No Fixed Abode: Woeful Willpower

Tue 09 Feb 2016 - Sheffield, Darfield and The Banks Peninsula

Now in our final few days and close to Christchurch, our departure point, there was no sense of hurry this morning. Once again it was misty when we first peered around the curtains so another steady start.

The Kiwis love their pies. Nearly every town and village has either a dedicated pie shop or a shop that sells pies. Glenn has been pining to try one since we arrived and today was the day. The tiny village of Sheffield (yes Sheffield) has a ‘famous’’ ‘award winning’ pie shop, even Lonely Planet recommends it, so this was the place to try one. With Yvonne also keen we stepped into the small shop to a waft of smells that promised delicious things. You know the difficulty of choosing something when the selection is large? So, which pie to have. After a long time pondering Yvonne went for steak and caramelised red onion and Glenn plain steak. Wrapped up warm from the oven we stashed them away for later. Ah yeah, we also bought a dessert pie, Boysenberry.

Next job showers. After a few days of taking it easy with the water in Arthur's Pass we now had a full tank so at the next small town of Darfield we had a long soak then visited their new loos - even better than those at Arthur’s Park and now our new number 1 ranking in NZ.

Just as we were driving out of the town we noticed a library and with the skies grey called in to catchup online. With five days of the blog outstanding, loads of photos and video to upload from the camera we ended up staying for over two hours. Of course Glenn had to catch up with the Footie news, crikey, Leicester beat Man City and are top of the table! The library shared the building with Selwyn District Council and Yvonne went in pursuit of someone to congratulate them on their toilet provisions. Evidently she was not the first to do so. She also discovered that the many new houses we’d seen, some large and opulent, had been built by folks who had left Christchurch since the earthquake.

By now it was well past two o’clock and we were both starving. Pie time! But, can you have a pie by itself? Of course not. Yvonne had noticed a chip shop down the road so Glenn shot off to get some and as he left the van Yvonne shouted ‘I want my own portion’. As with most NZ chip shops everything is fried to order so Glenn requested two portions of chips and waited for them to be finished. The young girl at the fryer cooked the seemingly small batch with great care and when they were finally ready plopped the contents onto the paper ready for wrapping. In front of Glenn was a small mountain of chips big enough to feed a hungry family of six. It wasn’t until the large package was handed across the counter that he appreciated its size and as he returned to the van all our recent conversations of ‘getting fat’, ‘reducing portion size’, ‘cut down our intake’ coursed through his mind and he began to giggle. So much so that when he stepped into van he could not even speak, let alone answer Yvonne's enquiries. He just pointed at the package on the table. With a voracious look in her eye Yvonne ripped open the paper and, seeing the huge pile of chips in front of her, also started laughing uncontrollably.

A few minutes later as we composed ourselves we agreed that we need not eat all of them and we should each take a sensible portion and leave the rest. Yes, that’s what we said. What we did was gorge virtually the whole lot! What is it about chips; you just can’t leave them.

With very full tummies and pledges of little or no dinner tonight we set off for the outskirts of Christchurch and our final, somewhat melancholy shop at a Countdown supermarket then set off for the Banks Peninsula, a large volcanic lump just out of Christchurch. We had intended to stay in the main town of Akaroa but on the way we found a lovely spot at Catons Bay so pulled off to watch the wind ripping over Lake Forsyth and rustling the surrounding reeds and trees. As the evening drew in we watched the farmer over the road herd his sheep into pens - we also noticed a large cockerel strutting around. Hmm, wonder what time he’ll wake up.

As the night drew in, we contemplated having the dessert pie but our tight waistbands were definitely telling us, who ate all the pies (or chips).