So we got back safe and sound on Friday…. and it’s been a very quiet weekend. There’s no doubt it takes a little while for the brain to catch up with travel over such a long distance; that weird feeling of being so tired in the middle of the day, so awake in the middle of the night – (although if you’re an insomniac, like I have been from time to time – I suppose nothing feels more normal. Either way, I hope you’re not reading the blog in the small hours at 3am). But looking back at the photographs feels all the more dreamlike just now – here in London, which has suddenly got cold and very wintry… I’m writing by the fire, and New Zealand, sunshine, long days – it all feels a very long way away.
We didn’t do masses or go too far – it was a trip all about visiting friends and family and it was heaven. We toyed with the idea of a trip up north and then thought why go near an airport if you don’t have to. So we moved slowly and saw a lot of places we’d already been. But I’ll also say it was heaven, just at the greyest time of the year, to be in the middle of summer – late evenings, early, early mornings; roses, sweet peas, dahlias, green leaves, abundant vegetable gardens. Bliss. Feeling the warmth, or maybe (this being New Zealand, I should say heat) of the sun on your face is a very good thing right now.
A lot of the trip was all about green. This was on a walk to the Sharplin Falls…
Where, nearing the approach to the waterfall, the whole air is filled with a fine mist of water vapour:
Or a view of the farm, early one morning:
Another day, at the Christchurch botanical gardens…. The fern house, Charlie’s favourite. I think we’re going to be getting a few ferns in the garden in London sometime soon…
We were not sure about the giant Moa bird sculptures creeping around the place….
The Palm House is even more beautiful…
The roses were perfect, 
The hydrangeas even more so.
We popped into the brilliant Christchurch Museum, where nothing has changed in decades of display – so rare these days to see unmessed-around-with 1970s museum exhibition design. These are a few of my favourite exhibits:
We especially adored the dioramas in the bird gallery
And luckily, just in case you weren’t quite sure where you were:
Downstairs is this fabulous room….
It’s a brilliant place. Here’s the front door:
We spent the night with our friends Laura and Andy in Lyttleton – badly damaged in the earthquake – now very much back on its feet and completely brilliant (as well as charming). The Lyttleton Coffee Company on London Street has the best coffee we tasted anywhere and the best breakfast. 
The following morning we went on a walk high over Lyttleton, which was beautiful. Back in Christchurch that afternoon, we called in to see the extremely kind blog followers Alison and Michael who work at the Christchurch Art Gallery – just reopened. Alison had left this comment on a previous blog:
Another great London walk and pint or two on a Sunday afternoon the only way to go.Love the camel shot.
Now Ben and Charlie I have a suggestion you mentioned in your last blog that you are coming to New Zealand again so if you have time and are in Christchurh please visit the Art Gallery.We are about to reopen after being closed for five years as a result of the earthquakes.Make sure you ask for Alison or Michael we are both avid fans and would love to meet you.
The Gallery was wonderful to see, and it is so great for the city that it has at last re-opened its doors – tens of thousands of visitors have been flocking in since it opened just before Christmas. Time and again people said that it made them feel reconnected with their old Christchurch again. We were sad to miss the giant New Zealand landscapes gallery which opens next month – but the whole new display was buzzing. Here’s Michael and Alison…
Such a kind welcome!
I’d quite like to get this giant neon sign made for down the wall of the office. It’s pretty much about true, whatever we have to read in the news every day:
Christchurch is filled with new construction. I suspect when we are next back it is going to feel dramatically different. I don’t know much about the city at all – but I’ve got to suspect that the trauma of the earthquakes will turn out to be the best thing that ever happened. There is an energy about the place.
We went back to the Botanical Gardens, probably our favourite spot in the whole city, a couple of times – here is the giant herbaceous border glowing in the bright afternoon sunshine….
and again in the soft light of dusk…
The dahlia border was getting going. Charlie and I were dreaming of high summer in England. He’s sitting in bed next to me this morning ordering 1000s of seeds from the catalogues.
The Edwardian-esque rose garden:
The next day we headed over to the east coast to stay with our friends Forbes and Bridgie – Bridget who runs the incredible Land Gardeners that I have blogged about before. Their house is basically perfect. We had such a happy time.
One night we went wallaby hunting, which started with a picnic in the most idyllic landscape you’ve ever seen. Of course it goes without saying I was much more interested in the landscape and the only shooting that I did was with my camera. Better for everyone that way.
It turned out I was a reasonable shot, but not perfect (my little lumix camera has an auto focus which was more interested in the grass than the wallaby):
Up there on the hills we were close to heaven:
Charlie’s birthday breakfast the following morning:
And then we were off to Kirsty and Simon at Glenbrook Station for 3 heavenly mad days with their crazy happy three young boys. 
Kirsty is the most incredible gardener in the harshest of conditions (we had a frost the night we were staying, for instance):
This is her vegetable garden extension, surrounded by the dry landscape of the 2015 drought, and beautiful blue hills beyond. Simon farms thousands of sheep on these hills.
The following day it poured with rain all day long. This was a dream for the drought-parched land, and for the vegetable garden. The boys went a bit stir crazy locked inside all day.
But the following day was clear and blue. Simon gave us a tour of the farm:
And in the afternoon, Kirsty, Charlie and I went on a trip to Mount Cook. This is Lake Pukaki, whose extraordinary blue waters are the result of glacier ice melt.
Mount Cook is the tallest mountain in New Zealand, and was the place that Sir Edmund Hillary trained for his ascent to Everest. The landscape as we got closer was breathtaking.
We went for a walk up to the glacier. Completely stunning, and intensely memorable:
Mount Cook daisies:
And one of the last-flowering Mount Cook lilies, which would be spectacular a month earlier:
Of course I loved seeing great banks of foxgloves everywhere too:
The last of the dying rays of the sun on the great west face of the mountain was a spectacular sight.
The following day we were off, but not before being given a final tour of the garden by Ted and his rabbit:
We drove north through the great lupin fields that lie on either side of the road. I know that locals pretend to ignore the lupins and complain about their invasiveness but we could help but stop. Dream. The scent was intense. In another week or so they would have been completely over – we just caught them. Insanely beautiful and such a treat to see.
Our trip was coming to an end. So much of our time in New Zealand is spent driving along long, incredibly straight roads, in complete isolation, with no other cars to be seen for miles. This landscape is entirely practical… shelter belts of trees, telegraph poles, remote farm buildings and silos, and the beautiful engineering of the great irrigation pivots that so dominate this agrarian landscape now. It has a strange, compelling, mesmeric beauty. It clears the mind.
It was a shock to leave this landscape behind and find ourselves, on Friday afternoon, stumbling, blinking our way out of Russell Square tube station on our way back from Heathrow. London was packed, hectic, wet and dirty. We’ve been easing our minds back home ever since, and these wide open roads, bright blue skies and the heat of the New Zealand summer seem a million and one miles away.
We’re missing it all – but it’s good to be home as well, and starting the New Year, full of excitement and expectation.
