Goldrush - Holiday Roundup Two

Wooo hooo! Time for a gold rush! I got a lovely gold pan from Fisherman Jim (now known as Prospector Jim) for Christmas. He also gave me a bag of gold bearing gravel so that I could learn how to pan correctly. Sorry, all photos of me have been excluded (censored) due to general hideousness, but you will get the idea. I really got into it and had bra straps hanging, scraggly hair, and various intense expressions on my face that will remain archived in the depths of my computer. 

First I had my lesson. Jim is an excellent teacher.

 As you can see, I studied hard and successfully found the gold Jim hid in the gravel.

 Very exciting! Then Jim and I took a prospecting expedition to a secret location on the Baton River. Actually, it was the best place we found to get down the riverbank through the fierce brambles.

 It was absolutely beautiful at the river, but we were tormented by clouds of hungry sandflies. They behaved like rampant piranhas, and my legs are still rather spotty even though we used plenty of repellent.

The water was cool, but not too cold to spend considerable time in. I sat on rocks and had my feet and lower legs underwater while I panned. Great fun. I wouldn't say we were particularly successful, but any colour is good colour- we found about 8 tiny flakes of gold between us. I think if we had time for more visits we would find the best spots for fossicking. Maybe next summer.

Sadly we live on the wrong side of the Island for gold panning, so it will have to be a holiday activity. There has been very little gold found on the eastern side of the South Island. Curses. I love it - so much fun with treasure hunting thrown in.

We had a great morning today. We visited an Indian supermarket, which was fascinating. We will be back there again with actual recipes in mind. We were actually looking for a chapatti press, but there were none to be found. Then we went to the Mediterranean Food Warehouse, which is rather too posh to be a warehouse. They have wonderful things and we came home with a beautiful baguette and some mozzarella balls for lunch.

After lunch I donned my jodhpurs and headed out to see Zanny. She was very pleased to see me, but was a bit tricky to ride today. She was a bit irritable after a while, flicking her head a lot, and she was obviously thinking about everything but her job. We did some good trotting, and we managed cantering on both leads, in spite of my lack of practise over the past couple of weeks. My back felt very out of alignment when I started our ride today, but seemed to straighten out with the rising trot practise. I'm sure riding helps my back enormously. Zanny seemed to like her new saddle blanket - thanks Meg! I was going to take a photo but got distracted because I had a friend to ride with today, and couldn't muck around.

In the garden I did a little weeding (my new weeding tool is fantastic), and sowed some more beans to fill the gaps in the dwarf bean rows. Johnny installed a new washing line yesterday. We finally got a rotary one to replace the long pioneer style lines which stretched across the vege patch. It was brilliant to use the new one today.

What a lovely day! A bit of exploring, riding, gardening and great weather.