't even feel like winter yet! But I'm happy enough for the evenings to get lighter again.