Kimbell and Lake Tekapo

Monday we said our farewells to the family at Twin Gullies and made our way via Geraldine and Fairlie to the wee one-horse town of Kimbell. If you drive through Kimbell and blink, you'll miss it. Even so it has an art gallery in the one and only hotel, as well as the Silverstream Gallery and Studio. We spent a very pleasant time browsing through the artworks on display. The resident artist is Lloyd Harwood and some of his work was rather nice, to put it mildly. Of course, our favourite work was much too expensive for our meagre pockets! What struck me is that Lloyd Harwood is equally comfortable and adept at pencil sketches, water colours and oil paintings.

We slept over at Rivendell Lodge as guests of Joan Gill - what a pleasant stay in this Tolkien-friendly house with rooms named Lorien, Nimrais, Edoras and Rauros. We slept soundly in Lorien.

Lake Tekapo is but a few minutes drive from Kimbell, so we went to explore. This part of the New Zealand contryside is known for the wild lupins found predominantly next to the roads.

Like many of the inland lakes, the water in Lake Tekapo has the most amazing brilliant turquoise colour. We walked up the track along Mt John for about 15 minutes to get a bird's eye view of the lake.

The Church of the Good Shepherd on the shore of Lake Tekapo was built in 1935, the first church built in the Mackenzie Basin. The church was designed by Christchurch architect R.S.D. Harman, based on sketches by a local artist, Esther Hope. The church is arguably one of the most photographed in New Zealand. While we were there busloads of tourists milled around the church and since we shy away from crowds we did not go any closer.

Meeting Mika again

We met our first grand-child, Mika Willem Adrian Labuschagne, for the first time in October 2009 when he was only 4 months old, so we were eager to see him again two months later. And what a difference two months make at this stage - he is now so much more alert, taking in everything that goes on around him, smiling and chortling or crowing at the slightest excuse. He's a very happy baby, but then who would not be with two such loving doting parents as Hester and Jacques?

Christmas at Twin Gullies

Christmas celebrations at Twin Gullies was fabulous. It was good to see the extended family again and the weather played along ever so nicely. A scrumptious dinner was served on trestle tables, complete with white table cloth, on the lawn outside, overlooking Akaroa Harbour. This is exactly the view from Twin Gullies, looking across towards Akaroa:

Vic and Doug always make us feel so welcome and Twin Gullies is a great Bed & Breakfast destination. Here's a couple of views of the main house and the garden:


Why Twin Gullies? Since I'll probably be talking about them from now on, here's how it works. Our son Jacques is married to Hester and they now have a lovely baby boy, Mika (more about Mika later!). Hester's parents, Doug and Victoria Hamilton, own and run Twin Gullies, situated near Barry's Bay on Banks Peninsula. For those who don't know, Banks Peninsula is near Christchurch in New Zealand. Hester's brother Seth and sister Harriet also joined us for the family gathering.

We went for a drive along the scenic route which follows the spine of Banks Peninsula. We parked the car and walked for a while. We noticed that the paddocks all around were dotted with old weathered chunks of tree trunk - probably of Macrocarpa, an exotic cypress planted for building timber and as windbreaks. It looked quite eerie - like Macrocarpa graveyards.

Lisa's graduation

On 15 December 2009 Lisa graduated from the University of Otago with a BSc in Psychology and a BA in German. Here are some photos of Lisa and her proud parents!