Last night Craig and Jacinta picked me up from the airport and took me to their place for the night.
I am still having challenges with logging on my laptop to a hotspot.
Today, I awoke at 4.00am for my balloon flight with Up, Up and Away that did not eventuate due to a Northwester coming through Canterbury. That bucket list item will have to wait for another trip.
However I got myself up and rang the number given. When there was no response I went anyway to the destination meeting place in Merivale.
Instead, I visited Maarten in Traituer and had a coffee with him. The shop is looking fantastic with lots of their delicious specialties.
I met up with Brigitte and the children and together with my two boys William and Francis, we had a cooked breakfast.
William then took me for a techy tour of all his jobs so we went from Kaiapoi, Riccarton and then into town for lunch.
From there I drove out to Rangiora where I tracked down the Saxton graves. I rang Kathy and Dad and was tearful. Then I travelled onto Pete’s Farm Stay where I met up with Pete and Gayle my hosts. They chatted to me and when they found out that I was on the genealogy trail, Pete kindly offered to take me directly to the Saxton Orchard location. We went and found the orchard easily. I felt nostalgic and sad. There were less than six orchards left from the original 56 and even then, those did not appear to be full orchards.
We returned to the farm where Gayle had cooked a lovely dinner of salmon, cooked and fresh vegetables followed by home made cheesecake.
Tonight I intend to be in bed early as I want to revisit the family places tomorrow.
Hope you are all well.