First off I went to the Christchurch Lantern Festival, celebrating Chinese New Year! I went last Sunday with some friends from church. While there we watch some of an entertaining puppet show by Chinese artists. There were tons of decorative cloth lanterns, I have some picture, BUT, they aren't very good quality. It was quite dark and I only had my phone to take pictures with. At the end they had an intense fireworks show, which lasted a good 10 minuets. It was a very fun experience!
Today I went with some more church friends to Cave Stream. It's a cave... with a stream in it. :P
Anyway, the water was quite chilly, and at the deepest it went up to my chest. It was a fun, if wet, tramp(hike) through a pitch black cave(we had torches(aka flashlights)). I don't have any picture of the cave, but I did mange to get some really good shots just outside the cave. I only had my phone, so the photo quality isn't a good as the garden photos. Also, working on my Kiwi phrases, I've provided you all the American translation in brackets so you can learn as well.
(little bit windy up there!)
After Cave Stream we headed over Castle Rock, which was about a five minuet drive away. I manged to clime most of the way up a side hill, and take some nice shots from up there. The others went to another set of hills really close by. Apparently parts of Narnia were shot here, which was a neat little fact to learn. Some great views of the local mountains about an hours drive from Christchurch.
Before heading back to Christchurch a few of use went off-roading in one of the guy's trucks. It was a blast! Me and three other got to sit in the back of the truck, in the truck bed and ride there. We were bounced around quite a bit. After about halfway through the trip, another two people moved into the back for a bit of a crunched, but still fun, ride. Here's a picture of me an the other five during the wild ride! (It was kinda hard to get everyone in the picture, but I think I did okay.)
Thank you for sharing with us Terryn! Grandma here. I hope you don't get sick from being in that stream, then out in the wind, but seeing that those young men are wearing short sleeved shirts, I'm assuming it was warm out. I have to admit that the pictures you took of the land, the scrubs, grass & the rocks remind me of the route to my Godfather's ranch in Wibaux, MT, while the mountains in the distance remind me of when we'd drive the 300 miles to my Grandpa & Grandma Berg's home in Red Lodge,Montana. I have to admit that circle of stones reminds me of Stonehenge in England & discovered that Aubrey Burl's gazetteer lists 1,303 stone circles in Britain, Ireland and Brittany. The majority of these are found in Scotland, with 508 sites recorded. Amazing, isn't it how stones seem to grow out of the ground, or are they placed there & who put them there, the Lord or humans? Glad you're having fun! Those Chinese lanterns are really neat, how ever do they get the lights in them? Would be interesting to make them. Glad you did something special for your birthday! 'Bye for now and God bless you! Love always, Grandma
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure the lanterns are lit up with electricity.
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