New Zealand Dish: Lovers Leap

This weekend, we had our first adventure on our own, outside of the city. The weather had been dreary and rainy, but not too cold so we wanted to get out of the apartment. Craig found a cool place online called Lovers Leap so we decided to go. It was really our first glimpse of how beautiful NZ is the minute you get outside of town. We drove Shaggy up a windy, narrow, gravelly road to Sandpoint Reserve. From there, Lovers Leap and the Chasm are 2 scenic lookout places to hike to. The trail to the Leap was interesting, winding through a cool tree tunnel, and through some sheep pastures. At this point, we were standing on top of a cliff, looking straight down into a rocky crevice and the South Pacific Ocean.
There was also an old man there who told us a little bit about the place and pointed out a fishing boat going to pick up it's crawfish pots way out in the sea. He let us look through his binoculars. As we were leaving, I said to the man, "Enjoy your day." He replied, "I'm 81 years old, I enjoy every day. My sun is setting." Kinda sad, but makes you realize how lucky you are to do the things you love and not to take time for granted.

After that, we continued along the trail toward a place called Sandfly Beach. We went from thick bushes and trees into large sand dunes, and huge hills of sand. We began down a gigantic hill of pretty deep, soft sand but turned back about halfway down when we realized looks are deceiving and the beach was probably about another 45 minutes away, and then back up the hill. We did stop in the car on the way home to see it closer though. When we stopped there, we saw some weird birds with skinny, straight beaks about 3 inches long.

Finally, after the sand, we got back to the main trail and hiked to a place called Chasm. From this point were gorgeous views of cliffs, distant mountains, rocks, and sea below. There was no fence and this was definitely not a good place to fall over the edge!

This was a beautiful place and gave us a taste of what's to come.

All Pictures from Sandpoint Reserve

Other than that, we are pretty settled and organized in our apt now. Follow the link to see more pics of it!

Willowbank Apartment

Craig is liking his job, especially the teaching part. It's keeping him busy and giving him some great experience for when we return to the States. I am still unemployed but have some possibilities. My PT registration is in the final stage of review, which took 10 weeks for Craig's. I'll keep you posted.

We have expanded our food horizons and now purchase whatever is cheap. Fortunately, that happens to be most fruit (apples, pears, and mandarins), carrots, brussel sprouts (yes, we both actually like them), sultanas (raisin like things) and the best things in the whole wide world: Kumara. Kumara come in several varieties, we prefer red. They look like a sweet potato but taste like heaven. We are both in love and are already worried about missing them when we get back. They're sooo yummy!