Again we were welcome to stay the night at the Golf Course before playing the next day - this time McLeans Island course. We were amazed to pass several other courses on our way here - Christchurch seems to be awash with golfers and clubs!
There were very few people playing when we arrived there later afternoon so parking space was plentiful and we had a very quiet, peaceful night - no traffic and not even any planes that we could hear.
No Internet connection though and no blips on the phone. Instead we kept an eye on a cat devouring a rabbit it had caught very close by. By the next day there was very little left of the rabbit even though the cat returned hopefully for breakfast.
Monday turned out to be a beautiful, sunny day with blue sky and no cloud - 27° I think. The course was very quiet like most others we have played at so we had no one holding us up or putting pressure on from behind. McLeans Island had no damage from the big earthquake but they did lose many trees in the 2013 storm. We thought the course was great although the conifer lined fairways were quite narrow and Len found he had to tee off with a smaller club on several holes because of an early dogleg. In contrast the tee blocks and greens were generous. Quite a number of bunkers around the greens and sometimes in crucial places on the edge of the fairways, however the course and greens were in pretty good condition and were great to play on.
Right next door to the golf course is a good mountain bike track loop so after golf we rode the short distance through the trees to the start of the tracks. We did a 10 km loop with an extra 2 km to go down to the Waimakariri River deciding not to do the other 8 km Coringa circuit seeing we had already had some good exercise playing golf. The circuit we did took about an hour and was a great track, one way only, ensuring that we wouldn't suddenly meet anyone else around a corner - as it was, we only saw about 6 others. I wondered if my very ordinary bike would be ok on the track, not being a mountain bike, but it was all good- no punctures!
It was good to have a shower back at the Golf club after all the days exercise. The ladies facilities had been locked by then but the lady in the office had told me previously that I could use the men's so I took up that opportunity with Len keeping guard!
We then drove 5 minutes down the road to the neighbouring, busier Coringa Country Club Course where we stayed the night in preparation for playing reasonably early in the morning.
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