monday morning wake up call

Well, I started my week off by waking up to a beautiful sunrise over the ocean water while warm in my sandy sleeping bag.  

The GGG's decided to pack up for a little beach sleepover last night. It was a beautiful 20 minute drive through winding roads and sheep pastures. We arrived around sundown so quickly packed our stuff to the beach and set up camp (aka laid out sleeping bags) under some big pine trees.  Within minutes we had a nice campfire going, met some fellow climbers from Christchurch, and had dinner of chips and hummus.
 

We had a nice photo shoot with our handy lights.

We star gazed and bonded yet some more out on the cold sand.

And woke up to a bright, clear day and had a nice walk along the beach. Got to finally get on some rock. Just messed around on the beach before heading back for classes and real life.  {well i only had a 9 am which I missed to climb a little.... oh well!}

thanks for linds for actually getting out of bed to snap these pictures! 

And other good news: got a call from Ted about riding! {Ted is a good college friend of Imti's (my trainer from home) and lives and rides in Dunedin. I sent him a message a couple weeks ago as he was in the midst of getting married and all those logistics. But I finally heard from him this morning!}  So he asked if I was still keen on riding... of course I am! "Great, I'll pick you up at 4!" was all I got from the conversation. His accent is pretty thick...

At 4, he pulled up in his big, loud jeep and we were off to the barn. Saddled up and headed down the drive towards the beach. Cruised on down the beach, did some flat work, then made our way back along a winding trail through the big dunes. Started at a walk, then trot, and next thing I knew, we were flying through the brush. Good thing my horse knew where to go, cause I couldn't even see a real trail.  A couple of near accidents, but we slide out of the dunes just laughing and smiling. The sunset was setting and we were out of breath; it was a perfect evening.