road trip

Last Saturday Beth, my niece - Ruth and I headed down country. It was the most glorious day - clear blue skies and sun!

Ruth LOVES horses (and anything to do with animals) so we organised a visit to Morrinsville to see our rellies - Gail, Fred and Victoria. Victoria breeds horses (in her spare time) and has around 15 horses of various ages, maturity and levels of obedience on her property. She took us for a guided tour to meet the horses with her exuberant, slightly naughty dog - Roxy - who did an impromtu round up of the calves and spent the rest of our walk on the lead!

While Ruth and Victoria attended to the horses, Beth and I wandered around their gorgeous property. The lady who owned it before Gail used to host garden tours so there is an abundance of flowers, trees, garden sculptures, rustic seats, doves, ducks, a pond and fish to peruse and enjoy.... so beautiful and peaceful.

After lunch we went to check out Gail and Fred's latest project - a property up the road with three neglected commercial greenhouses. It has an abandoned air. The previous owners had let the greenhouses become completely overgrown but as Fred has hacked the roof-high overgrowth back he's found many of the flower beds intact underneath. Over the next months and years, they hope to bring life and order back to it all (in their spare time). It's a huge task but a rewarding one. You can see the beauty of the flowers that they've uncovered so far. These are the rejects unsuitable for the flower markets. We gathered that huge armful to take home!

Fred also has a small flock of sheep. We helped to round up them up so the lambs could have their tails docked. On that note this city girl decided to head home!!

It was an amazing day. It was really restorative to get out of the city and to spend time in the country surrounded by beauty, nature, animals.... just to stop, take a breath and relax. We are also in awe of our country rellies who have such industrious hobbies. Phew! Ruth came away totally exhausted but happy with all her animal adventures.... falling fast asleep on the way home!

Photos by Bethany Peters, with the odd one taken by Ruth Lord and Stacy McIvor