Parents' Visit in February

Mike's mom and my parents came for a two week visit in February. We had fantastic plans for them:

• Going on an overnight cruise in the Fjordlands in the far south (some of the most dramatic ocean and mountain scenery on earth; it was recognized in 1986 as a UNESCO World Heritage site for " its superlative natural features, beauty and role in demonstrating the earth’s evolutionary history.")
  
• Taking the Tranz Alpine Train from the Pacific Ocean on the East Coast, through Arthur's Pass in the Southern Alps, to the Tasmanian Sea on the West Coast (one of the top 10 train rides in the world - we have photos posted in an earlier blog)


• Riding the Tranz Coastal Train up the East Coast from Christchurch, from the plains of Canterbury, along the coast where the Kaikoura mountains dip straight into the Pacific Ocean, through the internationally reknowned wine-country in Marlborough and Nelson, and onto the ferry connecting the North and South Island (the ferry ride is considered to be the most beautiful major ferry ride in the world).


• And of course, visiting our cats in quarantine (both Mike's mom, and my parents, had kindly looked after our cats for extended periods of time as we visited and settled into New Zealand).

Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate as much as we had hoped. Rather than demonstrating why everyone here calls February the most beautiful summer month, New Zealand chose to demonstrate why it is also refered to as the "Land of the Long White Cloud." (To be fair, the six weeks before our parents arrived were absolutely perfect, as were the two weeks after they left.)

So we scratched the Fjordlands trip. (Even the world's most beautiful scenery doesn't have the same appeal in fog and rain.) Our parents did get onto the Tranz Coastal train, but it had to stop less than a 1/3 of the way into the journey because of an automobile trailer that had fallen onto the tracks. And we didn't even get to drive up to the ferry ride: there wasn't a hotel room to be had within 3 hours of the ferry. (We'd unknowningly picked the exact weekend of the world reknowned annual international wine festival.)

But despite those "minor" setbacks, we had a great time, and they did manage to get in a lot of regional sight-seeing. We replaced the overnight cruise with a two hour nature cruise in the Lyttelton Harbour just south of Christchurch. Our parents gamely walked all over Christchurch in the rain. The Tranz Alpine train thankfully made it through the entire journey. The whole group of us kept the cats (and the quarantine workers) well entertained. And all three of them bravely took on our left-hand drive car and successfully navigated through New Zealand roundabouts.

As you can imagine, we left most of the photo-taking to our moms. (I don't think we had a choice.) But we did end up with a few good shots of our own from the two weeks.

FIRST SET OF PHOTOS: We went and picked up our parents after the unexpectedly short Tranz Coastal train ride in Kaikoura, about 2 hours north of Christchurch. Kaikoura is known for its scenery (the Kaikoura mountains plunge into the Pacific Ocean), the lobster (kai = food/eat, koura = pacific lobster), the dolphins and whale-watching tours (apparently, it's the whale watching capital of the world), and it's permanent colony of fur seals:

How many seals can you find in this photo?

SECOND SET OF PHOTOS: After we picked up our parents in Kaikoura, we used the drive home to sight-see locally.

The countryside:

My mom trying stealthily to photograph the sheep for the umpteenth time. (Not pictured: my dad loudly yelling "Baah" just in time to warn the sheep of the approaching camera.)

Mike & Mike's mom at Leithfield Beach:

The very appropriately named Cathedral View Point overlooking Gore Bay:

I'll post the last set of photos, from the Lyttelton Harbour nature cruise, in the next blog.

One of our favorite day hikes

Christchurch, itself, is incredibly flat. But immediately to the south (not even 15 minutes from our house) are the Port Hills, remnants of an ancient volcanic complex.

When the first European settlers arrived in the 1850s, they arrived in the protected harbour on the south side of the Port Hills. (The Lyttelton Harbour is still the major port for the entire region today.) The settlers then had the fun task of walking the 1.6 miles up and over those hills, into the plains of what would become Christchurch.


View Larger Map

As the Christchurch City Council puts it: "The path was hacked [over the hill] by a working party in 1851. The Bridle Path soon became the main access way for families of pioneers bringing household goods and personal belongings over the Hills. The horses had to be led by the bridle to the Summit - thus the name Bridle Path."

In other words - the path is steep. I can't imagine being a settler and having to lug all your stuff over the hill. But as an afternoon day hike, it's now one of our favorites. The views are beautiful, and well worth the exertion. Well, the views, and the chance for a cold drink or ice cream when you get to Lyttelton...

Here are a couple of photos we took when we first walked the Bridle Path back in January. Now that we're well into fall, the hills are bright green. Come the middle of winter, there should be a couple of days with a light dusting of snow on them.

Looking north (towards Christchurch) from the top of the path. To the right is the Pacific Ocean; to the left (and just out of the photo) is downtown Christchurch:

Looking south, towards Lyttelton, from the top of the path and then from about half way down. (That's Anna and Bede in the first photo.)


We hope you'll get a chance to come and join us one afternoon for the walk.

Back to Updating the Blog!

My apologies for the delays in updating the blog! Over the next couple of days, I hope to upload some of our favorite photos from the past couple of months. Thanks for all your patience and encouragement. - Anna

A Little Introduction to Our Friends In New Zealand

Kiwis & anyone else smart enough to live in New Zealand almost by definition are funny, friendly, laid-back, and outgoing. It's been ridiculously easy to meet people here.

But that being said, we have four friends -- Bede, Megan, Kendra, and Chris --who have absolutely gone out of their way to make sure we meet anyone and everyone here. They have really become our family. We figured we'd introduce them to you by way of a video.

Hmmmm, maybe we should give you some background:

Bede and Kendra both work at the gym with us. Well, Kendra has and will again after her maternity leave. :) Bede is quintessential Kiwi, and keeps the entire gym working and laughing with his sense of humour, his insane work-ethic, and his "mental health bars" (snack-size chocolate bars available for any coach at any time). Kendra is a Canadian transplant, and knows the ins & outs of the gym backwards and forwards: I think she can personally name every one of the yearly 1000+ gymnasts that have been through our doors, and can give you a full background on each.

Bede is one of those natural gymnastics coaches whose entire gymnastics background -- as he puts it -- was limited to "jumping over those boxes in school gymnastics class." (He has mastered every team sport, from cricket to indoor soccer to ice hockey, and has a degree in recreation management.)

Kendra came here from Canada to coach the New Zealand 2002 Olympic Speed Skating team, and has been here ever since. Our gym club snagged her the second she approached the gym with her Canadian gymnastics coaching credentials. She single-handedly proves that even serious rheumatoid arthritis can't stop you.

Megan was Bede's long time partner until quite recently. Together, they have shown us more of New Zealand geography, culture, food, and life-style than anyone else here. Megan is also Anna's personal source of new books. (Megan is a librarian for Christchurch libraries: Australasia's best public library system.)

Kendra's long time partner is Chris. We lived with them for 3 weeks when we came to visit New Zealand initially, and then again for almost 4 weeks when we were searching for a rental upon our return. Chris was an international ice-dancer, and now runs the main ice rink in Christchurch.

Kendra just married Chris on January 3rd, and Kendra asked Bede to be her "maid of honor," or more appropriately in this case, her "Bede of honor". Megan was the "bearer of the ring bearer" (Luke, Chris and Kendra's newborn son was the ring bearer.) The speech Bede gave at the wedding is the best introduction we could possibly give you to our circle of friends:

Skype!

Just a quick update -

First of all, we have skype set up and running! If you have a skype account, email us and let us know your user name. :)

Mike is currently off in Australia for the men's FIG judging course. For the non-gym people out there: that's the course/exam required to be an international-caliber "brevet" judge for this next Olympic cycle 2009-2012. FIG only offers the credentialing once every four years, and only in a handful of places around the world (i.e. - plus or minus once on each continent).

Here in New Zealand, I'm trying to tackle the paperwork involved in getting our cats from the US here.

*chuckle* - You would think we were trying to import a sample of the last remaining small pox virus. The process literally involves officials at the New Zealand Minister of Agriculture and Forestry; our own veterinarian (thanks Natalie!) as well as veterinarians from the USDA, LAX & the airport in Christchurch; a quarantine facility; notaries on both sides of the Pacific; microchip scanners; and a "zoosanitary certification" for good measure.

To be fair, those are the simple entry procedures. USA is one of the "specified countries and territories recognised as countries or territories in which canine rabies is absent or well controlled."

Okay, back to Section 22 of the Biosecurity Act 1993 for me. :)

Summer Vacation... Part 2

(If you haven't already, read our post "Summer Vacation... Part 1." It will give you a lot more of the background to this trip.)

Here are some of our favorite photos from the rest of our vacation. We threw in a photo of our car in Kaka Point for good measure, but after that, the photos are arranged by geography from north (closest to Christchurch) to south (closest to Curio Bay).

Our noble steed: a 2001 Mazda Premacy as seen in Kaka Point.

Farmland in Canterbury, not far south of Christchurch:


The little town of St. Andrews on the coast. As far as we know, there's nothing particularly significant about St. Andrews. It was just representative of the villages we drove through. (Both photo of the town and the ocean below were shot from the same rest stop. And yes, that's the entire town pictured there.)



The town of Oamaru, known for its Victorian architecture and its Blue Penguin colony. The theater is in a covered walkway between the old buildings. We didn't stay long enough in Oamaru to see either the nightly performance of the "Great Storm of 1868" (true story) in the theateror the 180+ penguins coming ashore, but both are things we'd love to do if we get back to Oamaru.




A giant chicken hedge. To give you an idea of scale, the egg is almost as tall as I am.

The famous Moeraki Boulders.



The flower field:

The big, fast flowing Clyde river on the outskirts of the town of Balclutha (which, quite reasonably, means "town on the Clyde").

Kaka Point. Our bed & breakfast "the Molyneux House", its view to the sea, and the rock formation in the surf (90 degree uplifted ancient ocean bed sedimentary layers)


Nugget Point Lighthouse - It's 250 ft above the water, surrounding by small rocky islands known as the Nuggets. There's a 15 minute walk to get to the lighthouse. The cliffs to either side of the path look tame, but they're actually quite steep as you can make out in the last picture.



Matai Falls. *chuckle* - Just another Department of Conservation stop along the Southern Scenic Route. You really can't drive more than about 20 minutes without seeing the signs pointing to the walks.

Lake Wilkie - It formed behind sand dunes during the last ice age, and has been there ever since. (There are no streams running into or out of this lake.) For those interested in plants, it apparently shows a complete transition from water side (bog) moss through fully mature forest in only 65 m.


Florence Hill Lookout. Looks over Long Point to the north and Tautuku Beach to the South.



Cathedral Caves. Huge caverns accessible only at low tide. It's about a 15 minute walk down the hill through the rainforest to the beach, and 10 minutes further down the beach. The big fern trees in the forest reminded us of Cousin It.

And finally, just before you arrive in Curio Bay, there's the sign that made us laugh the most. I guess with all the amazing scenery... the concete needs to be pointed out!

Summer Vacation... Part 1

In New Zealand, Christmas is summer vacation time. Car trips and camping abound. Great idea! So, on Dec. 27, we planned a five day trip for Dec. 29 to Jan 2. (*chuckle* We're starting to get the hang of the Kiwis' laid back - "she'll be right" - approach to life.)

We figured it was too late to have any hope of finding camp site or backpackers reservations in the Kiwis' favorite Christmas spot - Abel Tasman National Park, in the northwest of the South Island. Ditto for many of the other major outdoor South Island tourist destinations like Mount Cook, Queenstown, the Fiordlands, etc.

So we looked south. It didn't hurt that, by all accounts, this area is known to be "winter-y" in winter, so hitting the south in summer seemed like a good idea to us.

(For those not in New Zealand - "south" in New Zealand is almost as far south as you can go on land without being in Antarctica. The town of Invercargill is home to the world's southernmost McDonald's; the town of Dunedin had a iceberg from the antarctic ice sheet drifting offshore two years ago; and only the tip of South America reaches further south.)

A little bit of google research helped narrow it down: "Situated off the beaten track on the southern-most coast of South Island, New Zealand, The Catlins is a major highlight of the Southern Scenic Route." Sounded perfect for last minute planners like us.


An ocean front B&B in Kaka Point conveniently had a cancellation for the nights of December 31 and January 1. We just needed to find someplace else to stay for the couple of days before that. The first backpackers (kiwi term for hostel) we called was all booked up, so we kept calling around. Mike finally made reservations for the 29th and 30th at a completely random one called "Dophin Lodge." I thought the name was cute, Mike thought it was cheesey.

And off we went. (I'm having some trouble with embedding the Google map, so here's the link: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&saddr=Christchurch,+Canterbury,+New+Zealand&daddr=Curio+Bay,+New+Zealand&hl=en&geocode=&mra=ls&sll=38.168775,-86.993993&sspn=0.008283,0.021071&ie=UTF8&z=7)

There were amazing sights on the drive down and back, and the B&B in Kaka Point was elegant. (We'll get to those photos in the next blog "Sumer Vacation... Part 2".) But nothing came close to what we had accidentally stumbled across at our backpackers.

Curio Bay is a flat, rocky ledge of a bay, connected to Porpoise Bay, a gorgeous protected bay ringed by a sand beach.


The backpackers is actually on Porpoise Bay - it's one of those little dots on the road. Here's a closer view looking down the road. The brown & white house is the backpackers; the sandy beach is just below the houses hidden by the rise.


We hadn't been there more than 15 minutes (just enough time to drop our luggage, take off our shoes, and walk on the beach), when we discovered that the Dolphin Lodge's name wasn't cute or cheesey, just understated. There in the surf, not even 30 feet away, were dolphins!

We hadn't even thought to bring our camera - we just wanted a walk on the beach before the sunset. But here is a photo we found on the web to show you just how close they came:


And they weren't just any dolphins, but Hector's Dolphins. Found only in New Zealand, Hector's Dolphins are the smallest and rarest marine dolphin in the world. The random backpackers we had chosen was on the only bay in the world where Hector dolphins come so close to the shore without people feeding them.

Not to be outdone, a seal walked up on the shore right in front of the dolphins, and rolled around in the sand and settled in for a nap at the base of a staircase off the beach. The people walking up and down didn't seem to bother it in the least. We caught a photo of the seal the next day on the Curio Bay side (the rocky ledge side). He's the third "boulder" from the left.


Once the dolphins had moved on, and the seal obviously was going to sleep for a while, we went back up to the backpackers. There we were told we had to go out again to see the penguins come in at sunset.

Turns out that Curio Bay is also a nesting ground for Yellow Eyed Penguins. You can probably guess about them - they are the rarest penguin in the world, endangered, found only in New Zealand, and some just happen to come onshore next to the backpackers we had randomly chosen. (At this point, if someone had said there was a unicorn in the field next door, we would have believed them.)


The Yellow Eyed Penguins nest in the flax bushes on the cliffs above Curio Bay at this time of year. The baby penguins wait in the bush with one parent, while the other goes out to sea to fish. At sunset, the fishing parent comes ashore to switch places.

The penguin makes its way past the bull kelp where the surf pounds the rocky ledge.


It very slowly, cautiously, and silently crosses the rocky ledge. (There is one penguin in the first photo; there are two in the second.)




Then it disappears into the flax...




... and once hidden in the flax, produces the LOUDEST calls you have ever heard from a little bird. The Maori term for Yellow Eyed Penguins is "Hoiho" - meaning "noisy shouter." Apparently, it's "hi honey, I'm home" in penguin-ese.

Makes you feel a little silly for sitting so still to watch them come onshore, but they won't feed and/or they'll abandon their young if they are scared on the land crossing to/from the nest. There are two wardens that monitor the viewing area to make sure humans don't get too close, move too much, or make any noise.

The next day, we explored the area a little more. The area where the penguins land had a sign above it saying "Fossilized Forest." (The penguins aren't even the major attraction here.) We hadn't seen any fossils the evening of the penguins, and it turns out that you really can't see a forest for the penguins!

Go back up and look at the photos of the penguins crossing the ledge. See all those little lumps of rocks? Each and every one is actually a petrified stump from a Jurassic forest. Well, more correctly, from four Jurassic forests. Stubborn forests kept growing despite repeated layers of volcanic debris.

Yup, Curio Bay is home to rare penguins, rare dolphins, a small population of seals, and the world's best preserved petrified forest. The photos don't do justice to the number of stumps and fallen trees (aka - balance beams). Even the bark, right down to its coloring, is perfectly petrified in some places.

We laughed so much! How the heck had we missed an entire forest while watching the penguins?
Just to put the icing on the cake, we spent our last afternoon in Curio Bay learning to surf. Nick was a great teacher, and Mike is a natural. (I didn't do so badly myself, but even Nick couldn't believe Mike hadn't surfed before.) We will definitely try to keep surfing here in Christchurch!

Keep your eye out for our next blog entry: "Summer Vacation... Part 2." It will have photos of the many other areas we visited on our trip south.

NOTE - my apologies for any typos etc. in this post. Our internet connection is having just a *few* issues, and I'm hoping to upload this post before it dies again!