A Fine Afternoon on the Rupaki Track

Today was a stunner with a capital S. The rain clouds cleared and the sun came out. The snow-covered hills beckoned.

This is the view from the estuary looking up a the Port Hills in Christchurch. I daresay there is more snow up there than last time.

I dug through the garage, finding all my cold weather gear and put a bunch of it on. It felt like the same sort of outfit I'd wear when, say, walking down to Hut Point in Antarctica. It was THAT chilly today.

Just to see what it looked like over the hills, I drove through the tunnel and got this photo of Lyttelton Harbour.


Here's the start of the Rupaki track. A bit muddy, but not as bad as I expected. As usual for NZ trails, someone has done a great job of digging a trench on the side of the trail for melt water to flow down.

Water runoff on the side of the trail.

White sheep, black sheep... huh?? Honestly, I have never seen a bi-colored lamb like this. What happened there? Was it a secret rendezvous with a bovine somewhere? A sort of Romeo and Juliet story from different sides of the pasture?


Just another pretty picture...

This photo so funny because it's so obvious I'm holding the camera at arm's length. But when no one is around to assist, you do what you have to do.

Here I'm wearing a treasured hat by one of my all time favorite knitters, Mette (say 'met-uh') Cephers. She worked as a dispatcher in the Firehouse at McMurdo Station my first winter in 1999 and knitted these gorgeous Scandinavian hats and matching mittens all day long. Eventually she stopped coming to the ice, but her hats have shown up in the tiny McMurdo Store from time to time.

A gorgeous view of the summit of the hike. At the top of this hill, you can see Lyttelton Harbour. The horizontal line (where the trees are) is a road, and the trail is the line going up on the right side.

And oh, I finished another hat. I love this yarn -- it is called Malabrigo and it an exceptionally soft merino wool yarn from Uraguay -- but even though it's green, I can't say this colorway is my favorite of all time. I think someone will love it though, so I'll bring it down to the Ice with me in a couple weeks and see if I can find it a home on someone's noggin'.


I like the cabled band on this hat, but if I were to do it again, I'd increase the width of the band a little...and maybe start the decreases a bit sooner and make the top a bit more pointy instead of round (all a matter of preference). One thing is for sure, my knitting has gotten so much better. I struggled at the beginning with my stitches looking 'lumpy' but these stitches are smooth and even and lovely. Also getting much faster. This hat took me only 3 evenings.