December 13, 2012

We had an excellent breakfast at the hotel; after which I worked on learning how to transfer pictures from my iPhone to my MacBook Air.  That permitted me to make a transfer of a number of pictures going back to the summer and to share these via iPhoto Share.  At noon we met our group leaders [Nial Bleakley and Jan Kirkpatrick] and the other members of the group: [George and Shelley Korch (Columbia, MD), John and Diane Guelig (Richland Center, WI), and Mark Shiels and Cheryl Schwalm (Rockford, IL)].  We were then “fitted” with our bikes and to took a short warm-up ride in Christchurch.  Most of the ride followed a trail alongside a train track, which kept us out of the traffic and introduced us to watching for traffic as we crossed streets [look right and then left].  Riding is on the left side of the road in New Zealand.  This should be interesting!

Following this ride, Bev and I rode into Hagley Park to see the rose gardens, which are fantastic.  The entire botanical area is unbelievable with huge trees and such a variety of flowers and plants.  The number, variety, and size of the roses are unbelievable.  Here the climate is absolutely perfect for growing roses and they really thrive. 

Back to the hotel, we attended the group meeting at 3 pm to have a meet and greet session and a discussion of the entire trip.  Everyone is very friendly and excited about the trip.  From the presentation, I expect we will see some fabulous scenery and have an exciting time.  From glaciers to rain forests is going to be something.  One thing for sure, the west coast of New Zealand is going to be very rural with no phone contact, etc. until we reach an evening destination where we will have Internet access.  Hopefully, blog postings will be possible each night.  If not, we will catch up when we can.  We did find out that it may be wetter than originally thought, because weather is very changeable along the western coast.  

Our first group dinner was held in the restaurant at 7 pm and lasted until almost 10 pm.  Dinner was excellent (too much very good food) and we had a great chance to visit with the other members of our group.  All promises to be a great trip.