Little River Rail Trail

On Sunday I biked the Little River Rail trail with a friend. It is a 45 km, flat, well-formed trail where the rail line used to run that starts from Christchurch and ends in the town of Little River. There were lots of sheep and baby lambs along the way (lambing season has just begun). Since it's winter, it's not as green as it would be in the summer- but still quite nice!

Great Ocean Road and Melbourne Area

So many kangaroos on the golf course! Kangaroos are a big bigger and more common than wallabies.

Koalas love to eat Eucalyptus trees- especially Manna Gum. There were dozens of them in certain spots!

These Sandstone stacks are called the 12 Apostles

The forest was actually really similar to NZ- some tree species were even the same (but lots were different)

Platypuses where are you? They are nocturnal so we didn't see any here even though they do live in this lake- but we did get to see some at a wildlife sanctuary

Wild Cockatoos!

This type of Cockatoo is found in the wild too- but not as commonly as the white one

We just got back from a week in Australia. We spent a few days in Melbourne where I had a conference, then took 4 days to drive the Great Ocean Road and see some other sights in the area. Melbourne is a nice city- it's big but it's got great public transport, it's also very diverse and has excellent restaurants. The wilderness outside of Melbourne was stunning. The beaches were beautiful- although it was a little too cold to swim- but the break in the waves was amazing- so perfect! No wonder that area has some of the best surfing in the world! The forests were also really nice- and we saw a lot of wild animals- kangaroos, koalas, wallabies, dingos and so many different kinds of wild parrots. (And we thought New Zealand had nice birds!)

Mount Hutt

Another beautiful sunny & calm weekend! Yesterday I went to Mount Hutt (the biggest ski hill in the Christchurch area, just over an hour away) with some friends from the kayaking club (since there is no kayaking in the winter- at least not for us cause we hate being immersed in water that is 0 degrees). Brad was golfing- both Saturday and Sunday.

Camp Saddle

Brad was golfing at Christchurch golf course this Sunday and I went off with the tramping club to Camp Saddle. It was -2 C in Christchurch when we left at 8am, and when we started off it was -9 C at the mountain- a record experience for lots of people. But it warmed up and later on I was in a t-shirt. Sunny AND calm- that is one thing about winter here, there are far more calm days than in the summer. It was a beautiful walk with some great views, and good experience using crampons and an ice axe. As we passed through a narrow section (about 5 m wide) that looked prone to rock falls, a meter-wide boulder came down and missed my friend Myra by only about one meter! Scary- but luckily that sort of thing is a rare occurrence.