Little update in between the holiday report...Despite the lack of winter, we still managed to get a snow surprise this week. (A quick stat from Neil: there has only been snowfalls, to this near sea level, this late in the year 4 times in the last century!) The reaction was pretty much the same as in England, people didn't go to work, schools were shut, shopping malls closed and supermarkets were manic as people prepared to be snowed in for weeks!!!! However, by 3pm the snow had ceased, was melting rapidly and was gone by tea-time - what was all the fuss about?! We did find out that in 1992, the last major snowfall in this area, the snow was waist deep and people were snowed in for weeks.
Oh, and we've had an election but a week later we're still none the wiser as to what the government will look like for the next three years. The system works on MMP and this year, out of 121 seats, Labour have 50 and the National party have 49. There are still 200,000 specials votes to count & that won't be completed until next weekend, at which point the party first past the post has a crack at forming a coalition. At this rate any coalition will be made up of at least 4 parties which seems a bit of a mish-mash to us. In the mean time politicians are being very polite to each other in case they need one another in the weeks to come!
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Ducks and planes
After staying in Oamaru for the night, we travelled south to Dunedin - the Scottish centre of NZ! On the way, we stopped to view the Moeraki Boulders. These are almost perfectly spherical boulders scattered along the beach - some of them are upto four metres round (circumference for the mathematicians!) The looked amazing and it was fascinating to see those boulders emerging from the cliff face and yet to be totally exposed. Plenty of opportunity for arty photos!
We only spent the afternoon in Dunedin, once you have been to one town they all can begin to look the same (Neil's opinion not Natalie's). The delights here were the older buildings, particularly the railway station which although only 100 years old did look pretty impressive. Goldrushes in NZ brought money to Dunedin, this resulted in the grander buildings. We visited The Early Settlers Museum, which gave us a thorough insight into the early life of Dunedin and the surrounding area. A mooch through the town centre to the Cathedral (where the guide's family had come from Hartlepool, much to my parents amusement) concluded our visit here - we know there is more to see in and around the city but it will have to wait for another time.
The plan was to travel to Queenstown by the evening, but the sun had set by the time we reached Alexandra, so we spent the night there. Not much to say, other than a floating clock in the night sky - during the day the mountains around the town reappear and the clock is attached to one of the cliff faces.
The next morning was a quick dash to Queenstown, we were racing to beat the southerly weather front that was moving up the country. We headed straight for the Gondola, to catch the awesome views and this time couldn't resist the luge. The most hilarious part was Natalie and Sylvia racing around the course to get photos of the father and son contest - the son won obviously!!! At the bottom of the Gondola, we visited the Kiwi and Birdlife Park - our first sighting of the famous native bird. They are nocturnal, so quite difficult to see but at least we can now tick that box! In the afternoon, we had a ride on 'The Duck'. This is an amphibious vehicle (travels on water and land) that moves at about 2 mph. The driver was very entertaining and knew lots of useless info but did risk handing the wheel over to Neil for a spell on the water.
The highlight of Sylvia and Natalie's stay in Queenstown was the bath in the motel - we are easy to please! The southerly arrived during the night, bringing a sprinkling of snow, but not the dramatic ' dump' that was forecast. People up early for the morning photos of lake and mountains and then off to Arrowtown.
It has to be said, Arrowtown loses much of its appeal in the winter without the glorious autumn colours thought this time we went in the 'Remarkable Sweet Shop' which sold a plethera of English goodies (including Penguin biscuits) as well as German Haribo - Natalie's favourite! (still not quite the same as from Germany itself but hey, it's such a hard life!). We then drove the same route back as we had taken in April, the weather was just as glorious and the day was perfected by an absolutely awesome scenic flight over Mount Cook and the surrounding ranges. Ken & Sylvia had missed out on the flight over the glacier when they visited the West Coast due to the excessive, but not abnormal, amount of driving rain. What was fun about their stay (though out of my comfort zone on occasion!) was the spontaneity of so much of the stuff we did; Ken spotted the flight company as we were driving down the road, we turned round and in half an hour we were up in the air! Birthday & Christmas presents all rolled into one for a number of years! It's absolutely impossible to describe it but I think it's more clearly etched in our memories than the heli-hike because the flight is longer and everything seems to gently glide past so we had time to take it all in.
That's about all that was new for our south island tour, next installment the unchartered territory of the north island...
We only spent the afternoon in Dunedin, once you have been to one town they all can begin to look the same (Neil's opinion not Natalie's). The delights here were the older buildings, particularly the railway station which although only 100 years old did look pretty impressive. Goldrushes in NZ brought money to Dunedin, this resulted in the grander buildings. We visited The Early Settlers Museum, which gave us a thorough insight into the early life of Dunedin and the surrounding area. A mooch through the town centre to the Cathedral (where the guide's family had come from Hartlepool, much to my parents amusement) concluded our visit here - we know there is more to see in and around the city but it will have to wait for another time.
The plan was to travel to Queenstown by the evening, but the sun had set by the time we reached Alexandra, so we spent the night there. Not much to say, other than a floating clock in the night sky - during the day the mountains around the town reappear and the clock is attached to one of the cliff faces.
The next morning was a quick dash to Queenstown, we were racing to beat the southerly weather front that was moving up the country. We headed straight for the Gondola, to catch the awesome views and this time couldn't resist the luge. The most hilarious part was Natalie and Sylvia racing around the course to get photos of the father and son contest - the son won obviously!!! At the bottom of the Gondola, we visited the Kiwi and Birdlife Park - our first sighting of the famous native bird. They are nocturnal, so quite difficult to see but at least we can now tick that box! In the afternoon, we had a ride on 'The Duck'. This is an amphibious vehicle (travels on water and land) that moves at about 2 mph. The driver was very entertaining and knew lots of useless info but did risk handing the wheel over to Neil for a spell on the water.
The highlight of Sylvia and Natalie's stay in Queenstown was the bath in the motel - we are easy to please! The southerly arrived during the night, bringing a sprinkling of snow, but not the dramatic ' dump' that was forecast. People up early for the morning photos of lake and mountains and then off to Arrowtown.
It has to be said, Arrowtown loses much of its appeal in the winter without the glorious autumn colours thought this time we went in the 'Remarkable Sweet Shop' which sold a plethera of English goodies (including Penguin biscuits) as well as German Haribo - Natalie's favourite! (still not quite the same as from Germany itself but hey, it's such a hard life!). We then drove the same route back as we had taken in April, the weather was just as glorious and the day was perfected by an absolutely awesome scenic flight over Mount Cook and the surrounding ranges. Ken & Sylvia had missed out on the flight over the glacier when they visited the West Coast due to the excessive, but not abnormal, amount of driving rain. What was fun about their stay (though out of my comfort zone on occasion!) was the spontaneity of so much of the stuff we did; Ken spotted the flight company as we were driving down the road, we turned round and in half an hour we were up in the air! Birthday & Christmas presents all rolled into one for a number of years! It's absolutely impossible to describe it but I think it's more clearly etched in our memories than the heli-hike because the flight is longer and everything seems to gently glide past so we had time to take it all in.
That's about all that was new for our south island tour, next installment the unchartered territory of the north island...
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Parents & penguins
I thought I'd sneak in a quick blog update in between our little jaunts around New Zealand - we've done so much that leaving it all until the end of the holiday would be too much for you to take (or far too much for me to remember!).
Neil's parents arrived on the Monday morning looking incredibally fresh though they probably weren't feeling it after we dragged them around the churches in our parish for the afternoon in a bid to 'help' them stay awake until the evening! They mooched around Christchurch for a few days, finding shops & cafes that we didn't know existed. On the Friday we caught the trans-alpine train across the country to the West Coast. The train crosses some spectacular gorges, through the mountains & then onto rainforest. The rain didn't materialise in Greymouth which we weren't complaining about (though Ken & Sylvia did get almost the annual rainfall on their visit to the West Coast the following week) & we were quite happy to only spend an hour there before the return trip as there's not much to see or do.
Last Wednesday we headed south again, but this time down the east coast. It really was perfect timing because we arrived in Omaru @ about 5pm, just before dusk and in time to see the blue penguins returning for the night. Blue penguins are the smallest in the world & stand at only 30 cm tall. They are very predictable and just after dusk, in groups of between 10 and 20, they 'ride the surf' up onto the rocks and then waddle up to their breeding colony. Penguins mate for life and it's currently the breeding season so the partner's came out of their nests eagerly awaiting the return of their mate & food. Very cute displays followed as they were reunited, flapped their wings at each other other then dived on top of one another making lots of noise! Clearly they couldn't wait to get back inside their breeding hole! We saw about 70 penguins in the space of about half an hour and as we left there was one bird making it's way back down the cliff in search of it's mate who hadn't returned home. It was very touching and we felt sorry for it though we had spotted a penguin making tracks further up the cliff path away from the breeding colony and we wondered whether he/she had taken an escape route - the 'divorce rate' among these penguins is apparantly about 10%!
Neil's parents arrived on the Monday morning looking incredibally fresh though they probably weren't feeling it after we dragged them around the churches in our parish for the afternoon in a bid to 'help' them stay awake until the evening! They mooched around Christchurch for a few days, finding shops & cafes that we didn't know existed. On the Friday we caught the trans-alpine train across the country to the West Coast. The train crosses some spectacular gorges, through the mountains & then onto rainforest. The rain didn't materialise in Greymouth which we weren't complaining about (though Ken & Sylvia did get almost the annual rainfall on their visit to the West Coast the following week) & we were quite happy to only spend an hour there before the return trip as there's not much to see or do.
Last Wednesday we headed south again, but this time down the east coast. It really was perfect timing because we arrived in Omaru @ about 5pm, just before dusk and in time to see the blue penguins returning for the night. Blue penguins are the smallest in the world & stand at only 30 cm tall. They are very predictable and just after dusk, in groups of between 10 and 20, they 'ride the surf' up onto the rocks and then waddle up to their breeding colony. Penguins mate for life and it's currently the breeding season so the partner's came out of their nests eagerly awaiting the return of their mate & food. Very cute displays followed as they were reunited, flapped their wings at each other other then dived on top of one another making lots of noise! Clearly they couldn't wait to get back inside their breeding hole! We saw about 70 penguins in the space of about half an hour and as we left there was one bird making it's way back down the cliff in search of it's mate who hadn't returned home. It was very touching and we felt sorry for it though we had spotted a penguin making tracks further up the cliff path away from the breeding colony and we wondered whether he/she had taken an escape route - the 'divorce rate' among these penguins is apparantly about 10%!
Monday, August 15, 2005
Home & Away
Life has been pretty mundane here which is why I've not felt inspired to write. But Neil's mam & dad arrive tomorrow for three weeks which will include time away for us & more travelling stories so I thought I'd fill in the gaps now.
July was a month of feeling a long way from home. The Lions came & went & the NZ media ribbed Clive Woodward for far too long after his departure. London won its bid to host the Olympics which amazed us (maybe it wasn't quite as much of a shock to those still in the UK but obviously there was less build up to it here) and then the bombings the next day really left us reeling. It was interesting reading emails & comments from other Brits who were temporarily out of the country; all seemed to echo the same feeling of wishing that they were back home to comfort & somehow 'defend' it.
Neil's had a birthday &, having been an 'old woman' for just over a month, I'm now 'as young as him'. There was a highly competitive, testosterone spirit in the air as he & mates celebrated with a go-karting grand prix. He came second over-all & would have won had he not been forced into the tyres in the first race - I know that sounds like an excuse but more than one person has told tales of such dirty tactics being played (and subsequent penalties being given) that I think it's true. He has to be given the benefit of the doubt seen as it was his birthday!
And spring appears to have arrived, it doesn't seem possible that winter can be so brief (though we have been told not to count our chickens because there is still 2 weeks of August left & anything can happen...). The daffodils are out, blossom everywhere & lambs abound (what do you expect, it is New Zealand!). The other day we were on the beach in temperatures over 20 degrees C & our friends were skiing just over an hour's drive away. Crazy!
Well that's about it for now. Tomorrow sees the arrival of the first of several visitors before the year ends which is very exciting for us - we're missing you all heaps...
July was a month of feeling a long way from home. The Lions came & went & the NZ media ribbed Clive Woodward for far too long after his departure. London won its bid to host the Olympics which amazed us (maybe it wasn't quite as much of a shock to those still in the UK but obviously there was less build up to it here) and then the bombings the next day really left us reeling. It was interesting reading emails & comments from other Brits who were temporarily out of the country; all seemed to echo the same feeling of wishing that they were back home to comfort & somehow 'defend' it.
Neil's had a birthday &, having been an 'old woman' for just over a month, I'm now 'as young as him'. There was a highly competitive, testosterone spirit in the air as he & mates celebrated with a go-karting grand prix. He came second over-all & would have won had he not been forced into the tyres in the first race - I know that sounds like an excuse but more than one person has told tales of such dirty tactics being played (and subsequent penalties being given) that I think it's true. He has to be given the benefit of the doubt seen as it was his birthday!
And spring appears to have arrived, it doesn't seem possible that winter can be so brief (though we have been told not to count our chickens because there is still 2 weeks of August left & anything can happen...). The daffodils are out, blossom everywhere & lambs abound (what do you expect, it is New Zealand!). The other day we were on the beach in temperatures over 20 degrees C & our friends were skiing just over an hour's drive away. Crazy!
Well that's about it for now. Tomorrow sees the arrival of the first of several visitors before the year ends which is very exciting for us - we're missing you all heaps...
Sunday, June 26, 2005
Midwinter
Well, winter has definitely arrived here. It's freezing. A friend's outdoor thermometer read -5.9 degrees c yesterday morning - if I were that thermometer I would have refused to work! But the mountains do look awesome covered in snow & we found ourselves not feeling too jealous of the UK heatwave (until Wimbledon started) - after all we haven't had winter for 18 months! And anyway, days are getting longer again already!
I'm now a year older and realised how much older 28 sounds than 27. I had a wonderful day though. Lots of phonecalls from England, little gifts & cards from near & far, lunch out and then dessert & drinks in the evening with friends. I felt very loved. One of the best presents had to be from my small group here who got together & bought me Pride & Prejudice on DVD as my video was dying - I've already watched all 6 hours!
One new experience we've had this weekend is being in the minority to watch our national (ish) team (ish) play rugby. We went with English friends to a local church who had the first All Blacks vs. Lions match on a big screen. To be honest, I wouldn't have wanted to watch it anywhere other than a church as even in this environment some of the comments were v. cruel and I found myself feeling very defensive! Still, two more tests to go & maybe we won't be only cheering when the All Blacks miss a try/kick...
I'm now a year older and realised how much older 28 sounds than 27. I had a wonderful day though. Lots of phonecalls from England, little gifts & cards from near & far, lunch out and then dessert & drinks in the evening with friends. I felt very loved. One of the best presents had to be from my small group here who got together & bought me Pride & Prejudice on DVD as my video was dying - I've already watched all 6 hours!
One new experience we've had this weekend is being in the minority to watch our national (ish) team (ish) play rugby. We went with English friends to a local church who had the first All Blacks vs. Lions match on a big screen. To be honest, I wouldn't have wanted to watch it anywhere other than a church as even in this environment some of the comments were v. cruel and I found myself feeling very defensive! Still, two more tests to go & maybe we won't be only cheering when the All Blacks miss a try/kick...
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