Monday 2 April

As we woke we could see from our bedroom window the extent of the house. Fabulous manicured gardens - Caroline does loads of work on the garden and she told us in the summer she has to mow the lawn every 3 days and it takes her 3 hours to mow it all on her sit-on mower!

John was feeding and exercising the horses - he has 12 but 9 of them are managed and trained by someone else and he is concentrating on just 3.

John uses the horses for trotting and one of them is racing later in the week so he is in the final throes of training him for that. The horses run around a 500m track for 30 minutes or so as part of their daily exercise.

Following the exercise, we had a lovely breakfast before setting out on a day trip. John and Caroline had decided to show us the peninsula south of Christchurch - Banks peninsula. Absolutely spectacular views in this area which 9million years ago was an active and vibrant volcano. He drove us down what had been described "the road of death" to a remote beach before we moved over to have a coffee at a hilltop café with the most stupendous views….we could have sat their all day just looking at the view. Strangely, within minutes of arriving we were joined by a friendly soft-haired goat who took a shining to June !!!!!

We then drove into a small village called Akaroa - a charming coastal village with a French flavor. The town was busy with 2 cruise ships in but we wandered around the lovely town and eventually sat enjoying a beer in a harbourside café.

Had a lovely steak in the local pub before back to the house for a relaxing evening - once again exhausted but with big smiles.