One year!

So...we finally reached that landmark occasion that means I'm in my longest relationship ever by far. I got 12 roses :)
Which were absolutely GORGEOUS and smelt fantastic. I have hung them out to dry so I can keep them FOREVER - moohaha!

Anyway, as with everything anniversary related I wasn't actually allowed to know what we were doing until Sunday. So I have to admit I WAS surprised when Isaac showed up - in his DAD'S car - and whisked me an hour out of town for lunch.

His dad's car, by the way, is a 2006 Ford Territory with all sorts of flash things like dual climate control. See:

My temperature is on the left and his is on the right. It also tells you how much fuel you're consuming and has an alarm when the fuel light is on and tells you how much further you can go with the amount of fuel you have left.

Flash.

He was a little put out that the weather had looked unpromising in the morning because we were actually supposed to fly out to a top secret location and have the car waiting to drive us to lunch. Unfortunately we couldn't fly - but we're going for a scenic tour next weekend!!!

We ended up at Terrace Downs for lunch.

It's really really pretty out there - and the food was good too! And not too pricey. We had campfire bread with smoked sheep cheddar and wild rosemary and garlic dip to start and it was SO GOOD. And the mains were even better. Isaac had salmon and I had lamb shank braised in beer and root vegetables served with mashed kumara and honey-glazed carrots and parsnip. SO GOOD. And raspberry creme brulee for dessert. Yummy.

It seemed a bit of a waste to have driven all that way into the high country and not do a little driving so we drove out to Coleridge. I'd been to the lake before but not actually out to the village. The lake - as I recall - is gorgeous. The village - to quote Borat - "not so much".

The toilets were seriously creepy!!! They were set off the road and surrounded - and I am not kidding about this - by a swamp! It was cold and damp and when you opened the door to actually go into the toilet building it was completely dark and all I could see was toilet paper on the floor. There could have been all kinds of mass murderers in there!!!

What's even worse is that because I refused to pee there - we drove up to the lodge to see if the friendly high country lodge people would allow us to use their toilets and the lodge man was not only incredibly rude he didn't even offer his toilet. He just told us to drive back to the scary public ones!!!

What kind of customer service is that??? Thanks to his rudeness, if I am EVER in the Lake Coleridge area again I would rather stay in a TENT than in their crappy lodge.

Dick.

We did attempt to find the lake. But the route we took had the worst signage ever. The first sign we saw said that the lake was 7kms away. The next sign we saw said that it was 14kms away. Over 20kms later we still hadn't gotten to the freaking lake and the car was running out of petrol!

AND being the big-ass 4wd (that I got to drive from Methvan to Rolleston - scary!) that it was we really couldn't risk not having any petrol and being stuck in the middle of nowhere. Luckily we had pretty scenery to admire! And I managed to get a number of photos:

The roof racks :)

Crazy driver :)

Man candy :)

Awww....Isaac's nose looks huge in this photo - it's not really that big.

Sun setting on the horizon...pretty!

Our petrol worries meant that instead of going the direct route home we had to make a rather round trip via Methven. We ended up having tea there - in a really nice pub/restaurant called "The Blue Pub" It was brilliant because it just wasn't TOO pubby and the atmosphere was nice and the food was absolutely FANTASTIC. I had venison and Isaac had steak. (The entire trip was basically one of eating!) And to top it off - we had an entertainment book voucher for a free main meal and the girl took off the more expensive one so it was only $24 for a meal for both of us!!!!

It was awesome. We did miss an entire day of church though, which made me feel rather heathenish. But I made up for it by being at church for arts school tonight. Good fun :)

Annnnd...I bought a fender bass off trademe!! It's a complete bass/case/strap/amp pack for only $500 - for a FENDER. I get it on Thursday because they're dropping it off and I'm stoked. Louis might buy my old one which would be good. But yeah - a FENDER.

Awesome :)