Another little tour round today. It's a beautiful clear sunny day.

We went to see where Neil works today at South Pacific motorcycle tours there slogan is RIDE NEW ZEALAND LIVE THE DREAM. Mike and Carol own the company, very friendly people and they have some loverly dogs, we stay chatting for a while then we went on to a sml suburb called redwood in the middle of the eastate is a small bubbling Spring, pure clear water, we sat for a while so peaceful and quite with just the birds singing, another little peace of paradise.

After lunch we went for a walk around the Botanic Gardens because we are into autumn here the arrival of the Autumn colour was amazing. The Deciduous trees take on there autumnal foliage in an explosion of rich reds and golds. We only did part of the gardens but what we saw was beautiful, the big redwood trees so tall must be years old by the size of there trunks, we walked inside one tree the brunches seemed to come from the base of the tree then the grew outwards before they started to grow up which left being able to go inside and sit on the branches. There is a peace bell within the gardens, it's made up of coins and medals donated from 103 different counties which have been mixed with copper and is a symbol of peace which gives the impression the world is one. The rose gardens were still looking good with signs that winter is coming. The green houses with the warm loving plants and trees were stunning too, cati house had large different cati in.

The river Avon flows around the park and you can be punted up the river if you wish, no time for us to do this today. All in all was a loverly day to be strolling around these gardens. Xxxxxxxx