Get into the groove!

It was pretty hard to believe that this weekend was the 4th of July! It is the dead of winter here and I'm dreaming of the sun, since I haven't seen anything but gray and fog in the past four days. But we're just unlucky here in Alex and a short drive in any direction will take you glorious sunshine-even if it is cold out!

We took a drive this weekend up to the Waiorau Snow Farm for a little cross country skiing. The drive there was much more epic than we expected. The Snow Farm is about 13 kilometers off the main road and it just climbs and climbs and climbs! I have no idea how much elevation we gained, but we essentially drove over a mountain-I don't really know what we expected, but not that!

We had great timing, as we sometimes do, and got there on a special weekend. Locals 'Give it a go' weekend was going on and while aren't really locals (but, really, we kind of are!), we got to take part in the special. For only $20 each we got all our rental stuff (boots, skis and such) and free lessons if we wanted them. One might think that since I've never cross country skied before that I might take a free lesson-but no. Instead I have to learn the hard way-from Keith telling me what I should be doing while I'm climbing up a hill on my hands and knees (with my skis still on). The good part was that just about everyone else there was a beginner too. This meant there were lots of other people falling down all over the place-not just me!

From New Zealand

We had a really beautiful and 'warm' day. Although I would have been a little warmer had my gloves not been wet from falling in the snow the whole time. Honestly I kind of hated cross country skiing at first, but slowly as I got a little better, it kind of grew on me. I liked that they had grooves for the skis so I could just hop in there and go-while there really is no way to stop yourself while in these grooves (learned the hard way), I think it's the best way for me to go!

From New Zealand

I didn't last as long on the slopes/trails as Keith did-the old hand got in the way-I did get to check out the rest of what the Snow Farm had to offer. Out front there were a bunch of kids (and adults) tubing...I wanted to go tubing!! Alas I didn't, but man it looked fun!

From New Zealand

After a whole afternoon of skiing, we were starving and there was only one place on our minds: Fergburger in Queenstown. We had eaten there once before. It was after we did the Routeburn and as usual,we were starving. That time it was incredibly hot out, we sat outside sweating like mad and completely devouring our burgers. I'm pretty sure I didn't work as hard for this burger, but it still tasted divine!

From New Zealand

Amazing burger, amazing chips, cold beer-what else can you ask for? Nothing!

From New Zealand

Now we have our usual weird week. Keith is in Roxborough, only about 30 mins away, this week. I was planning on going with him, but he's on call 2 nights, so he's just staying there when he's on call. I was planning on going out there at least one of those nights, but after Keith told me how cold the house is and how he spent the evening standing in front of the heater-I decided I would take advantage of the time and get things organized and cleaned out in our little flat in Alex-we're only here for another 2 1/2 weeks! And maybe, just maybe we'll have to get cross country skiing gear to play around with when we get home.

Goodbye, Ranfurly

It seems appropriate that our last week in Ranfurly has been the best week in Ranfurly! At least in my opinion! Wehen it comes to Ranfurly, we have a routine: I usually can't get into our flat until about noon and we get here at about 8:30 am, so I have some time to kill. When the weather is great that's not a problem, but now it's winter and well, usually not so great. Fortunately, Monday was an exception and it was a beautiful-all be it cold morning.

With hours to kill, I decided that I wanted to spend the morning in St. Bathans. We had been there in summer and I was curious to see what it looked like covered in snow with the sun rising over the mountains at the early hour of 9 am. Shortly after I got to this sleepy little town and parked by Blue Lake (only car there), I was greeted by an adorable puppy that acted like he'd been waiting for me all morning. After our initial hellos of him jumping up on me and giving me giving kisses, I set out to do there little trail around the lake and the pups decided that he was going to come with me. After walking a couple hundred meters the dog (I thought of him as Buddy) took off and started barking like mad. Immediately my mind goes to some crazy scenario that the dog was pulling a Lassie and trying to get me to help his owner that had fallen in the snow or something, so I hurry towards the barking and of course it's nothing. Well, not nothing, it's his tennis ball. We spent the rest of the morning walking on the trail, playing fetch and enjoying the scenery.

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

I finished the trail and thought about going to the Vulcan Hotel for a hot drink, but they were closed and it was still kind of early to go back and well, long story short, I was manipulated by an adorable dog, who even was the same colors as BJ-although a little bigger, to do the trail again. What can I say, I had a great morning! Just don't tell BJ I cheated on him. Of course right when I got back, I found out that I could have gotten into our flat first thing in the morning-I'm glad I missed that message!

From New Zealand

I didn't really have any plans for the week, so when Keith called and said Elaine (who works at the clinic) was wondering if I would be interested in an all day felting class at the local art center, I said of course! I had been introduced to felting by Sandi, one of the locums docs wives, who like me had thought about trying to learn how to knit and gave up after about 30 seconds. Felting is quite a bit easier, with more immediate gratification-aka more my style. What we learned how to do is called Nuno felting, a 15 step process Japanese felting technique that combines shear fiber (such a silk) and wool to make lightweight garments and other items, like scarves, which is what I made. This is a very wet and labor intensive project that takes pretty much all day. Like most of the ladies there, I really didn't know what what we were doing, which just made it more fun.

From New Zealand

The above pic is about half way though the process...I should have taken one at the end! I will at some point. Since it was all day, food was provided-and not just lunch-snacks, truffles, tea, other homemade goodies-these ladies really know how to put on an meal and I came away from it with a recipe for truffles!

We had been meaning to go curling in Naseby pretty much since we got here. While they have indoor curling year-round, we were hoping this late in winter there would be outdoor curling-but they didn't! Keith always gets Wednesday afternoons off in Ranfurly, but he's still on call. Of course, as soon as I had made the booking for 2pm, the phone started ringing off the hook. We had to change our booking and felt very lucky his phone didn't ring the whole time we were curling.

From New Zealand

As soon as you get to the Naseby Indoor Curling Rink, you get sent upstairs to watch a video to teach you about curling-good thing since we really didn't know a thing about the sport. While it is informative, I think they could have talked a little more about scoring-we kind of didn't get that part. After watching the video, we got one on one instruction as to how to slide the stone. There are a few different methods of delivery and anyone who has ever seen Keith bowling knows that he has been preparing for the slide technique (like the do in the Olympics) for his whole life. The woman instructing was shocked at Keith's natural talent-she can't even do the slide-'I end up on my arse every time!'

From New Zealand

Since real curling is 4 people agaist 4 people and we were only 2 people, we just had fun learning. It is actually really hard to get the stone all the way down, without over shooting the target-by about the 4th round we were getting close! Apparently we were pretty good though since we could get the stones all the way down without sweeping, although we did sweep just for the fun of it. I wonder if Keith will get called up to the U.S Curling team? ;-)

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I did not get the slide down, but still rocked at curling!

From New Zealand

Keith has been working Maniototo Hospital and clinic while in Ranfurly. Although I think he would argue that what they call a hospital is barely a hospital, it seems to work for them! All the time we're there, Keith is on call. I know it always hangs over him when we're there and whenever we plan to go out and do anything is when Keith gets called (like curling!). The people at the clinic have been really great and Keith always comes home with pretty crazy stories, so it's always been a good time!

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And they have a pretty nice view from the hospital. I think I would just look outside all day and not get any work done!

From New Zealand

After a good bye lunch with the ladies from the clinic, we were off. Only three more weeks of work for Keith!

From New Zealand

Whiskey, witches, wine and the 100th post!

We are winding down our time here and it seems every week is a last of something. Last week was our last week in Tapanui and there's nothing like a time limit to get you moving! One thing I had to do before leaving Tapanui was get to Gore and go to the Hokonui Moonshine Museum! It was actually a really great museum with exhibits about the origins of whiskey in Southland (way to go Scots!) and the 51 years of prohibition that followed. One thing that they don't tell you until you get there is that at before you leave the museum you get a shot of Hokonui whiskey. I was (as always, it seems) the only person there and when I finished going through the museum, the two ladies working there already had the whiskey out. My first thought was, whoa ladies did you start the party without me? Nope, but they were using it to clean permanent marker off a whiteboard....and I'm supposed to drink this? A cleaning product?! Well, I had to kind of had to try it and it was disgusting! A number of glasses of water later I still felt the whiskey burning my throat, which was a perfectly legitimate excuse for a chai and biscuit!

Since we had been going to Tapanui, we've been seeing signs for the West Otago theatrical production of the Wizard of Oz and I was pretty excited to check out this piece of community theater. It seemed pretty ambitious to me to put on this play in such a small community (population 900) but after talking to old gentleman at the hardware store (which also serves as the box office) I had moderately high expectations. The theater was bigger then expected with stadium seating and it looked almost sold out! The props were minimal, but creative (think interpretive dance of a tornado) and the singing was actually pretty good. The supportive cast was the best with a over the top campy Cowardly Lion, the Scarecrow had the moves down perfectly and the Wicked Witch totally embraced her character and was actually kind of hilarious.

Tapanui was a really pretty place and we had a great view from our little flat-but only from the back. In front of our flat was the ruins of the old hospital and I don't mean the cool, spooky old building kind of ruins, I mean a giant pile of bricks.

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

We had really been wanting to make it to a Degustation Evening at Speargrass Inn, and finally we did! This is our kind of night! The restaurant is in an old brick building about 20 mins outside of Alex and it is fantastic, the chef used to be the the head chef of the Heathman of all places! They have a night once a month or so that they pair up with a local winery and have a seven course meal with a different wine paired with each course...heaven! We were there for a night of food paired with wines from Leaning Rock Vineyard in Alexandra. The seven courses included American scallops paired with resling, the most amazing bacon apple chowder paired with guverstraminer,  pork with greens and a mustard dressing paired with a muscat, herb crusted lamb paired with a young, light-bodied pinot noir, seared venison paired with an earthy reserve pinot noir, and an amazing creme brulee with citrus shortbread. We enjoyed the evening with Sean and Bev, another locums couple from Olympia-Sean has also been my GP when it came to dealing with my hand. It is their last week here and this dinner seemed like a great send off!

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

The winemakers were there, a husband/wife team who are trained as geologists. Each wine was introduced by the winemaker, then the chef's wife explained how they decided to create a dish to compliment each wine.

From New Zealand

The unexpected highlight (lowlight?) of the evening was at almost the very end of the evening, when one of the party goers passed out. Fortunately there were 2 GP's, 1 anesthesiologist, and at least one nurse there to save the day and everyone was fine!

I can't believe this is the 100th post...are you guys bored yet? We only have about a month left here in New Zealand. We are in Ranfurly for the last time this week, then a week in Roxbourgh, and 2 weeks of a little time in Alex and a little time Otautau. We do have about a week to check out a little more of the south island and maybe do another Great Walk, then what I am imagine will be an incredibly lazy and wonderful week in Togna. 

We have also lined up a place to live when we get back! It's a house in Joseph-I have to say we hadn't really thought about living in Joseph, we also thought Enterprise, but a great opportunity presented itself and we couldn't turn it down. So, we will be going back to a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house with a ton of acres, a green house and a view to die for! We are really excited to get back home and welcome many visitors!

From Drop Box

Sneaking past sea lions, stalking penguins

Finally, we made it to the Catlins! This is a breathtakingly beautiful place on the south island between Dunedin and Invercargill with dense forest, towering cliffs, rocky coastal bays, and wildlife galore! Winter seems a great time to go, it seemed like we had the whole place to ourselves.

We got there on a Friday, a day that the sun never really came out, but it was still beautiful. We started the weekend with a short walk to the Waipapa Lighthouse. There were signs telling us that there was the potential to see sea lions or seals, but we weren't really holding our breath!

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We were thrilled when we saw two sea lions playing/fighting/whatever around in the water incredibly close to shore! If that had been all the wildlife we saw that day, I'd say it was great!

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

There was the mandatory stop at 'Niagara Falls'-obviously whoever the was surveyor was a bit cheeky!

From New Zealand

A short walk across some farmland we were at the southern most point of the south island: Slope Point. I thought we were a little closer to the South Pole than that! It's a beautiful with Stewart Island in the background.

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

After a quick stop at our adorable beach front cottage to slip into long johns, we were off to Curio Bay. At dusk the rarest penguins in the world, yellowed eyed penguins, return from a long day of fishing and waddle up the beach to their homes nestled in the trees just off the beach. They make their trek to the ocean at dawn and come back at dusk-we went to see them at dusk. There was only one other couple on the beach hoping to see them. Almost immediately we saw a pair of penguins just hanging out on the rocks drying their feathers. Then slowly but surely they worked their way up the beach, hopping on to rocks and shuffling over the sand. Another pair came out of the ocean and took their place ....we saw 3 pairs and one single penguin altogether. The single penguin seemed to be the leader, he was calling the few stragglers on the beach with what seemed like a 'Get up here right now! Don't make me come down there!' tone as he stood on the edge of the forest. Oh, these guys were so adorable! Waddling up the beach, they look exhausted from their long day at the office, but they stay in their pairs, waiting for each other to hop up the rocks together-I love them!

And there are no pictures-we had read that the flash from cameras seems to stress them out and the last thing I want to do is stress out the rarest penguins in the world!

We also had the compulsory ridiculously huge meal. This one was a platter of chutneys, pate, cheeses, sausage, and a special 2 dozen mussels for Keith.

From New Zealand

A stop at the local information center pointed us to a walk that promised great views and maybe a little more wildlife. About half way down the beach, I spotted something that moved in the surf-Keith thought it was just a big rock-he was wrong. It was a giant sea lion that was working his way up to his prime napping in the sun spot.

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

The track goes through the sand dunes to get to another beach-that sounds easy right? In theory yes, but in reality no. Just steps off the beach there were a number of land mines in the form of giant sleeping sea lions. The question was if we even try to get past them. There was one napping about 3 feet from the path and we wanted to stay on the path....the idea of stumbling on even more giant sea lions if we got off the trail was not appealing! Slowly, quietly, holding our breath we made it past with just a pair of sleepy eyes barely opening, then deciding we weren't worth waking up for, and going back to sleep. We made it!

And on our way to Cannibal Bay we got a great view of Surat Bay. It was a gorgeous, unexpectedly warm day...thank goodness no one was around when we jumped out of all our unneeded layers!

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On Cannibal Bay there was what looked like a family unit of sea loins. We think it was one male and either a couple females and a adolescent, or maybe a male with a bunch of females (a harem if you like!)-if anyone can tell, feel free to correct me!

From New Zealand

These guys couldn't decide if they wanted to nap or play and they put on quite a show! One minute one would be so asleep/relaxed that it was slowly rolling down the beach as if it was passed out, then it would pop up and start after one of the other sea loins-and we were the only people there-it was amazing! We saw a total of 9 sea loins in just a couple hours!

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There are a number of waterfalls in the area. We made it to both McLean Falls and Pūrākaunui Falls. While I had read that Pūrākaunui Falls is one of Otago’s most-photographed sights, we had both falls all to ourselves.

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

Our last stop in the Catlins was Jack's Blow Hole. It was named for Ngāi Tahu chief, Tuhawaiki, known to early European settlers as Bloody Jack - apparently he was fond of using the expletive...wonder what my nickname would be (like I don't already know!). The blowhole is in Tunnel Rocks Scenic Reserve. At 55 meters deep, some 200 meters from the sea, it was formed when the roof of a large subterranean cave was eroded by the sea and fell in. This is an exposed coastline and heavy swells from the southern ocean can create an impressive display. The waves are compressed through the underground tunnel and explode into the blowhole.

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

Now we're back for the usual week of Keith working two days here, three days there. We're in Tapanui for the last time this week and hopefully we have to time to catch the community theater's prodcution of the Wizard of Oz-can't wait!

The entrance to the Underworld and meeting the God of the Forest

We braved the weather on Saturday to make it up to Cape Reinga, the northern end of the North Island. It is over 100 km from the nearest small town and truly feels like the end of the world.

Cape Reinga is extremely important in Maori mythology. This is the place where the spirits of the dead travel so they can begin their journey to the afterlife. They travel down the roots of an 800 year old tree and and descend to the underworld to return to their traditional homeland of Hawaiiki-a-nui, using the Te Ara Wairua, the 'Spirits' pathway'.

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

When we got there the rain had temporarily let up, but the wind...wow the wind. If I didn't have both feet planted firmly on the ground I felt like I was going to be picked up and blown away!

From New Zealand

We were blown down walked down to the lighthouse. On our way down we noticed something unexpected. The waves of the ocean were coming in a different directions. We hadn't realized that Cape Reinga is considered the separation marker between the Tasman Sea to the west and the Pacific Ocean to the east. So were were watching the two seas clash to create unsettled waters just off the coast. The Māori refer to this as the meeting of Te Moana-a-Rehua, 'the sea of Rehua' with Te Tai-o-Whitirea, 'the sea of Whitirea', Rehua and Whitirea being a male and a female respectively.

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We made it down to the lighthouse in one piece. To celebrate Keith had to do some handstand push ups!

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

After that we hung around a near by beach for a little bit, but I was fighting a cold I must have picked up on the flight and wasn't up for any kind of long walk.

From New Zealand

We had seen a couple Kauri trees while we had been in the far north and we only knew a little bit about them. They are amazingly huge trees and to us reminiscent of the redwoods-they grow over 160 feet tall and over 50 wide. Keith had read about a place that sounded kind of cheese-tastic called Ancient Kauri Kingdom and wanted to stop-we don't usually stop at tourist traps with 'Kingdom' in the name, but maybe we should more often. This place was kind of amazing. They have giant stumps out side and an amazing giant Kauri staircase inside. They have a number of products made out of Kauri-but not using the protected tree. They extract ancient Kauri stumps from swamps on the north island and the stumps carbon date to 30,000-50,000 years old-amazing!! My first question was how are these stumps not rotten? This is what they say: Buried just below the surface of the ground and preserved in the water of peat swamps, the Ancient Kauri wood has neither petrified nor turned to coal. This underground resting place, sealed from the air, became a perfectly balanced cocoon that preserved the giant trees. OK, sounds kind of like the Bog people to me, I get it.  This is a finite source, they think that in about 50 years they will have found all the ancient Kauri-obviously that means this stuff is expensive! A small bowl is about $150, a coffee table is a few thousand...not really in our price range. But they had a back room where things got  more affordable and was actually pretty cool. You can buy unfinished pieces of Kauri and they give you the instructions of how to finish it yourself-sign me up! We got a small bowl and a lot of sandpaper, which is really just how you finish it. I've been working on it all week!

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We made it to a backpackers called the Tree House backpackers that sounded amazing, with little cabins nestled in the thick forest. If we had known that it was incredibly family friendly and that the communal kitchen and lounge was really just a day care full of screaming toddlers we wouldn't have checked in. After a eating a quick dinner in the 'kitchen' we retreated to the peace of our little room, thankful that it was away from the main building.

We were happy to escape from there early the next morning, besides we had places to go and people to meet. We had to get to the Waipoua Forest, which has some of the largest remaining tracts of native forest in Northland. Most Kauri trees have been lost due to milling or clearing the land for farming. A few massive trees remain, including Tane Mahuta and Te Matua Ngahere. We stopped at Tane Mahuta first. Tane Mahuta is the largest Kauri tree in New Zealand at 167 feet high and 45 feet wide and it thought to be between 1250-2500 years old. In Maori culture he is God of the Forest and is the father of all plants and man.

From New Zealand

We also stopped to visit Te Matua Ngahere, the Father of the Forest isn't as tall or old as Tane Mahuta, but is quite a bit wider.

From New Zealand

Mind you while we're checking these places out it is pouring down rain. We decide to hop in the car and try to find a museum or something to keep us dry. We ended up driving around most of the day in the car hoping it would stop raining. After deciding that we should just get to Auckland since we were flying out the next morning, the sky decided to clear. We found Bethells Beach and just happened to have timed our stop perfectly for sunset. It was so wonderful to be walking along the beach in just jeans and t-shirt and I really did not want to fly back to the frigid South Island the next morning.

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But now we're back on the South Island and in a little town called Tapanui where Keith has been working part of this week. This is our first time here and the accommodations are pretty nice, well at least they have a pretty view and we're only a half hour away from Gore. Gore always gets a bad rap of being kind of the armpit of a town, but I think it's gotten the short end of the stick. I spent the day there yesterday and it was really a lovely little town. Since I compare pretty much every town we go to to Alex, I would say Gore is a huge step up-it has department stores, a movie theater, lots of little shops, even a little gourmet food shop-at least we're only in Alex for 2 days next week and spending the rest of the week in Tapanui!

Dolphins and history in the Bay of Islands

We woke up in our backpackers in Paihia in the Bay of Islands to a bright sunny day. The guy who runs the backpackers said they offer a 'backpackers special' for a cruise of the Bay. There are 144 islands in the bay so it seemed like a cruise was great choice.

We hopped on a giant boat a 9am with 15-20 other people and took off to enjoy the views of all the islands.

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

Along with the views of the island this was also a dolphin sighting cruise. The cruise line we were on has a sister ship where you can swim with the dolphins. I have to say neither of us were really game to swim with the dolphins, but I was more than happy to take about 100 pictures of them! Swimming with dolphins has always seemed kind of strange and sketchy to me with the people running the cruise saying 'oh the dolphins love it'-Really? Did they tell you that? At least the people running things in New Zealand say that they have strict rules about not feeding the dolphins to lure them to the boat and not letting anyone touch the dolphins. There were 4 male dolphins that did seem like they were having a good time, I mean, they hung around the swimmers and boats for almost an hour.

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

We then cruised to the 'Hole in the Rock' at the end of the bay, which really is just a giant hole in a giant rock. It would have been cool to go through the giant hole, but the waves were too rough to take us tourists there.

From New Zealand

I was very happy to get off the boat on Urupukapuka Island to stretch our legs and hopefully warm up a little. We only had a short amount of time there so we quickly took off for a short walk up to a lookout of the Bay, it was a breathtaking view! It would have been great to have more time on the island. There are 66 Maori archaeological sites on the island and many of them can be seen on a archaeological walk...maybe next time!

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

There was one really interesting bit of history we learned once we got back on the boat. As we passed Motuarohia/Roberton Island we heard about its sad history. A former whaling ship Captain John Roberton purchased the island of Motuarohia from Ngapuhi chiefs Wareahi in 1839 and brought his wife and family from Scotland to live and farm on the island. Mr. Roberton drowned shortly after his family arrived, leaving his wife-who knew nothing about farming-alone on the island. She hired a few people to work the farm. One of the workers was Maketu Wharetotara, the 17-year-old son of the Nga Puhi chief Ruhe of Waimate. Maketu worked with Thomas Bull on the farm. In March 1842 Maketu killed them because he believed they had offended his mana. Bull had been verbally and physically abusive towards him, and Mrs Roberton had sworn at him. He also killed Isabella, the young granddaughter of a Maori chief who had the unfortunate timing to be visiting. Maketu failed to explain why he felt it necessary to kill Mrs Roberton's two children or Isabella. In the end it was perhaps the killing of Isabella alone that sealed his fate. As a result of this, Maketu Wharetotara was found guilty and hung on March 7, 1842-the first execution in New Zealand. After that is was a divine dinner at Only Seafood where Keith had just about the freshest oysters yet-they had made the 15 ferry ride from Russell at 5pm-amazing!

The captain of the ferry had warned that the weather was going to turn and get rainy and unfortunately he was right. Saturday was a gray day where we faced with the deiscion-do we stay in the Bay of Islands and check out the Waitangi House where there Treaty of Waitangi was signed (inside and out of the rain) or do we push on and drive all the way north to Cape Rengia? Of course we pushed on and I'm glad we did