A few days in Ranfurly

Monday morning was a bit of mad rush. Sunday night we were saying our good byes to the family as they were getting on the road early Monday morning to drive back to Christchurch to fly back to the States. We were also up (very!) early Monday morning so we could get it Ranfurly by 8 am since Keith that was when Keith thought he had to be there to start work. Of course we were early!

Keith was filing in this week for the only doctor in Ranfurly, which meant he was on hospital call 24/7 (actually just 24/4 since we were only there for four days) and he covered the clinic-so it had the potential to get pretty crazy busy, but lucky for us it was just moderately busy.

From New Zealand

While in Ranfurly I got a chance to get up close and personal with the medical system here. After my incredibly graceful fall on the way to Milford my hand was still (and still is) really painful and the bruising on my hand was pretty gross-time for a trip to the doctor! Of course Keith is the only doc in the area, so he looked at it (for the millionth time!) and set me up with an appointment for an X-Ray. I got lucky and an X-Ray tech just happened to be in Ranfurly that day so I had my X-Ray a couples hours later. The tech thought I had a small fracture at the base of my 5th metacarpal (aka pinky), Keith agreed and I got a lovely fiberglass splint . The cost for all of this was a whopping zero dollars-doesn't socialized medicine suck! ;) Since we filed an ACC (Accident Compensation Corporation) claim, my lovely spill onto the gravel was covered.

From New Zealand

This kind of hindered my plans of driving around and taking pictures of the area. Using my big camera has been a challenge and I was pretty sure I couldn't really drive with my one hand, so I was on foot. But that wasn't really a problem, Ranfurly is an adorable little town with a strong art deco theme, and it's so small it doesn't take much walking to feel like you're in the middle of nowhere!

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

The Central Otago Rail Trail goes through Ranfurly (so everyone assumed I fell off my bike on the trail-that would be such a better story!). Most people bike the rail trail and along the trail towards Ranfurly they have a collection of cute old bikes that goes along with their art deco personality.

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

I have to mention Forry's, the restaurant where I had breakfast on the last day we were there. I had be be out of the place we were staying early because the volunteer cleaning ladies were coming, so I went out for breakfast. Forry's had been recommended to me by a women working at the local museum, but I have to say it didn't look like much when I walked it. It said it had breakfast but I didn't see any menus, so I walked up and asked and found our my choices were cold breakfast (cereal and stuff) or hot breakfast (a delicious plate of sausage, bacon, toast, eggs, tomatoes and hasbrowns). I really wanted the hot breakfast but I knew I couldn't cut up and eat just about everything in the hot breakfast with my not very coordinated or strong left hard-so disappointed! So I said to the waitress: I guess I'll get the cold breakfast because I can't cut up anything. I couldn't believe what she said next! She offered to cut up everything so I could get the hot breakfast! You have got to be kidding me! People are so freaking nice here! And it was such a delicious breakfast-go to Forry's if you go to Ranfurly!

On Thursday Keith got a report back from the actual radiologist in Dunedin who said that my hand is not broken, which is good because it should heal faster. Dr. Keith says I should still wear my big splint for another week but hopefully after that the pain will have gone away! I really hope so! Just because it's not broken doesn't mean it doesn't hurt like the dickens!!

One more thing! Today it's BJ's 6th birthday! A big happy birthday to the best puppy in the world!

Milford Adventures!

The whole fam spent Friday at Milford Sound, although the trip there was an adventure in it self!

There were tons of places to stop on the way to Milford and we were lucky we could even get there as there had been a massive storm on Monday and the road had just opened at 10:30 Friday morning!

From New Zealand

If only I had paid attention to the signs! About 10 minutes after these pictures were taken I found myself on my knees in the wet gravel after tripping over a piece of metal sticking out of the gravel-awesome!

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

We made it to Milford in mostly one piece and although it was really cloudy, the Sound did not disappoint!

From New Zealand

Mom and I went on a Mitre Peak cruise of the sound. They have the smallest boats of the many cruise companies so they can get really close to all the waterfalls, which was fantastic! To top it off, there were only 8 other people on the cruise-perfection!!

From New Zealand

Keith, Colleen, and Randy spent their time kayaking of the sound. They were pretty easy to spot as they were they only kayakers out there!

From New Zealand

The cruise was great! It may have been cold and rainy but that meant we got 100's of waterfalls! We cruised almost all the way to the Tasmen Sea, where it finally stopped raining.

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

On the way back to land, 6 dolphins were spotted and couple got really close to the boat! Our skipper said they only see dolphins about once a week!

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

Rudyard Kipling described Milford Sound as the eighth Wonder of the World and it was recently voted the number one spot in the “101 must-do’s for Kiwis”, so hopefully you'll believe me when I say do not miss it if you ever come to New Zealand!

Just the beginning

With the family coming for such a short period of time this week, we really had to work to try to get everything in that we could! They flew into Christchurch and drove down the east coast to Dunedin, and then finally made it over to us in Alex on Wednesday evening.

We started their whirlwind Central Otago introduction at the Chatto Creek Tavern where I hope they got a good taste of the delicious wine, amazing food, and interesting and friendly locals.

From New Zealand

The next day our ultimate destination was Te Anu, but we had a few stops on the way. One stop was adorable Arrowtown.

From New Zealand

The next day we spent in Milford Sound, which deserves its own blog entry, so that's what it will get!

Left to my own devices on Stewart Island

On Saturday Keith got up early to do the Rakiura Track, which is 36 kilometers long. While most people do the track in three days, Keith is not most people and did it in two days. For this reason, I slept in and spent the day on my own instead of tramping as fast as I could through the mud!

Even though I was on my own I was not completely lazy! The rainy morning on the Island meant that I had the day hiking trails to myself, which was lovely! There are a huge numbers of birds on Stewart Island as well as Ulva Island and my favorite bird the tui was all over the place while I was hiking on Saturday and it was hard to think that R2-D2 was following me and to not smile every time I heard them!

From New Zealand

While I was hiking, drizzle turned into rain turned into incredibly windy and pouring down, so eventually I had to go inside, but I really didn't want to miss out on anything on the island!

From New Zealand

Luckily in the afternoon the sun finally came out!

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

That evening, while the sun was still out, I made it up to Observation Rock, which is supposed to be a good place to watch both sunrise and sunset. While I was up there is was clear there wouldn't be a great sunset, but it was so quiet and peaceful I stayed for almost an hour watching the light change. I was shocked that not another person came up there the whole time I was there since the point is only 1 kilometer from the only town on the island, Oban!

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

Hopefully Keith has time to blog his hike soon! But the family (Jean, Colleen, and Randy) are officially in the country and they'll be in Alex tomorrow, so I think we'll be a little busy for a few days!

The Birds

I've always had this fantasy that if I was alive in the time of the great explorers that I would have hitched myself to one of them and sailed around the unknown world. After the one hour crossing from Bluff to Stewart Island, I rescind this fantasy.

The hour long crossing to get to Stewart Island wasn't even in rough weather! It was really windy and there were giant swells and whitecaps, but it was a beautiful sunny day. The first half hour went pretty well but then there was that one huge swell and I almost lost it, but didn't-thankfully! I guess it was just mild sea sickness, but really that was enough! After what seemed like the longest hour of my life, we got to Stewart Island and I never wanted to get back on the ferry ever again!

We got to the island at about lunch time, so after lunch and dropping our bags at the backpackers place we were staying it was time to go out and explore the island. We had hoped to rent a sea kayak and kayak to Ulva Island that afternoon, but the one person who rents kayaks was gone for the day (of course!) so we took a short water taxi ride to Ulva Island.

Ulva Island is a predator free island sanctuary for native plants and birds live in a safe environment. I can't say Keith and I have ever been birding before, but that is pretty much what we were doing-keeping our eyes and ears peeled for the large number of birds that live on the island.

The bird we saw the most (and had come across before) was the weka, that always seemed to be following us as we walked down the beaches.

From New Zealand

We also had seen these little robins before-they also like to get really close to people like the weka do-they are so cute!

From New Zealand

Unfortunately I didn't get a good shot of my favorite bird on the island: the tui. I mainly love the tui because their bird call sound almost exactly like R2-D2, which is just awesome! We saw just about every bird on the island, except the kiwi bird which is nocturnal and almost never seen.

Hiking and bird watching were not the only thing to keep me entertained on the island, Keith also had to show off the guns!

From New Zealand

On the water taxi ride back to the main island we came across three Mollymawks (these are considered medium sized albatrosses) that felt like putting on a show for our boat. This does no justice as to how big these are!

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

So far the trip to Stewart Island was living up to the hype!

The times are a changing

Well, I'm not sure if you could tell, but both Keith and I have been a little down on the reality of some aspects about living here-mainly the weekdays-at least most weekends tend to be pretty awesome. But it seems like things are finally turning around.

Keith has actually been busy at work the past few days, although I'm holding my breath that this will keep up! And shockingly I have actually found something to do too! I have started volunteering at the high school library. I have to admit that I was not really looking forward to volunteering at any of the area schools, since, well, most of you know I'm not the biggest fan of children, but since teenagers don't really want anything to do with adults, this seems to work out pretty well!

Saving the best for last-we are moving!!! We looked at places today and found one that was exactly what we were looking for-rent only $20 more a week than what we're paying now, has a kitchen that is bigger than a closet and a fridge bigger than a dorm room fridge, and has a yard that will be just our yard-instead of living in someone's backyard like we are now. The house we'll be renting is actually in town, which means I'll actually be able to walk to town without my walk back being a epic climb up a mountain-yay!! I'm not going to miss living in our current place that is horribly isolating, incredibly windy, and exceptionally small-but with the fam coming next week and us going to Ranfurly the week after that we won't move until Easter-but that's soon enough!

From New Zealand

Off to Stewart Island first thing tomorrow morning!

Such is life!

After a few weeks of some pretty awesome adventures, things seems to be slowing down a little bit. Well, actually a lot. This past weekend we weren't really up to anything, just a little chillaxing (I will never get tired of this word!) by Lake Wanaka and trying to go to the farmer's market in Cromwell-which we found out ended last weekend! Oh well!

We did spend some time in Ranfurly and Naseby area on Friday. Keith had a meeting at the hospital there and is going to start filling in for the one doc in town for a week every month or so. Keith has been barely working three days a week in Alex and when he's there it's usually boring and since no one seems to want my help here volunteering or otherwise, we're both getting kind of bored and are ready for a change of scenery-even if it isn't that frequent.

From New Zealand

Sorry to disappoint but next weekend will also be boring. Keith is filling in at the hospital in near by Clyde and will be actually be working all this week and weekend. Stay tuned for more adventures the next weekend when we go to Stewart Island!