hey peeps,

we have arrived at our final stop of the joint journey - nelson, the sunshine capital of new zealand. we are fine. michael is on the phone arranging a fishing expedition. dianne is just barely out of bed. and i am on the interweb.

will update the last week soon. but for now, we hunt for local peaches and nectarines!

luv us

Shout out to Dr Leah for this information about the tailed lamb...

So the thing with the lamb - they're all born with tails but when they're a day or 2 old a really tight elastic band is put around the tail leaving just enough length to cover the bum. After a couple of weeks the tail sloughs off and then you have the bobtailed sheep we're all used to seeing. So that one must have been really fast and they couldn't catch it, or else it was hiding and it never got elastic-banded.

FYI - sometimes they use the elastic bands to remove other dangly bits from the sheep ...

Faaaantastic!!

And a shout out to Josh who would like to send a shout out to our parents for being married for 41 years. I would like to also note they were bickering about the laundry yesterday. That's love!

luv me

So, merry christmas to all of you who celebrate such things. FYI, it's sunny and in the high 20s here. Just sayin.

Three Goldbergs went grocery shopping yesterday, on Christmas Eve. We had never done such a thing, we jews tend to stay far away from all things consumable in the days before Christmas. But here in Akaroa (where you may recall I cleaned curlies for a month back in 2007) you can go shopping on Dec 24 and not want to punch everyone in the throat. Sure, the grocery store was busy, but busy here means there's one person in the line-up in front of you. It's not so bad.

We are celebrating Christmas by doing laundry (it's in our suite!) and hanging it outside to dry in the hot hot sun. Imagine, hanging laundry out to dry on Christmas. The only thing frozen is the cucumber that was put on the top shelf of the fridge (saaaad). In fact, Michael just announced that it's getting like an oven in here, and it's not even noon.

Anyhoo, there is only so much gloating one can do about weather, so let's move on to wildlife, shall we?

Back on the Otago Peninsula, one of the best things to do (in my oh-so humble opinion) is the Elm Wildlife Tour. They've been doing it for years and do it amazingly well. Their staff are super-knowledgeable about all local wildlife (my guide the last time was doing his phd in something to do with sea lions) and they have access to a chunk of farm land on the water where they do their wildlifey things (like set up little huts for the penguins and monitor their comings and going, re-plant native plant species that the penguins like to nest among, and 'remove' the nasty sharp-fanged creatures that eat the babies).

First stop was at the Royal Albatross Centre, which does all the above things for Albatross. For these guys, next stop is South America - a long flight! This is the only (one of the only?) place where albatross nest that is attached to a larger land mass, i.e. not an island. Whatever, everything is unique, the birds are huuuuge and cuter than seagulls.

Then it was off to the penguin area, which was a bit of a hike down the hill to the beach. There's a little hut you stand in that has open parts to see out of, but the penguins don't see you, which means they don't freak out and go back to sea and not come ashore to feed their babies.

The yellow-eyed penguins (rare, only in this part of the world) come onto the beach in the late afternoon/early evening after a long day of swimming and eating, and then hike up the hill to their nests to barf into their babies mouths. It's quite a distance, steep in parts, and they are rather accomplished little waddlers!

See the white thing, smack in the middle of this pic? That's a penguin.





Coming ashore











Two penguins (adult and juvenile) hanging out in the grasses



Dianne, high fiving because she made it up the hill from the beach! Well, most of the way.



Not a penguin. Dianne at the top of the hill.



The view from the top down onto the penguin beach



It's farmland at the top, with many a sheep. Note this lamb with a tail. WTF!! Dr. Leah, any ideas??



And the sunset on the ride home, with black swans in the inlet.



On the subject of crazy things in nature, note this massive rock on the side of the road near our cottage that had trees growing out of it.



And the giant cactus growing outside our cottage.



And that wraps our time on the Otago Peninsula.

We had to go back through Dunedin on the way out and Michael saw a sign that made him think he was still at work.



Next it was up to Oamaru, home of the little blue penguins. En route we went through much farming territory, evident by the signs on the side of the road: Horse Poo, $1/bag. It was hard to resist such a bargain.

Anyhoo, Oamaru is a bit of a weird town - fairly large, with loads of old nifty buildings made of white Oamaru stone. But the town is a bit run-down and after 6pm everything was closed and it kinda felt like a ghost town.





Except at the little blue penguin colony, which felt like penguin party town! The little blues come ashore as it's getting dark (like 10pm) and there is no picture taking allowed (sorry, but you can google them). But I will tell you there were over 150 of them coming ashore that night, and we got a front row view (you sit in a grandstand) and they waddle up in little groups together. They swim together in 'rafts' (groups) up to shore, then land from the huge crashing waves onto huge sharp rocks and then up and across the path and into their little huts in the grass and they are CUUUUUUTE.

There was a lot of squaking though and Dianne felt some concern towards the end (I liked to think of it more like Happy Feet, where they're just singing their own songs). One got into major fisticuffs with another (there was wing-slapping going on) and ended up going back out to the rocks near the ocean, where we lost sight of it. Not sure if it was trying to nest where it didn't belong, or was visiting a friend after curfew, or what.

But damn, those little dudes are cute and a half! It was terribly exciting to watch them all coming ashore.

So after a very brief day in Oamaru, it was off to Christchurch for an overnight en route to Akaroa. Christchurch entailed a nap and a fantastic meal (best yet?) at a sweet little restaurant called The Bicycle Thief where we had extremely delicious eggplant parmesan and thin crust pizza with asparagus and goat cheese. It was true love.

And then we headed over the steep and windy hill to here, and I nearly barfed in the bus. But I didn't. Instead we went out for brunch, and I had a veg feast which involved poached eggs, portobello mushroom, roasted tomato, spinach, hashbrowns, kumara (like a sweet potato) and corn cake, toast, and hollandaise sauce. It was freakin awesome!



And finally, I just heard a story on the radio news about 'ham injuries'. I love New Zealand.

to benjamin, for his always valuable information on the jews of new zealand

to denise, for transcribing nate's literary talents

and to reesey, for this incredible movie of the dancing goldbergs! we've been working on our moves and boy has it paid off.

ok so our trip to Milford Sound wasn't quite as challenging or traumatic as my first back in 2002, but it was lovely. Big shout out to Ray, our host at the cottages we stayed at in Te Anau, and trusty guide through the Milford area.

Lesson 1: Fiord or Sound?
It's actually fiords, but it's been called a sound for so long that no one wants to change it on the maps. Except that maybe it's not fiords, because of something to do with the sea. I forget. Whatever, it's water, and mountains, and glaciers are involved, and it's pretty.

Lesson 2: The weather in Te Anau is not the weather in Milford.
Milford gets 8 metres of rain per year. To give you a sense of what that means - Vancouver gets less than 2. Also see below re: changeable.

Lesson 3: If the cow turds are looking wetter as you go further down the road, slow down.



Lesson 4: Lupins like rivers. Incroyable!





Stop #1: Mirror lake. It's a little lake, and it's, well, like a mirror. It was a quick stop, because as soon as you stop moving, the sandflies land for lunch.



There was a little girl, who had a little burl, right on the side of her forehead... Dianne thought the tree burl looked so cool she'd try it herself.




Stop #2: Marion Falls

I fell in love with the fern fronds. Like snails!







The falls were very cool and verrrry fast. Note all the crazy fuzzy moss! Love the moss.





Hoods are all the rage here. Ok really they aren't, and we got a lot of funny looks from other walkers, but who left Milford Sound sandfly-bite-free? The Goldbergs! Might've been the hoods, might've been the 80% deet we put on our skin (scary), but whatever, it worked.



This is a giant rock that is balanced on another giant rock (or maybe it was once one giant rock that has eroded round the middle due to the rushing water) with several giant trees growing out of it. Giant! Photo not to scale.



That's some clear blue glacier water.



We had to walk across a scary suspension bridge to get to the falls. It wasn't so scary on the way back because I got to cross it all by my big self, but on the way over someone might've been walking too close behind me, making it shake, which made me scared (not mentioning any names, Dianne). Because I am a baby.



We stopped for lunch at the Hollyford Valley cabins, and as soon as we pulled up I realized it was the place I had stayed with Angelique and Gordon back in the day (the place where I had the shits, and Angelique built a sandfly cemetery). So many memories!

Dianne picked up some verrrry special fridge magnets in the wee shop... there are going to be some verrrrry lucky people out there.

After lunch we carried on towards the Homer tunnel. We saw some large mountains.



And snow! on the ground! in summer!



If you read about my Milford adventure in 2002, you may recall the very scary tunnel named Homer. Well, somewhere between then and now, someone very clever decided the not-very-tall tunnel was a bit dodgy for all the tall tour buses that go through there, and installed a traffic light kinda system. So, it's a one-way-at-a-time 1.2km tunnel, and you have to wait for the light to go green to go through. Genius! Love the clever (and safe!) New Zealanders.

Our boat. Which we generously shared with the other passengers (not pictured).



Mountains + 8 metres of rain make for serious waterfalls.









Seals having a snooze. I think they look like slugs. But cuter.



We had a bit of drama on the way back. Ray, our ever-helpful guide, stopped to help a campervan that had been driven just a bit too far off the side of the road and couldn't get back up. The driver had called for a tow truck from Te Anau, but it's a couple hours drive, so he was just waiting. Ray decided to attach the front of the camper to the back of our van with a rope and pull him out of the trench. It was tooootally like when on the Long Way Down, Ewan McGregor and Charley's support vehicles got stuck crossing the river, and they had to be pulled out by another truck. Made me feel like an adventurer. Though we were on a road, and we weren't stuck. But whatever. It was totally like on tv.

So then we stopped at the Chasm to see more fast-moving water, which was spectacular - incredible smooth rock shapes, and the water was deafening - but difficult to capture on camera.





And I finally got a pic of the tree ferns I'd been admiring all day.



And because no good deed goes unpunished... Ray's van broke down when we reached the Homer Tunnel (I blame Mr. Campervan, it smelled pretty bad by the time we had yanked him back onto the road).

But, because this is the non-traumatic Milford Sound adventure, Ray was able to score us some seats on a tour bus headed back to Te Anau (thanks grumpy tour bus driver!), and a few minutes later he was able to wave down the tow truck that was heading to pick up the guy we'd pulled out of the ditch, which took him and the van back to town. So it was mostly a happy ending. Except for Ray's partner, Leonie, who had received a phone call from a truck that stopped right behind us when we got stuck, so she was driving out to pick Ray up as he was driving back, and they didn't see each other on the road, and by the time she got to the tunnel he was pretty much home, and it was snowing, so, you know, but WE had a great time! Thanks Ray and Leonie!

---

And then it was off to Dunedin. The 80% deet, which I'm fairly sure ruled out any possibility of me ever bearing children, also took off a layer of my face (note: slight exaggeration), so I was feeling pretty fantastic as we headed into the big city.

What made me feel more fantastic was the 67 stairs we had to climb with our luggage to get up to our B&B. Dunedin is a hilly place, and the streets don't always go all the way up, sometimes there are stairs instead of streets. Which is really great for driving. :|

But we survived. And discovered the side street that we directed all future taxi drivers to.

The B&B was full of creepy things, like a lady mannequin dressed up in a santa jacket with a beard and pink nail polish, who scared me every morning when I turned the corner from our room down to brekky.

Things to do in Dunedin:

1. Walk up the steepest street in the world (Baldwin Street)



Or, wait near the bottom while other people walk up it. Note the sidewalks are actually stairs. It's that steep!



What it looked like:



What it felt like:



Ok, this was a classic Goldberg moment. It's really hard to capture the steepness in photos, so Michael was convinced he could stand perpendicular to the sidewalk, lean back against the post and you would see how steep it really was because of the vast angle between him and the post!

Not perpendicular ("I swear it felt like I was perpendicular"). But funny.




2. Go to the train station



Small boys who love trains: that's for you!


3. Eat out

We found a really good Japanese Izakaya restaurant and stuffed our faces, which is a great Goldberg talent passed down from one generation to the next. My only concern was about the gyoza, which was listed as 'vage'. I was fairly certain they meant it was vegetarian, but you know, when things are listed as vage and not veggie, it might be worth confirming. I'm not so into the vage.

Anyhoo, it wasn't pork.

---

Two days in the big city and we were ready for a break, so we headed to the Otago Peninsula, where the air is fresh (except when the tide is out) and the skies are blue (for at least 5 minutes before the next storm rolls in) and the hills are alive with the smell of sheep crap.

It's actually incredibly gorgeous out here. We're staying in a sweet cottage just up the hill from the water, a lovely little walk from the village of Portobello (where, conveniently, we've eaten many mushrooms).

The view from the porch, taken at 9:30pm!







The insanely huge bottle brush bush outside our kitchen window, which is always covered by bees during the day (hence the 9:30pm photo shoot)



Yesterday was a super crazy weather day (changeable, yes, plus ridiculously strong winds) so we went for a walk but had to turn back twice because we were afraid we'd be swept off to sea. Seriously, the winds were so strong it was hard to walk without being pushed over.

The obligatory panoramic shot... on the left is Hooper Inlet (we miss you Mr Hooper!) and on the right is the South Pacific.



Very nifty walkway flanked by very nifty windblown dead trees. Very romantic couple (snort!) walking hand in hand down said walkway. Dressed for the occasion: short pants, hoods, and mittens. Michael unzipped his jacket (something to the effect of 'I want it to look like it's summer'. Sadly, the much-needed mittens are not really helping project that image).



Cool trees, cold legs, warm head (toque required)



More south pacific. The sheep get the best views.



Cute sheep take giant craps





Here comes the rain again



Back through the nifty walkway with nifty windblown dead trees. Actually kinda spooky. Was this a Lord of the Rings location? I swear I could smell the orcs. Or maybe it was just the sheep.



The view from the lookout at Sandfly Bay. Not because there are sandflies, but because the sand flies (hence the dunes). Little choppy on the Pacific!



Then we headed back to town for some fish and chips from the 3rd best chip shop on the South Island (not sure where #1 and #2 are, but hopefully where we are headed). It was greasily fantastic.

Note: no photos were taken of the fish and chips, because they were inhaled in under 4 minutes.

Peeps, that is all for now. Next installment: penguins!!
luv us

ok, so I just got in trouble from Dianne for not posting any photos. She said if I'm going to embarrass her, then I have to post photos (?). It's very late, there's been a lot of wheezing and laughing and kicking of the snoring Michael, so I'm not sure there's a lot of sense being made.

But she's in charge, so here goes.

On our way back to the b&b this evening we happened to see a giant menorah! Lit! In the middle of town! In a country that appears to only celebrate Christmas, this seemed so very exciting (in a store the other day that was playing entirely horrendous Christmas music, the dj announced 'and a happy Chanukah to my Jewish listener'. Note the singular.).

So, happy 7th day of Chanukah! From all the Jews in Dunedin (the population has likely doubled since our arrival). Note the menorah is made of tiki torches (rad). And last night we had tempura onions and potatoes, so it's kind of like latkes.



That's for you, Stew!
luv us

It's our last night in Dunedin and our last night with internet for a while... I am hoping for the best over the next 3 technology-free days. No tv, no internet, what, are we going to have to talk to each other? Michael falls asleep and snores every chance he gets, and Dianne keeps telling jokes that she thinks are reeeeally funny (they're not) and then she laughs so hard she toots. It's going to be a fantastic three days. Did I mention we're staying on a farm? I might go sleep with the sheep.

Dianne has suggested I start the blog about Milford Sound with 'it was a dark and stormy night...' (she just laughed, see above).

So, Milford. It's a big thing here in NZ to go on a cruise out into Milford Sound. When I was here back in 2002 we drove to the sound, then turned around and came back and camped (the cruises weren't really part of the backpacker budget). I was less than impressed - battling with the shits, windy roads full of tour buses, and all we saw out the window were big mountains with snow on top. Big freakin deal.

This time was better. But it's now 12:22am and Michael is snoring up a storm, Dianne is paranoid I'm going to write something embarrassing and won't fall asleep, and I'm not really feeling like writing about Milford tonight, so I went back to the 2002 blog and had a little read, and just about peed myself, because you know what, I was REALLY funny. I mean it. Not just self-toot-inducing funny.

So here's an excerpt from my first trip to this part of NZ back in 2002. 2009 was more enjoyable, but far less funny, so I will save it for later and post some pics eventually.

A wee bit of context: I had been getting around NZ by bus, mostly shuttles, in particular the Atomic Shuttle through the south island. I had met a couple of fantastic folks a little bit earlier in my travels - Angelique and Gordon - who were driving around in an old clunker we called the yellow car, and once their third companion had parted ways with them, I joined up. It was tres exciting! So here you have it.

2002.

we went to a lovely holiday park outside of queenstown where we had a stylish cabin (it looked like a shed from the outside), cooked up a big curry and watched a tv show on wild weather. i was pretty tired from my exhausting day of blogging in wanaka and the atomic experience, so i crashed as soon as the lights went out. i would've had a really solid sleep... if only... if only i hadn't kept waking myself up with my farts. my first night with the yellow car posse and here i was, fart birds breeding in my sleeping bag, letting them out like there was no tomorrow, and too tired to keep them in. the only thing that was going through my groggy mind was... great. my farts are going to get me thrown out of the yellow car before i even get anywhere. how embarrassing that would be!

however, it turns out that i am in good company. angelique and gordon told me about the night before they left wanaka, where gordon ate a whole raw onion and (i quote) "you could scrape the fart off the window".

and since then, i've discovered that every day is kind of like a repeat-after-me song of farts in the car. or maybe it's more like sonny and cher. gordon farts, angelique responds.

i like these people.

so after farting in queenstown, we headed to the warehouse (where everyone gets a bargain) and i bought myself a stylee silver 2-person dome tent so i could "find" my outdoorsy self. i also got a nice flashlight so i don't lose my outdoorsy self when i have to get up in the night and pee, and so i can beat off any possums that try to attack me as i stumble back to the silver beacon.

we packed the tent into the yellow car (which was starting to sag a bit at the rear...) and headed to te anau, where we picked up some food for the next few days, and then ventured off to the DOC (department of conservation) "basic" campground 17km out of te anau on the road to milford. for $5 you get some almost flat ground and a green shitter. we set up the tent and i got decked out in my oh-so-fashionable camping gear - rainbow striped thermal top, charcoal striped thermal long underwear, pink socks with shiny red hearts on them, and sandals.

after my first freezing night in the silver dome on ground that sloped down and waking up and thinking it was 5am and the sun was coming up and then rolling over and discovering that it was only 11:15pm and feeling totally disoriented and like barfing... i decided i hated camping.

- - -

Milford Sound: Sandflies, The Shits and a Scary Tunnel Named Homer

so to get to milford sound you have to drive 1207m through a mountain. they call it the homer tunnel. and actually, it does look a little like the only homer in my life (simpson, of course). it's not very tall, and much wider on the sides that it is on the top. it's not lit inside, and when you get inside you can't see the other end. the massive procession of tour buses have to drive right down the middle of the 2 lanes or they wouldn't fit. it's the friggin scariest tunnel i've ever been through in my entire life of tunnel driving (ok, granted, that's pretty limited, but dammit, it was scary). the views along the drive (other than the inside of the tunnel) were lovely... mountains, snow, waterfalls, yadda yadda yadda... and i hate to say this... but i think i'm all mountained out. we got to the sound, parked amongst the massive throngs of tourists, angelique and gordon had lunch (i was enjoying a quality day of apple juice and water), and headed back down the road. if you aren't willing to shell out mega bucks for a boat cruise, there ain't a whole lot to see in milford sound. that would probably be because it's a sound, and cars can't drive on water. riiiight.

so we drove back down the road, through the tunnel (squashed between two big tour buses, eep!) and turned off to head towards hollyford camp to spend the night at this awesome cabin site. the cheapest indoor accomodation in new zealand, i think... $34 for three people, and we got a 2 bedroom cabin with a kitchen and a real working wood stove. it wasn't exactly luxury, but dammit, I GOT MY OWN ROOM!!! i went up to the office to see if i could buy a bottle of water from their "store" (it's on one of the track routes so they sell all kinds of hiking food supplies) and the woman told me that the water in the cabins was fine... i told her i just had a bit of a funky tummy... and she said "what kind of funky? do you have the shits?"

um, yes...
i have the shits.

she kindly suggested some soda and asked if there was enough toilet paper in the bathroom.

(insert photo of me crawling into the corner to die of embarrassment)

so that's why i got my own room.

back at the cabin, angelique was building an open graveyard of sandfly carcasses. the little fuckers are absolutely vicious - they're like small mosquitos, but they will bite you until you have blood dripping down your leg. and the bites are sooooo itchy... and between te anau and milford, there are swarms of the persistent little bastards everywhere. the sandflies don't seem to care that i have been using 28.5% deet on my body... deet that eats through plastic and will probably lower my chances of ever having babies... although at the rate i'm going, maybe babies is a tad premature... i wonder if deet will lower my chances of ever having a date...

i woke up with a sandfly bite on my right eyelid. i look like that guy from that cartoon... "are you lookin at my eye?"

i am bloated and can't put anything into my body without it rushing straight out other than chamomile tea and flat soda.

i am a mess.

the good news is that te anau is only an hour and a half from hollyford, and they sell plain crackers at the te anau grocery store. the even better news is that there's a town called gore about another hour and a half from te anau, and once you get that far the sandflies aren't nearly as bad, and in gore they have a real camp ground which is flat and on grass, and they have a real bathroom and a tv in the kitchen and you can watch the episode of south park where cartman goes to juvie and at the end he poos out disneyland.

i love cartman.

---

that's it for now. 2009 updates will return next week. in the mean time, going to hang with the penguins.

luv us

We left Wanaka after 3 nights spent at Cinema Paradiso, enjoying the movies, the comfy couches, and most importantly, the intermission hot-out-of-the-oven chocolate chip cookies. After our last movie, we walked up a hill to check out the sunset view.



Caught the shuttle back to Queenstown - near Athol Street, which made Dianne giggle every time it was said out loud. Michael, the king of adding syllables, tried to give it an Italian flare - ah-toll-ie? - but the reality is, it's just Athol. Pronounced Ath-ole. See below re: eel raisin.

We had a delish lunch in Queenstown - been eating a lot of roasted pumpkin in various things (salads, savoury pies, etc) and it is tassssteeee. So far the vegetarian thing is working out well for me here, and the meat thing is working out well for my dad (bacon, bacon and guess what? bacon). Not so many veg options in Te Anau (where we are now) - in one place the veg menu items were potato wedges or a burrito with avocado AND guacamole. What kind of sick person comes up with that?? But I am certainly not going hungry. See above re: hot-out-of-the-oven chocolate chip cookies.

Before leaving Queenstown we took one last walk down by the lake, Michael talked to his fishing bud Louis, and Dianne and I made new friends with a Moa. Dinornis Giganteus, the largest of the Moa, to be exact. Dianne felt an special affinity with her feathered initial-matcher.



From Queenstown we caught the shuttle to Te Anau, and en route drove through 2 crazy storms - one with hail and slush, and one with super heavy pelting rain. It is the tail end of spring here, but the constant weather forecast is - changeable. Today I wore sunscreen, a raincoat and a toque, and I needed them all in the few hours we were out in town. I must've switched between my toque and my sunhat half a dozen times. Changeable. My new word of the month. What's the weather today? Changeable.

We're wearily reading all we can find about sandflies, taking care of our existing nasty lingering bites, doing everything possible to avoid them in the future (minus bathing with raw garlic), and counting down til we hit the non-sandfly-populated east coast on Thursday. Dianne was a fashion statement in her striped fuzzy slipper socks pulled up over her pants today (looked sort of like her Moa bff's legs). Tomorrow, when we go into Milford Sound, we'll be slathering our bodies with 80% deet, and hoping for the best. Scary.

I think I neglected to give some context to the photos from Wanaka. The tile of Olympic banning was along a long walking path with historical tiles, one for each year, marked with important events like colonialization, war, pillaging, etc. We thought the year 393 was particularly inspired, though for the wrong reasons (apparently the Olympics used to be considered pagan... I'm guessing coca cola wasn't a sponsor of the pagan festivals).

til Dunedin...
luv us

shout out to nate for the videos, i feel good about you too! and thanks to marnie for directing, producing and distributing. excellent scripting and the cinematography is flawless.

not surprisingly, it's hard to get adam sandler out of my head. happy chanukah from wanaka to all the heebs.

a few more pics for you while we have cheap and fast internet access...

the bumblebees, like the flowers, are HUGE here!



the lake is purty, with the snow-capped mountains in the background...



it's really windy today, hence the winter gear (but we're warm! we really are!)



looking back to 393 for some ideas in 2010?



tomorrow we're off to Te Anau, because Dianne doesn't have enough sandfly bites already and we're going for full-limb coverage. Not sure when we'll post next, we've been spoiled by the internet here and it's looking sparse at the next place... so stay tuned, but don't hold your breath!

luv us

Some photos for your viewing pleasure...

The view from our place in Queenstown



Queenstown Gardens, which we walked through several times...



puts BC's dogwood trees (our provincial flower, no less) to shame!



A sign from Dianne's heart.



Summer home?



On our last day in Queenstown, Michael went out fishing (came up empty, the rivers were too muddy from the rains) and Dianne and I opted for a day trip to Arrowtown (old gold mining town, full of wee old houses from the mid-1800s).



The lupins by the river were bea-yooootiful!





And I showed off some of my mad skillz at the local skate park. The kids were jealous. What can I say, it's a natural talent.



This morning we took the bus into Wanaka - one of my favourite spots from my first trip here oh so long ago. Still beautiful! Still small! And the view from our balcony, where I'm typing this blog, is pretty stunning.



The buses here have mandatory seatbelts... can you just imagine how good simon the safety bear was feeling about that this morning?

Oh, and did I mention the fruit stand that was selling fresh cherries and strawberries? Totally loving summer!! Peaches and nectarines coming soon...

luv me

(this posting is back dated - written on wednesday, posted today)

Lovely day in rainy Queenstown, walked into town for lunch, a wee saunter by the lake, more ice cream and a visit into the 'underwater observatory', a little underwater room with windows onto the lake, where the fish hang out.

There was a huge eel slithering up and down the window, giving us an excellent view of its bumhole. The cleanest, perkiest raisin I've seen in a while!

Dad put a dollar into the fish-feeder and it spat out a bunch of pellets that drew in a whole bunch of trout looking for a snack. A few ducks also took a sharp dive down for the pellets and then floated back up, all appendages tucked in and looking like rocket ships. And, in keeping the balance between inputs and outputs, one of the ducks took a crap when it was back up at the surface, and we got to watch the turd suspended in water, which slowly dispersed into thin white strings of goo on its way down. 'Look at the poop!' I exclaimed with glee.

Forgot to mention that we bought fresh cherries yesterday! Summer is good, even if a little rainy.

Also, I ate the last dried apricot from Lauren today, it looked like a vagina.

peace out!

well, it took a while, but we made it! we landed in queenstown (south island, west coast of new zealand) early this morning and made our way through the torrential downpour to town. discovered that the climbing of queenstown hills should be rewarded with gelato.

also, wi-fi sucks, so likely won't be blogging again til we arrive in wanaka in a few days.

tired, a bit smelly, but glad to be where the flowers are in full bloom (roses! peonies! sweet peas! giant poppies!) and the sun won't set til after 9pm. even if it's raining.

will work on collecting good stories once the jet-lag haze fades...
luv me (and the parental units)

PS - first shout out of the blog to the wheezler!! thanks a bazillion for the ride to the skytrain and the delish snacks! luckily the sniffer-beagle didn't classify them as a bio-hazard... otherwise they would've had to be disinfected along with Dianne's sunshine coast dirt-filled shoes.

well my bags aren't packed
i'm not ready to go (yet)
but i'll do anything
to not be on facebook
even if that means spending the morning setting up this bloggggg

so this is how i'll keep you posted
i won't be tweeting but my skin'll get roasted
because it's summer in the southern hemispheeeere

please email me and tell me stories
send me photos and don't you worry
don't slip on the ice and i'll be sure to slop on sunscreen

cuz i'm leaving on a sunday
i'll be back on march 5 (it's a friday)
so long, see you soon and keep in touch!

luv me