Riding along on a push bike, honey, when I noticed you...

As we said yesterday, our nice comfy cabin also included the use of two bikes..for the whole time we’re here, we now discover! Excellent! So, breakfasted and swimming gear (togs in this neck of the woods) packed, we hot foot to the camp office and liberate 2 bikes. Now after the last time we hired bikes (Rarotonga) we weren’t expecting very much. To our great surprise, we were given 2 used but well maintained Boulder Giant mountain bikes! Rock hard tyres, fully functioning brakes and joy of joy, ALL my 24 gears worked!
So, a gentle 3km ride into Hamner Village, and into the Thermal Resort. We didn’t take any pictures in there, but if you’re interested, I’m sure it’ll have a web site. Suffice to say, warm 25m swimming pool, then a series of about 14 smaller pools, all geothermally heated, ranging in temperature from 34⁰C to 41⁰C, Mmmm nice! 3 pools were filtered and chlorinated (we avoided those!) The rest were natural spa water – a bit smelly with the sulphur, but supposedly very good for arthritis -who cares about the smell!
The whole area was surrounded by very well kept pretty gardens, with lots of big umbrellas and seating all over the place. If you were feeling affluent you could hire a private sauna or spa..quite honestly, with so many to choose from, it wasn’t necessary – we quite often had one to ourselves anyway.
It was really pleasant sunny morning, getting hotter all the time. So much so that by lunch time, we’d had to go back to our locker for the sunscreen and sunglasses! We had a very good lunch (Wahoo! No sandwiches!!) and were just thinking about a bit more serious sunbathing while the lunch went down when the curse of the sunscreen and sun glasses struck! Serious wind enough to blow over the sunshades (nothing to do with the cheese and beans nachos we had for lunch!) came in, followed by a significant drop in temperature as a cold front came over from the south west. Mountain weather as we all know can change very quickly so... as the rain started, most people made a run for the changing rooms. Silly lot! Why go into a cold draughty changing room when you can climb into a nice hot pool at 41⁰C? We weren’t the only mad ones! It wasn’t cold, we were wet anyway, and we were hoping for a lightning show..although we heard the odd rumble, no lightning 
Then the hail started !!!! only small bits, not like the golf ball sized bits that dropped on Melbourne recently! We understand this was part of that same weather system, so we got off lightly! We had intended to stay in the pools until about 4 – the rain started at about 1.30. By 3 we decided that we really should get out and get dressed – we still had to cycle home. Ron had decided this morning that he would carry my small daysack with our togs etc in, and not bother with his bigger one for the coats... Being the complete gentleman he always is, he valiantly left me standing at the resort with the day sack and my bike, while he hacked off up the road a) to change and b) to bring back the car for me and my bike! Boy did he get soaked! – he says the wind chill from riding so fast (??!!) may have required brazing services!!! (No I’m not going to explain that one! If you don’t understand, you don’t need to know!!)
We’ve just seen the first fresh snow here (it is autumn now) and the top of one of the mountains behind our camp site (Mt Wallace, Jen and Dan!) has snow on it where there was none this morning! It is several thousand feet above us, of course.
We’re not sure quite what we’ll do tomorrow – the plan had been to do some biking around Hamner forest, but I think we’ll wait and see what the weather’s doing first – it is supposed to be better!
We’ve only got a week left in NZ now – can’t believe it’s gone so fast, so we needed to make a few more arrangements. Alec, a friend from Melbourne, Australia has been on the phone this afternoon – we are going to be able to see him for the 2 days we have there before we fly on to Sydney to stay with Elizabeth and Martin. That’s really good news – even better is that he is well enough (he’s over 80) to come to the airport to meet us. We will also have a chance to meet his wife, Mandy, which will be really good. We haven’t met Mandy yet, as Alec has tended to visit the UK on his own.
So what’s happening for the next week or so? We’re here tonight and tomorrow, then, all being well we’ll go out to the Akaroa Peninsula for 3 days. That should bring us to Wednesday... we’ve just booked a hotel in Christchurch for Wednesday –Friday nights (unfortunately not the same one as we’d previously booked for our last night, Saturday, as it’s full!) BUT it should give us a good chance to explore Christchurch – on the brief occasions we’ve passed through so far, it looks to be a beautiful city, with plenty to do. We particularly want to visit the International Antarctic Centre (the closest we’ll get to the real Antarctic this time!) and the New Arts Centre Building is apparently worth a visit just to see the building itself, let alone the art it contains! So along with museums, cathedrals etc, I think we’ll have plenty to amuse! Oh yes, what about the trams and the gondola and the botanical gardens?
Philias says that his new pal and he are getting along like a house on fire. Unlike Bristol, his travelling bear friend, he decided that he wouldn’t bring a lady home with him. In his words, “they are too much trouble” , so he’s bringing home a male companion! His name is Tane which in Maori means man/male, but Philias has called him Tanner since he didn’t like the name Bob!
Ron, what’s “Bob” got to do with it?
If it was a female she could have been called Penny! Get It now?
I wish I’d never asked! Philias just thought going round saying, “Hi there man” “come on man” etc sounded too much like he was turning into a hippy – Tanner was the nearest name we could think of to Tane.
Ooooh. You don’t know WHAT Tanner is, do you? Well, coming from here.. he’s a Kiwi, of course!