I can't believe that it's almost been two weeks now since I left my sunshiney paradise in Bali to fly to a little island much further south (P.S. more south= less warm soooo I am freezing and my tan is disappearing faster than a vanquishing act!) I've been in the city staying with my friends here while I took care of everything but now, I finally get to take off in about an hour to the nature that is calling my name!

As you may know if you've ever stumbled upon my diary like antics before, I found myself on quite the path of "that's not the best case scenario" for a little while including (but not limited to) a $400 fine upon entry for some forgotten golden cherry tomatoes at the bottom of lunchbag, an infestation of rats in my campervan that was here waiting for me and some technical difficulties with my photo collection. Needless to say, I landed a little bit disgruntled and have been finding my way back to balance ever since!

When I was little, growing up in a city made me terrified of the country, of nature. I became so attached to pavement and mortar walls that I forgot for a long while what it was like to be completely immersed in the natural environment that we as humans evolved from. Finding things to be afraid of is no problem for someone with anxiety (cough, me, cough) so I had an infinite amount of excuses to feel fear from when I was out in the wild, causing me to stretch further and further away from it. Over the last 4 years, through my travels I have been working on changing that,
as you'll see!

Now that I have had some time takin' care of business I am taking my now CSI (crime scene investigation) clean van out for a spin in the hills so I can fill my lungs with fresh air, bathe my skin in unpolluted lakes, and give my legs a stretch on some mountain-top hikes!

First, before we climb up so high into the hills, let me take you along with me to the CHCH market! I love Saturdays because Saturdays mean markets and I love organic food! I had a beautiful morning of shopping at the local farmer's market in town. Here's a quick preview of that!

This is my kind of place! There are swarms of people gathering to collect the locally produced goods, children playing music on the sides and sitting in the middle of a park, wildlife interacting with it all.

New Zealand has some epic flowers! I wish I could grow them all in my garden!

These are my friends, they are the cutest, furriest ever! They were even letting a little boy play with them, it was the most adorable part of my day!

See how many people have come together for this? I think every town, city, neighbourhood should have a little market like this! Wouldn't that be lovely?

I was ordering my organic, vegan salad when this beautiful lady showed up and was asking the servers about their vegan options! Of course I jumped in and made myself a new vegan friend! By the way, cute story to go with this: this woman's husband got very sick and his doctor told him to remove all animal products from his diet and so she decided to do it with him at first just lovingly and supportively but she found massive improvements in her own health too and now is a huge advocate for food as medicine!

This is my new friend who makes amazing vegan patties! These are lentil and chickpea based and are seriously yummy! He's selling them now as take home but will be cooking them live coming up soon so I will be sure to visit him again before I take off! Did I say yum?

After that gorgeous morning of meeting the lovely people here in Christchurch, I needed to get out of the city and so the hill tops called my name!

Just to clarify, yes the winds are icy cold but I was working up a sweat running around, feeling the air in my hair and that view was just a knock out!

The winds were intense for my poor drone so I had to take her in early and don't have much footage of this day but I did have a really fun time making a tiara of flowers that matched my shirt and laying around begging the sun to warm me up!

I just felt like I must get to the highest point!

I've done this once before for 3 months but that was before I fell in love with Bali so my goal right now is to head out for 3 weeks before my flight home but I'll see where the road takes me! That being said, obviously my activity on here is uncertain but you can be certain that when I have internet and a moment where I am not trekking myself up into mountaintops, I will be sharing every amazing view with you!

So here I go my Steemian friends! I hope to catch up with you again soon!

Sending you love!

XO,
😘