It’s springtime in the garden city, meaning lots of gorgeous (and strange to me) flowers are in bloom.
My first walk took me past the school and up into a hilly part of this suburb, Hillsborough. There were a ton of really steep driveways that would be vicious if this place got any sort of rough winter…not so, though! I’m still suffering a little bit from “oh god, the cars drive on WHAT side of the road?!” shock. I didn’t even get lost on my walk!
Many houses in this suburb are still being reconstructed after the 2011 earthquake. My host father says that the recovery has been really slow, and it shows. There are boarded-up houses and some with collapsed roofs, and some that have been recently completely knocked down. The epicenter of the 2011 earthquake was closer to this part of the city and there’s a lot of work yet to be completed! It’s still very beautiful though – even the uninhabited houses have gardens remaining.
There are a lot of tracks (the word for trail or path here) near my host family’s place. One of them, Rapaki track, runs up into the hills that have appeared in a lot of my pictures. Someone has a ranch up there, with a lot of sheep and cattle. The sheep just walk around freely! I was nearly run over by a cyclist before I remembered to walk on the left side of the path. Tricky foreign countries.
Nice weather for walking, so I think I’ll get one more in today! Some photos of my last two walks are below. I’ll eventually un-lazy myself and get a proper gallery 😉
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