After dinner walks

We’ve now explored down the hill from our house (about 0.6 km) to a stream that runs at the foot of the hills we live in, and up the hill from our house (about 1.3 km) to the ridge where we could see the ocean!!

Last night we explored the down side including Coronation Track – a short path through the bush that went around a couple of tiny ponds. A spectacular flume-like structure appears to fill the ponds from the landscape above, and the kids are already making plans to come back when it’s raining to see the falls in action.

Tonight we took the high-road and stumbled upon one of the many parks/playgrounds/fields that are sprinkled liberally around the city. This one had a piece of play equipment that we’d never seen before. It looked, from a distance, like it might be a small trampoline with a padded ring around the outer edge. However, once we got closer it was clearly not that, but instead a tilted ring that rotated – sort of like a small merry-go-round (2-meters across), but only about a foot off the ground. The plastic ring was nearly a foot wide, and had raised marks on the top (for traction?). Mark and the kids tried it in the sitting position, but it became obvious that it was much more fun to try to walk/run along the ring while it rotated beneath you. Everyone had a different technique for trying to stay on the longest. The kids were disappointed when we told them it was time to move on, and they’re making plans to come back with new hypotheses to test.

The ridge view was fabulous and reminded me of just how close most of this country is to ocean.