In the middle of July, we went to the West Coast for a few days. We had been invited to a concert put on by a community over there, so our first night we stayed at the community and attended the concert the next day. This was the view from our second-floor bedroom. It was a very frosty morning!
The main buildings of the community, from lower on the hill. Each of the three 3-story buildings houses a number of families; they all eat in the second building from the right.
We were given these two rooms, plus one more like this first one, to sleep in.
During the concert, we were seated at tables, and served a delicious dinner. This was my table setting.
This elaborate castle was set up in front of the door through which many of the performers entered.
This dinosaur was on the other side. The head moved by people inside the body pulling on ropes.
An orchestra played for awhile, and then various groups sang. After that there was a series of musicals, plays performed with a lot of singing to tell the stories. It was an incredible show!
We spent the night with some new friends near the community. I was really impressed with the bunkbeds they had built for their children!
The next day, we went to Hokitika. We went to the glass-blowing studio. They weren’t blowing glass that day, but shaping kiwis out of molten glass. We also went to the Hokitika Museum, and to the National Kiwi Centre, where we watched giant eels and a kiwi being fed, and enjoyed looking at a lot of other fish.
We spent that night with some new friends near Hokitika. They have a guest room with an ensuite, where Gayle and I, and the two youngest, slept. Little Miss entertained herself in the sink while I brushed my hair!
We went home over Arthur’s Pass. It was snowing pretty hard as we went over the top, and a lot of snow was stuck to the camper. Mr. Imagination has been wanting very badly to make a snowman, so Gayle took the snow from the camper when we stopped at the information center, and made one. Unfortunately, Mr. Imagination wasn’t very impressed. He wanted a big one!
Little Miss tried very hard to be cheerful, even though she was getting pretty tired of traveling.
We went through Christchurch to Lyttleton Harbor before we went home. It was fun to see the places we had read about in the book The Runaway Settlers—a great story about pioneering in New Zealand.
Hi did you ever think of living at gloriavale.I did once but when I stayed there a few nights I changed my mind.
No–not at all interested. We did find it quite interesting to visit, but it’s not for us.