New Zealand Sabbatical

Today I took Dianne and Adam to the airport for their 6am flight to Australia where they will watch tennis at the Australian Open these next 3 days. I stayed back in New Zealand for work later this week but today was treated to a 37 km trip up and back on the gorgeous Waimakariri River. We saw numerous trout though I didn’t catch any. No worries, as the real highlight was the ride on Nick Hamilton’s boat (pictured with his wife, Bronwyn in blue shades-her dad was Darfield’s doctor for many years beginning in 1958). Nick’s boat is inflatable and flies along on as little as 4 inches of water with its outboard motor with a strong jet output taking the place of a prop. Hamish Lowe organized the trip and spotted many trout for me then his wife, Carole (one of our clinic administrators) cooked up wild venison that Hamish had hunted 2 days ago-a truly wonderful meal as you can tell as we cleaned up our plates.