South of the North Island

View of the Tasman Sea from New Plymouth.

In my previous posts, I described the road trip from Christchurch to Greymouth, and from Greymouth to Nelson. We took the ferry from Picton, on the south island, to Wellington, on the south end of the north island. We felt so disappointed to be back in civilization. The south island of New Zealand really feels like another world, or at least a different country. On the other hand, we stayed at the nicest bed and breakfast places on the way back to Auckland. The first, Oceanus Holiday home in Papapapaumu, north of Wellington on the Kapiti coast, was like a nice home-away-from-home. We could have cooked dinner there, with a full kitchen. Even better was the accomodation outside of New Plymouth, a cabin called Logger's Retreat. New Plymouth is supposed to be one of the nicest places to live in New Zealand. It is pretty remote, but has beautiful parks and convenient access to Mt Taranaki (below).Those beautiful photos of the New Plymouth coast don't display the bitter cold wind that was howling all day, and prevented us from going up the mountain at all. As we discovered the following day, it's only about 6 hours drive from Auckland, so not that remote that we won't go back some time.

Back in Auckland, the following weekend was Halloween, and friends Adam and Roberta hosted a "fun as" party. Check out Sara Palin and POW John McCain, and the other awesome costumes of our friends.

This year, I was a Lucha Libre. I had bought that mask at the San Diego Comic-Con some years back.

Book reviews:

I finished Pitcairn, Paradise Lost, by Kathy Marks. She was one of only 6 journalists allowed to cover the trials on the island. This book has shocking descriptions of child rape, which has basically been going on since Fletcher Christian and his crew basically kidnapped women and brought them there. Apparently, several of the men convicted are here in New Zealand, as well as the victims, making it more personal. The story is very sad, but shows that due to one woman's courage to speak out, and the pursuit of justice by New Zealand and England, behaviors are changing.

Following that, I started Roots. I'm 400 pages into it. This story is a real tragedy. I mean, the writing is fine, but the detail of the story made me physically nauseous and repeatedly brought me to tears. One quibble I have with the writing, is that the level of detail is a bit much. The whole book is 688 pages, and even reading about 1.5 hrs a day, it's been a long read. I understand that the author (Alex Haley) is trying to include a lot of relevant history, but it's sometimes a drag on the plot. Some of the things he writes just slap you in the face with relevance to the world even today. The most interesting thing I have learned is that slave taking is a part of nearly every culture, even in Africa. And today it persists. I just saw an article about a "baby factory" in Nigeria, on BBC news, where women were raped, and when the babies are born, taken away and sold.

Ugh.

South Island surprises part 2

In my previous post, I described the road trip from Christchurch to Greymouth and up to Pancake Rocks. The road (highway? 6) runs along the coast before heading inland and north toward Nelson. You can click here for a map of the area. We were awed by the lower and upper Buller River Gorge, as we drove along for what seemed like hours. I developed an understanding of why the poison 1080 is applied here for possum control. To hunt the critters out of this rugged terrain would be next to impossible. Unfortunately, this poison is dropped over mountainous forests via helicopter, and kills deer and other ruminants, besides possums. It's a horrible, agonizing death for the deer. Sometimes cows, horses, or dogs get poisoned by it. But I digress.We had lunch in Murchison and discovered the winner of a NZ bacon competition located here. I had some on a BLT sandwich for lunch at the Rivers Cafe across the street. Yum! We would really like to go back there and go river rafting. For our afternoon entertainment, we stopped at the Buller Gorge Swingbridge "adventure and heritage park". We did the tandem comet line, wihch was fun, but not long enough. The swing bridge was narrow and bouncy. We had a bit of rain during the drive, but it was just overcast when we got to Nelson. We went for a stroll on the beach to stretch our legs before heading to dinner with friends Don and Angela. We had a great time with them. Angela wrote a good bit about NZ elections on her blog, here. As immigrants with permanant residence, we get to vote for a new Prime Minister this Saturday. I already voted in the US presidential election (for Obama, of course).

The next day, we went to the fabulous Nelson Saturday Market, where you can buy fresh produce, cheese, sausages, plants, art, crafts, clothes, and other good, fun stuff. I got a skirt from Vintage Heaven. Have a look at their clothes here. I also replaced my torn raincoat with a new one.

We had an afternoon ferry crossing with our rental vehicle, so we headed out of Nelson toward Picton. The Queen Charlotte Drive into Picton is super twisty and scenic. I would like to go back some time to do the Queen Charlotte Track. Hopefully when it's not raining, as it was when we got on the ferry. I dashed out of the lounge on board the ferry to snap a few photos, but it was too windy, wet, and cold to linger.

I'll have to save the North Island for the next post.

We have put a deposit on a building for our Maungaturoto property. It is a Kiwi Span garage, with two roller doors, one window, and one personal door. We will have the ground prepared sometime this month.

The trees in our orchard are now fully fenced, and the neigbor's beasts (cows and sheep) have been let back on property to mow the grass. They have to be kept away from the trees, because they love to eat them. Darin took the mower up this week, and spent 4 brutal hours cutting the grass in the orchard. Though the trees were spared from the cows and sheep, some of them fell victim to aphids. Poor, innocent little trees, with their fresh young leaves, corrupted by the nasty, ugly aphids! They were treated with pesticide, and we'll have to keep a close eye on them for recurrence.

South Island Surprises (part 1)

Labour Day weekend, Darin and I did a road trip. What an outstanding trip we had! Over 5 days, we drove 1500 kilometers across two islands. We flew Air New Zealand from Auckland to Christchurch Wednesday evening, and picked up our rental car the next morning. Our first stop was to be the Simpson's Movie donut in Springfield, but we discovered it was gone. We had a good breakfast at this cafe instead. Moving on toward Arthur's Pass, heading into the mountains, we were surprised by these lovely large boulders. The weather was fine, so we went exploring. This was one of the highlights of the road trip. This place is called Castle Hill, and is popular with climbers. Not on this day; we basically had the place to ourselves.

Continuing on through the mountains, we stopped in Arthur's Pass, where we had ice cream cones for lunch (hey, we're on vacation!) and met the local Keas (photo on the previous post). They are very entertaining. When one jumped up to the water fountain, I turned it on and the parrot drank water. Afterward, we walked up to the base of the Devil's Punchbowl waterfall. We carried on to Greymouth. We had the brewery tour at Monteith's (140 years old!), and discovered that beer tastes so much better when freshly made.
Have I mentioned how expensive beer is here? The Monteith's range is typically $13.00 for a 6-pack. So this was a special treat, because we just don't drink it that much due to cost. We stayed at the Cathedral Hill Bed and Breakfast a few kilometers south of Greymouth, and it was really good. The hostess seved us port in crystal glasses and visited with us. We went to visit her sheep in the morning, and they were very friendly.

Leaving Greymouth, heading north along the West coast, we were awed by the scenery. It reminded us of the norther California coast, except more green and tree ferns. We saw a sign for penguins, but didn't stop to look for them. We were on our way to the Pancake Rocks, which are best at high tide. We were really impressed. I love the picture below:

I'll post more about this trip in my next update.

Before we left for this trip, our Rottweiler puppy, Ruby, now 10 months old, came into her first estrous cycle. She and Fargo were booked into the kennel, so I called to tell them about it. I was told to not bring her, she would be too disruptive. The trip was not-cancellable, and I there was little chance of another kennel being available to take her, even if they would accept her. I rang her breeder, and she fortunately agreed to take Ruby.

I finishedthe book Persepolis, and really liked it. I needed something else to read, so picked up State of Fear by Michael Crichton. I really disliked it. It was totally predictable and the story had massive holes in it. The characters are shallow, the dialog is laughable, and you feel like you are being lectured to. I still hadn't gotten anything off my request list at the library, so I picked up a book that's been on my shelf for awhile, that I started and never finished. The book is Complications, and it's a collection of essays about medicine. I enjoyed reading about decision making and intuition. Now I'm reading Pitcairn: Paradise Lost. This is about the island where Fletcher Christian escaped the British navy and scuttled the Bounty after he and the crew mutinied. What started with an alleged rape of a 12 year old Australian girl became an inquiry into widespread sexual abuse. It was written by one of only 6 reporters allowed on the island to cover the trial. So far, very engaging and interesting.