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.
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