It's me again, presuming there is at least one of you out there reading this little blog of mine. My apologies for the desertion over the last week or so. It's not that there's been anything happening, there's been lots!! I have valid reasons for not posting the last few days, but absolutely no valid reason for the days prior to that. So it's grovel and catch up time and today's post is going to cover the excitement and awe of the last few days.
On Thursday night (Mar 6th) I flew to Christchurch New Zealand with my dear friend K. I'm not a big fan of flying so it was great to have company on the trip. We arrived around 11.30 pm and it was a pleasant surprise to find a cafe open at the airport, given the time of night that it was. I have to say that Christchurch International has delicious chicken, brie and cranberry tarts!
It was almost midnight by the time we got to our accommodation for the night and of course we were still wide awake partly due to the time difference. NZ is 3 hours ahead of QLD time in Australia. I set the alarm for 7 am as we were picking our hire car up at 8 am. We did manage small 2 hr bursts of sleep between the trying to wind down to sleep and the chattering we did.
We were up and collected our hire car on time and were on our way towards Wanaka by 8.30 am. Of course we needed to stop along the way and get breakfast which we did in a little place called Geraldine. We had a breakfast fit for royalty and took a slice of ginger cake with us for later.
I was sooo excited to see snow on the mountains as we neared Lake Tekapo. I thought it may be too warm for any snowfalls yes, given it's only a few days into autumn. Lake Tekapo with the Good Shepherd Church and Lake Pukaki were both moving in their stunning beauty. The water in the lakes is a turquoise blue and is crystal clear.
Arriving in Lake Wanaka a little after 3 pm was quite emotional for me. I so love this place. There is just something about it that draws me on a deep level and brings me a sense of peace and calm. Almost a feeling of belonging.
So what did we do in this place that has such a hold on my heart? Well, we had a whole 39 hours in the area and in that time I (or I should say we as my friend K was along with me as my PA hehe... and a good one she was too!) attended 4 meetings, checked out 5 eateries ~ all of them superb and they gave us the opportunity to sample delicious local foods, was given more leads and/or suggestions for retreat activities, managed to squeeze in some sight seeing, obtain some little treasures, make plenty of precious memories and take 274 photos!!! I've managed to pick out just 63 to share on facebook, however, I will share some here too over the coming days.
The trip in itself was very successful and was beyond what I was hoping for. I now have the task of trying to narrow down and complete my program for the retreat, finish the costings and do the advertising. The manager at the lodge where I'll be hosting the retreat is also happy to do some advertising there too.
All this means I'm delighted to announce that Rikki's Soul~full Retreats will be hosting my first NZ retreat from November 3rd - 7th, 2014 in beautiful Lake Wanaka.
I will share more of our shenanigans and photo's over the coming days, but for today's pic I will share one of my favourites of the trip which was taken yesterday morning at Lake Pukaki near Tekapo.
No comments:
Post a Comment