Willows in Ida Valley It’s possibly the coldest day in the valley and Bartali and I are of one accord. We need to cycle through the hoar frost. Otherwise how would we know how it felt? Actually, that might be my reason; Bartali wants to keep training, frost or no frost. We head up the […]
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Cycling Central Otago – Day 19: Sun
Sun, how missed in a country valley. It hasn’t been a year for wildflowers. The blue vipers bugloss straggled on through summer, but it’s the white yarrow now that dominates the verges as we cycle past. At a distance their massed planting are frothy and bright. Up close the flowers are delicate and airy. And […]
Cycling Central Otago – Day 18: Autumn Inspiration
Rain and sun, rain and sun ad infinitum – a recipe for autumn and mushrooms. When I’d left the valley two weeks ago it was golden with drought, and now I’m back to a greenness so rich the lambs are belly deep in lucerne and my potato patch rejuvenated and flush with white flowers. Bartali […]
Cycling Central Otago – Day 17: Golden Days
We are cycling through summer. In the paddocks the foggy grass and cocksfoot are tasselled and downy as wheat. Bartali and I head up Hills Creek Road, over the bridge the farmers patched up while waiting for the council. The evidence of flood still lies in the tangled branches in the fencelines, though below us […]
Cycling Central Otago – Day 16: On the trail
The Ida Burn is bank to bank again, snow melt and the rain that fell last night. We take our mountain bikes for a change, interested to check the state of the creeks, and head down the rail trail. Just out of the village there’s a pear tree in full white blossom. Its fragrance perfumes […]
Cycling Central Otago – Day 15: Firewood
When you live in the coldest valley in New Zealand (-21 degrees last year) firewood is a big priority. A neighbour, Pete, came over with his log splitter and my bike stayed put till every golden log was split and stacked against my lime washed walls. Firewood laps the house I’d lost my confidence a […]
Cycling Central Otago – Day 14: Gravel Roads
Dressed in cycling gear, helmets and gloves, Quintana and I pause in the kitchen to listen to a scientist on National radio talk about the melting ice sheets. It’s a loop he describes – the warming oceans melting the ice, the less ice the more the oceans heat up. The warmer the oceans, the stronger […]
Cycling Central Otago – Day 13: Green
The blue hustings have come down from the hayshed down the road, and now the dominant colour all through the countryside is green. The willows have finally unfurled, there are scrawls of willows along the Ida Burn, in paddocks, beside ponds. The lucerne down the valley, where the rainfall is higher, is almost knee deep. […]
Cycling Central Otago – Day 12: Wind
Hail for a change, this spring morning. A friend rings and I leave the fire when the sky quietens and go outside to weed the lavender and bulbs while I talk to her. We discuss the coming protest about the big irrigation schemes in Canterbury. She’s unable to go; I will go for both of […]
Cycling Central Otago – Day 11: Merino
Sleet moves in a swathe across my paddock towards the Dunstans. Bartali and I sit by my fire discussing the possibility of a bike ride in an hour, when we’ve both done some work. I’m reading Gaston Bachelard’s Poetics of Space (five years after building my strawbale house) for research for an essay. So much […]
About Jillian
Jillian Sullivan writes fiction and non-fiction for children, teenagers and adults. Her work has been published for over twenty years and includes four novels, three collections of short stories and over sixty short stories for children and adults, published in New Zealand and America.
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