More fun and frivolity!

We've had a great week of fun with the Guyomars down here in Christchurch - pretty much drained the batteries and in need of a few days rest! Mike, Fiona and the girls have now headed back home to Wellington and a relative calm has descended upon Desmond Street.

After our skiing exploits at Mount Hutt on Tuesday, we stayed local for a couple of days.....

After a lazy start on Wednesday, we took the kids to a "Go-Ape"-type park, where they spent a few hours in the trees taking on the various obstacles. They all seemed to have good fun - despite a few tough moments - physically and psychologically - along the way. The adults made the mistake of sitting out the activity and consequently got rather chilled whilst watching/supervising. Next time, we'll be swinging from the trees ourselves!


Thursday's activities included a trip to the QEII complex and a couple of hours inside the "Aquatic Centre" with its wave machines, hydro-slides, pools and diving boards - great fun! The girls were also booked in for an hour and a half of trampolining in the adjacent Gymnastics Complex - which they enjoyed.

Having dined in at Desmond Street on previous evenings, we headed out to Simo's - a Moroccan Restaurant in the centre of town - which Mike had been keen to visit due to it having featured on a NZ cooking programme recently. Despite initial concerns that the menu didn't appear too child-friendly, we all had an enjoyable and filling meal.

Friday was to see our return to the slopes of Mount Hutt for another glorious day of skiing. This time with cars decked out in snow chains, the journey up to the fields did not feel quite so white knuckle!
After a cloudy start to the day, we were blessed with another sunny day in the Alps - with stunning views eastward across the Canterbury Plain to the sea and westward - from the top of Mount Hutt - over the snow-covered Southern Alpine peaks.


And the icing on the cake was the wonderfully warm and tasty mulled wine that glugged with our lunch - though it did make us slightly reluctant to return to the pistes for the afternoon exertions!

The weekend has been very lazy indeed. We brunched out on Saturday afternoon at Cafe C1 - a funky place that Matt and Lou had recommended - and that was about it for the day!

Sunday we strolled around the Botanical Gardens in the early afternoon sunshine before grabbing lunch at the Art Gallery.