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.

An afternoon in Lyttelton

The sun was really shining warmly today, and Skry and I went to Lyttelton for the afternoon. Lyttelton is a small and pretty harbour town about ten minutes' drive out of Christchurch, and is also home to a busy port. On arrival, we caught the tail end of what is apparently a really good farmers' market. I bought some smoked venison sausages and a caramelised onion and feta pizza, while Skry ended up with goat's cheese, free range eggs, and some sort of pie. We were both happy with our purchases, and I'll definitely be back.

After the market, we took a stroll along the main road closest to the port, and looked at the ships and containers coming in. This is where our own belongings arrived when they got to New Zealand, and we were able to imagine the journey that the container took to get from Belfast to Christchurch. There were lots of ships with Russian names and what looked like Ukranian emblems, and there was also a large Australian Navy ship. I'm not quite sure what that was doing there, but we met several very young-looking New Zealand cadets who were on their way to take a tour of the ship while it was in port. Skry was sorry that he couldn't join the tour too!

Sightseeing done, we stopped in a small cafe and enjoyed a hearty lunch. I had a delicious ham and vegetable quiche, Skry had some sort of Indian style filled pie, and we were both full and happy afterwards. It was lovely to be able to sit outside in the sunshine with our jackets off, and imagine that summer hasn't quite departed just yet!