First South Island Experience

And so it was on December the sixteenth the days were accomplished, and Ralph was delivered from work unto a Holiday - our first trip to New Zealand's South Island. A bus to Wellington, the ferry to Picton, gateway city to the South Island; bus to Nelson - the sunniest city in New Zealand; rent a green car and drive west coast Hiway 6 (described as one of the most beautiful drives in the world by lonely planet), TranzAlpine railroad from Greymouth to Christchurch - fly back to base in Palmy.

And so it was.

It was also wet - too wet for pictures. In the sunniest town in New Zealand, rain 3 of 4 days. In Arthur's Pass, the alpine layover where we planned to spend 2 days to optimize weather - day one rain and winds to 110 km/hr; day 2 improved to rain and winds to 90 km/hr with Dept of Conservation (the tourism dept) saying it was unsafe to hike.

Still the place is awesome and obviously no one controls the weather--- anywhere---just explaining why there aren't more pics of the beautiful scenery which we got hints of through the mist.

One of the best days only started out in Nelson with rain briefly and bright sun as we got to AbelTasman National Park, one of the Kiwi's most visited National Parks. You must take ferries (aka "water taxis") to the bays and then kayak, hike, or just beach it in any of the areas. Things are, amusingly at times, different here - a Kiwi safety talk (loosely translated from memory) from the Sea Shuttle we took to Bark Bay:

"I am captain Mike. The law requires a safety talk so this is it. Life jackets are optional. On some boats the captain goes down with the ship. This is not one of those boats. If I put on a life jacket you might want to get one too. If you hear my splash, you might want to join me in the water. Any questions?"

The Abel Tasman was as strikingly colorful as described, hopefully I'll be able to post pictures of the color of the beaches, Split Apple Rock, and the trails at the edge of mountains and beach.

The TranzAlpine Train was not deterred by the local hurricane, here called the wet westerlies. And the sense of respect and awe for the countryside and those who settled/explored here has been deeply reinforced.

Merry Christmas (the Christmas tree was at the station in Wellington)

May peace, beauty and true warmth, warm your soul in every hemisphere and climate.

ralph and mary

? Christmas and seasonal thoughts

In the mid to upper 70 degrees F or 25 degrees C, and a very nice day. But the weekend off is coming and some bad weather is scheduled for our trip and we have canceled the kayaking. Still we plan to get to the south Island for the first time and check it out. I'm wearing shorts, sandals, and Mary said it's the first time she's seen me in full Florida wear since coming here.

Two days ago, 2 nurses not in work clothes, came in to the hospital A&E (that's Accident and Emergency) department and put up the first Christmas decorations; that I have seen in the hospital. About a 5 foot tall tree and some beads with bows overhead. One of the nurses asked if I would participate in the gift drawing on Christmas day where everyone working is to bring in a gift of about $10 (New Zealand) to be drawn. There are signs of Christmas --- it's different. The church we went to Sunday had no Christmas decor and I don't remember it being mentioned. The young docs I work with are going to a Christmas caroling on the square Christmas eve and planning a party. They are from the United Kingdom - most trained around London.

Will attempt to include pics of nurse decorating - taken out of focus (sorry with Iphone) and one of Mary's favorite pizza place (see posting 2 below).

Date Explanation

You might notice that the date shown for a posting and the one we refer to in the post are often off one day. That's because this computer thinks it is in Knoxville, TN. We are greeted every morning with Knoxville weather, time and news. And I don't want to change that----makes me less homesick.

December 13th

We've got a week long trip coming up Friday. Should have lots of pictures to post. Looking forward to kayaking in Abel Tasman National Park, riding the TranzAlpine Railway over the Southern Alps, riding the ferry from the North Island to the South, and hiking at Arthur's Pass among other things.

Visited a new church yesterday which we liked. Also met very friendly people there, as well as neighbors who live 2 houses down.

Ralph was off for the weekend and we stayed "home". Got to watch Tennessee defeat Pittsburgh in basketball which was great. Go Vols! Did a lot of shopping. I think that by the time our 6 months here is over I will just be learning how to live and shop here. Found a great store, Davis Traders, that has food ingredients not found elsewhere in NZ. And we found a pizza place that is closer to what we are used to back home. It's called Hell and the pizzas are named after the 7 deadly sins. We enjoyed Lust, a meat lovers pizza. You have to tell all pizza restaurants here to NOT put on BBQ sauce, which I find disgusting on something that's supposed to be Italian.

A typical block in most NZ towns will have several cafes (great food and coffee generally), a couple of takeaways (usually fish and chips or Chinese or both), and Kebab restaurants. The Kebabs are Middle Eastern type places . There's a choice of lamb, beef or chicken for the meat and various topping like at a Subway and 4 or 5 great sauces. They wrap it all up in pita bread and they are delicious. Reminds me somewhat of the gyros that our son Scott loves so much in Budapest. What you don't find in NZ are Mexican restaurants. We have seen just one and it was in Wellington and very high priced. Mexican type foods make it onto a few menus in trendy places, usually quesadillas or nachos. The grocery stores have flour tortillas but no corn tortillas, and a few sauces and that's it. I think it may be growing in popularity slowly. Also don't think I've seen a single Hispanic or African (American or otherwise) person. There are many ethnicities here but they are largely Asian or Polynesian or Middle Eastern. I think the country is 14% Maori, the indigenous people, and the main population is of European descent.

We're getting old hand at driving on the left now except for the occasional bout of what I call "driving vertigo". And that's when you come upon a complicated intersection that you weren't expecting and suddenly---who's got the right of way? where am I? Oh no, what lane am I supposed to be in? That's only happened to me a couple times, but it's pretty scary!

Different December

Maybe kiwis decorate later in the season, or maybe they don't decorate at all. I've seen one house decked out for Christmas in my walking. Department stores have the most. There is a large Christmas tree in the town square and there was a Christmas parade yesterday. Sharon and I spent 3 days in Wellington and the overall city decor was very low key. Plenty of TV commercials for Christmas gifts and flyers in the mail. People mostly seem to be concentrating on the fact that summer is finally here, the weather is beautiful, kids will be out of school soon for a long summer holiday. Lots of warnings about wearing sunscreen and hats as there is a big hole in the ozone layer over NZ, no pollution to block the sun, and the incidence of skin cancer is much higher here. Who knew there were good aspects to pollution?

Sharon and I enjoyed our time in Wellington, except for the early morning someone pulled the fire alarm in the hotel and we had to evacuate from our beds rather suddenly. We passed the time having breakfast in a nearby cafe, not particularly looking our best. :) Took Sharon to Weta Cave, the special effects company for Lord of the Rings, Avatar, King Kong, and many more. Also to the zoo, Mount Victoria and other Welly sites. Sharon thinks Wellington looks a bit like a very scaled down Hong Kong (also harbor city with mountains right at the sea).

It amazes me how many visitors I meet from non-English speaking countries who are so very fluent in English. Makes me wish I had studied a foreign language more intensely when I had the chance. Love hearing some of their stories in these brief encounters. We met a Dutch couple, early 20's, on the hike to the Bridge to Nowhere. They had done the Tongariro Alpine Crossing hike 2 days before. That hike is often touted as the world's most beautiful day hike and one we have considered. It's about 12 miles long one way and transport must be arranged at both ends. It's also extremely difficult with lots of elevation changes, including crossing Mt. Doom from "Lord of the Rings". The Dutch girl (who spoke English perfectly) pretty much talked me out of it. She was hiking that day in flip flops because of the blisters earned on the Alpine crossing, and wasn't yet over the terror of the hike. Hey, Ralph and I have bad knees too. :)

Sharon and I met a Finnish student on the bus in Wellington who was traveling with a Finnish family for 5 weeks all over NZ as their babysitter. She was having a rare day off. Also spoke like a native of an English speaking country. And then we met a Polish woman while walking to Weta Cave from the bus stop who has lived in NZ for 65 years. She was taken in by NZ as part of a boatload of orphans shipped out of Poland during/after World War II. She arrived with some siblings and they finished their childhood in an orphanage. Would love to have heard her whole story.

Trying to learn to live with open windows without screens on them! Very few homes, hotels and public buildings are air conditioned here. Can't figure out why they don't put screens on windows, but they don't. Don't like insects hopping around in my house. Oh well. It's either that or suffocate. We have seen birds flying around in a restaurant and no one seeming to care or notice but us. Cities and buildings are very clean, in case you are wondering, except for this little aberration.

Sharing with Sharon / Going to Nowhere

We are one third of the way through our contract here and have made contact with fellow American sojourners and done our first bit of entertaining this past week. We shared the river walk, Victoria Esplanade and the rose garden there with Sharon Tang. Remembered/realized that she is now the age we were when she came to live with us and our 4 children (wow).

Then we went to Wanganui River National Park, driving for many kilometers or kilometres (depending on your accent) then jet boating for about an hour, then hiking --- all to get to "The Bridge to Nowhere." We were there. The bridge was built in the late 1930's as the population was declining; but informed politicians knew if they built the bridge people would return --- and now many tourists do go. And there is no longer a road to the bridge, just a hiking trail.

Our mascot, guide leader on the front of the boat was Tui, a Jack Russell Terrier who road on the boats and hiked about 2 hours with us - quite the creature. Reminding us of creatures at a distance ----

'Twas Thanksgiving Day......

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our friends and family! We are thankful for all of you and miss you very much. An American nurse at the hospital has invited us to a Thanksgiving dinner at her house Saturday night, so looking forward to that.

And we are especially thankful that Sharon Tang is flying in from Hong Kong in just a few hours to visit us for a week. Sharon became part of our family in 1990 when she came to live with us as a 16 year old foreign exchange student. She graduated from high school in 1992 and then moved with us from Harrisonburg, VA to Knoxville, TN to attend the University of TN. Four years later Sharon was a graduate and a registered nurse, but was unable to get a visa to work in the US. She's been working as a nurse in Hong Kong since then and we haven't seen her in 12 years!

We are saddened about the tragic loss of life of 29 miners this week in NZ. We have a trip planned in December to the South Island and will be in the town for a night where the accident happened (Greymouth).

Kapiti/Lighthouse/Wildlife Center

Saturday morning 7 am promptly we called to see if Kapiti Island tours would boat us across to the island. The answer was a yes. We drove about an hour and a half to arrive at the dock for our tour. We were ferried to Kapiti Island, given a brief intro and left for 6 hrs with about 50 other similarly interested folks.

Kapiti Island is 5 kilometers off the southwest coast of New Zealand's North Island. It is 10 kilometers long, 2 kilometers wide and is mountainous. Mid island there is a coastal trail and a trail to a lookout that gains 527 meters in about a 8 kilometer round trip- - this we did. The attraction of Kapiti is that since the 1890's there has been a steady concerted effort to make the island predator free - to return it to the time before Europeans landed in the area bringing the feral cats, possums, weasels etc. Before Europeans the only mammals in the area were a few bats and humans. The guide who dropped us said, "Each morning at 6am Aotearoa's National Chorus, original anthem is best heard here on Kapiti." Referring to the chatter, calls and songs of unique birds. And as she said it a New Zealand bellbird began an affirming song. Throughout the day we heard very much what she meant. Kaka's a type of parrot, Tui's, bellbirds, Takahe's etc. Far more birds observed our behavior than we saw them, but still--- they yelled /screamed at us to get off the island or perhaps serenaded us - not knowing their exact language, we couldn't be quite sure. So we just enjoyed it and walked on.

Off the island that afternoon we pursued our least favorite NZ adventure--driving-- and took it to an altogether new height of terror. Attempting a shortcut from hiway 1 to hiway 2 we saw on the map hiway 8. It was marked as a hiway and we saw that it went seemingly more quickly though the mountains. 2 days later we would read the description of this road on google - "30 winding kilometers of single lane road with recommended speeds of 15 to 25 kilometers per hour." This single lane road is not single lane each way. That's single lane on switchbacks - that's recommended speeds up to 15 miles per hour. We traveled prayerfully on this road for several kilometers before finding a switchback wide enough for a 3 point turn.

That evening we stayed at Castlepoint near the lighthouse - a place of safety.

Sunday we stopped on our way home at Mount Bruce wildlife preserve. Here teams of people actually raise rare species: get eggs from the wild, raise them to a more defensible age/weight, then release at various places around the country trying to reintroduce native species. We spent far more time here than we intended. It was more meaningful after Kapiti. And the Kaka are pretty amusing in their halfway house. Released on the mountain, but there are regular feedings that they can return to and they do.

Saturday afternoon, November 13th

Started off this week having lunch with a Fijian family we met at church. On Tuesday we were dining at the home of an Iranian family. Thus far no meals with Kiwis. :) Ralph works with the Iranian doctor. They prepared a fabulous meal for us and we really enjoyed our time with the charming doctor, his wife and their 15 year old son. They are Muslim---the wife wears a Hijab----and they spoke of their love for their native country and its rich history, though not the politics of it. A point they wanted to make was not to confuse people groups with their governments, saying that the average Iranian loves Americans. Well......hmmm....hope so.

Proving once again how little it takes to make me happy :), we discovered a grocery store a lot like a Sam's Club only without the low prices. I was in heaven finding products that I had been unable to get elsewhere and having a great selection.

We had a couple of gorgeous days of weather this week. Will never take sunshine for granted again! Every town that we have seen has sidewalks on both sides of every street and many city parks and green spaces. It's a pleasure just walking around daily here. Well, more of a pleasure when the sun shines!

Saw a documentary/movie a few years back about the chorus group "Young at Heart". Just loved it. For those who haven't seen it, they are a group of (very) senior citizens that sing current rock songs and travel the world. Very fun and inspiring. Anyway, they are touring New Zealand and will be in Palmerston North on the 14th. We are excited about the concert.

In Palmy back at MacKenzie Gardens

Not worked the last 2 days. Biked about 20 miles. Ate at The Brewers Apprentice. Walked 6 miles.

Paused, smelled the roses.

Enjoyed a beautiful day.

Then off again.

Sunday afternoon in Palmy

Friday night we fell asleep to the sound of fireworks, lots of them. It was "Guy Fawkes Day", something not exactly observed back home.

Ralph was off this weekend but we didn't take a trip, having just returned from one. We slept in Saturday, bought produce at the Farmer's Market, watched some TV, shopped at the Plaza and checked on the roses at Victoria Esplanade. The roses were in bloom and gorgeous, but alas, Ralph forgot our camera so no pictures! The weather was iffy---highs were upper 50's with rain threatening. It's better today, a little warmer maybe without the rain. We continue to wish we had more of our warm clothes here with us. Summer is coming---just wish it would come a little faster.

There are no four lane highways when driving across New Zealand. Most of the time there is very little traffic and a feeling of driving way out in the rural boonies. You are never far from either mountains or ocean, so part of every journey to another town involves winding roads crossing a mountain and/or beautiful ocean views. Periodically there will be a passing lane (usually up a steep hill) that runs for a few hundred meters. The speed limit is 100 kph and I think that is only a suggestion to the average NZ driver. Proper etiquette in the lack of a passing lane is for the slow driver to slow a little more and pull over to the shoulder and let them pass. There are no rest areas but every little town has public toilets available, and there are picnic tables roadside at intervals. We had a humorous surreal experience with the public toilets in a tiny town on our last trip. They were just lined up on the street, and upon entering a unit and pressing a button, the door slammed shut and locked electronically. A computerized voice informed that we had a maximum of 10 minutes permitted. I could hear Ralph laughing in his little unit next to mine, and then elevator music started with "What the World Needs Now, is Love, Sweet Love". Gotta wonder what would have happened had we exceeded the time limit!

Today we visited another church from the denomination we grew up in (Wesleyan). Turned out to be a Fijian church in that language. The people were incredibly kind and welcoming and translated some of the service just for us. The pastor and her husband insisted on us coming to their house for lunch afterwards. All around, a very unique experience and one we much enjoyed.

Tomorrow night we are invited to dinner at the home of one of Ralph's fellow doctors at work.

Rest of the gannet pictures

Having trouble matching pictures to copy. Sorry.

Hawkes Bay (from Mary's perspective)

We finished off our trip to Lake Taupo with a 2 night visit to Hawkes Bay, about 2 hours to the east and on the South Pacific side of the North Island. Hawkes Bay has primarily 3 little towns---Napier, Hastings and Havelock North. It is an area famous for its wineries (79 total), great weather (though not while we were there), and gorgeous countryside. Napier was leveled by a 7.9 earthquake in 1931, killing 236 people and gifting the town with 40 more square kilometers of choice real estate thrust up from the ocean floor. The quake also relocated a river a distance of 30 kilometers or so away. The town rebuilt in the popular style of the day, Art Deco, and it is very charming. Last picture is overlooking Napier from Bluff Hill nearby and the sea and sidewalk picture is from downtown Napier.

We took a wine country tour and got to see the countryside. The oldest winery in the area and the most famous is the Mission Estate, which was started and run by an order of Marist priests for many years. They still own the Mission but now live in Auckland and have a commercial company run the winery. Large building is the Mission. Nine of the brothers were praying in a stone chapel adjacent at the time of the quake and were killed when it collapsed on them.

Cape Kidnappers (so named from the time of Captain Cook when the Maoris kidnapped a Tahitian boy working on the ship) is at one end of the bay and is spectacular. Steep cliffs rise up out of the sea. Gannets---a beautiful bird with a 2 ft wing span---have been nesting for thousands of years on top of the cliffs of Cape Kidnappers. They come in late July and start migrating in late March. While there, both parents take turns sitting on the egg on the ground. Whoever doesn't have egg sitting duty gets to fly out to sea to fish. They will fly out a couple hundred kilometers if necessary to fish and will dive deep into the ocean after their dinner. When the egg hatches, the parents take turns providing food for the chick. When the chicks are about 13 weeks old, they fly nonstop to Australia, a distance of 1200 miles. They will stay there several years, then return home to NZ, never to return to Australia. Gannets will live into their 20's and 30's, but 75% of the chicks never make it to full adulthood. Gannets usually nest on remote islands and I believe this is the only known nesting on mainland that is accessible by humans. They seem to not mind at all being on display for the tourists. There are an estimated 20,000 gannets, divided into 3 colonies, living at Cape Kidnappers.

To get to the gannets isn't all that easy. You can walk (10 miles round trip and only get to see one colony), ride a bicycle, or take a tour on an open trailer pulled by a tractor along the beach. All of those options are timed around the tides because there is nowhere to go with those steep cliffs when the tide comes in. The other option was an overland safari through a private farm, which we booked. We rode for about an hour or so just to get there through breathtaking scenery. You can see in the pictures the winding dirt road through the green hills with all the cows and sheep. Sometimes there would be some pretty big dropoffs on either side when we were climbing.

And to the golfers reading this, the farm owner (it's quite the huge farm) developed part of the property 5 years ago into an expensive lodge and a golf course that our guide said was rated #27 in the world. You can google it. The scenery with the golf course is very comparable to our trip to the top of the cliffs to see the gannets. Went right by the golf course on our way.

Culinary Caveat

Concerns regarding dieting in foreign lands should be addressed. In Taupo, Mary chose the Plateau Restaurant. I have uploaded the menu. In the event that it is blurry; I had as an entree the Pukehoe Quail with shitake mushroom tortellini, spiced eggplant chutney and coriander, as a main dish (yes same meal :-) I had the bacon wrapped boneless lamb shank with granny smith apple fennel hazelnut orange emulsion.

Ahh. Later perhaps we shall discuss appropriate beverages. But the evening meals are rather satisfying. Yes.

And there is beauty to fall for in the countryside

Friday we drove to Taupo in mist and saw some of the features mentioned below. Then on Saturday, from Taupo we began to drive toward Napier. Before we left town we looked out over Taupo and the sun peeked, the mist parted for a moment and we saw the 3 peaks of Tongirero National Park beyond Lake Taupo the largest lake in NZ.

In Taupo we spent a few hours looking at Huka Falls (I love waterfalls as you may know.) They were impressive.

Then on the way out of town we pulled over at a roadside pulloff to allow a truck to go by; and noticed a sign that said Wiapunga Falls. With this much planning we drove on another 50 meters and there was a magnificent falls.

In many ways we are falling for New Zealand.

For LOTR fan/friends

So we left the lively green fields of our Shirelike home. Shortly and unexpectedly the green that had always been around us turned brown and we knew we had entered the borders of Mordor. Then we saw Mt Doom - even with clothed with some small blankets of snow still one knew the influence and brave Mary walked among steam vents.

Translation for non LOTR fans. We left home going North. Gentle rolling hills as usual. Then there was a sign "Desert Road." We thought "huh?" Then in another 20 km the land was changing and you could see Mt Ngauruhoe which has played a major role in several movies. Later we went to craters of the moon nearby where there are thermal features such as steam vents and mud pots, fumeroles similar to Yellowstone in the U.S.

Randomness from Mary

Yesterday (Monday) was Labor Day here. Make that Labour Day. Everything was closed except for the grocery store.

The mailmen deliver mail on bicycles. Maybe someone has a little car somewhere, but haven't seen it yet.

The teachers are on strike and the schools are closed. They haven't had a raise in awhile and they want one. It's a beautiful day today---sunny and close to 70----and I can hear the kids playing outside and enjoying the strike. Closed schools are a particular problem to parents here because, by law, kids 14 and under have to be supervised at all times. Seems a little old to me to need a babysitter....more of an individual thing anyway. Some kids are mature enough to be babysitters at 12 and others still need a sitter at 25. :)

There's no tipping here and the price is the price because GST (sales tax) is included in everything. That's nice because I'm already doing enough math as it is (see earlier posts!).

NZ is a very "green" place. Recycling is very extensive (nearly a religion) and it has taken me awhile to get the hang of it, but now I am happily washing my trash before I put it in the proper receptacle.

EFTPOS---this is what they call a debit card here and It is pronounced as a 2 syllable words. Stands for something like "electronic funds transferred point of service". This is almost a cashless society here and people use their EFTPOS for everything. Our rent and all utilities are debited from our checking account, which is a good thing, because our checking account came without checks.

We watched Sunday Night Football live (Green Bay vs Vikings) yesterday. Was 1:30 pm on Monday for us.

Ralph reported earlier on Wellington but I wanted to say how much I loved the city. It was so pretty, so clean, and so many interesting things to do. We also went to a singing/dancing show of a NZ group called "The Beat Girls" which was a lot of fun. Pictures above are of Wellington. The one on the left was from a mountain top after riding the little red cable car up. The one on the right is from the other side of the city, from atop Mt. Victoria. The views from there are 360 degrees and spectacular.

Some fun facts: Knoxville, TN has 173,890 people, with a greater metro population of 691,152. Wellington, the capitol of NZ, has 195,500 people with a metro population of 480,000. The entire country only has 4,000,000 people which is not only less than Tennessee but less than the population of about half of the states in the US.

We leave for Lake Taupo Friday morning and will get our first glimpse of Mt. Ngauruhoe (Mount Doom, the star of Lord of the Rings). From there we will go on to Hawkes Bay region, returning Tuesday.

Ralph is doing far better than me with the pronunciation of the Maori names, and there are a lot of them on streets and mountains!

mb

3 pleasures; 3 puzzles

Summation at 3 weeks:

3 pleasures

1. Landscape: mountains, rolling hills of green, shores/beaches magnificently carved

2. Food a pleasant surprise, an opportunity for fine dining that we shall learn more of

3. Gardens everywhere, several in every town, welcoming

3 puzzlements

1. The weather - unprepared tomorrow night 35 degrees F.

2. New Zealand a mostly European country. I was expecting more Pacific islandish, more exotic. The House Officers write, in history and physicals, where in the U.S. we would say, "25 yr old white male" they write "25 yr old European male" and that is the dominant group, style and accent. The Commonwealth Games were a major local event. I'm not sure really why this surprises me - my Ojibwa or Chippewa ancestors have so little influence in the U. S.. Aboriginals are marginalized.

3. Strikes / work stoppages. I expected in a "nationalized" system there would be more national agreement - oneness. Xray techs are on strike: Mon through Fri I can get more or less all standard xrays; but after hrs all CT's must be for "life or limb threatening"; in smaller communities even standard xrays are restriced to life or limb threatening. Recently I saw a preschooler who had a presumed splint applied but had waited for 4 days for his first xray showing a spiral fracture mid tibia (main low leg bone). And now 9th grade school teachers are on strike. Puzzlements - nationalized, democratic, republic - folks seem to be folks.

We will write mostly of the pleasures, but occasionally there are puzzlements that bind the mind and beg for a measure of expression.

Three days in Welly - a capitol idea

For three days and two nights we visited "Windy Welly" the capitol of New Zealand. Average wind speed about 51 kms per hour, before the politicians arrived in the "beehive" pictured (having trouble getting the right paragraph by a particular picture). But the city has gardens and views. Cable cars, twisting streets and gardens. Good food - like lamb shanks at Mac's Brewery, good seafood and pasta at One Red Dog, and a breakfast at Lido's of French toast presented with a kind of country bacon covered by carmelized banana covered (next layer) by thick syrup.

For the "touristy" part of day one, we went to "Te Papa" the museum which highlights the geology, artistry and Maori heritage of the area. Impressive 5 story museum. Got to museum overload after 1.5 floors but had apportioned the time to see the local natural history and Maori stuff that most interested.

Our second day was sunny and less breezy with views from the top of the botanical gardens reached by cable car and Mt Victoria reached by public bus.

Next day we went to Wellywood where some of the special effects for Lord of the Rings were produced.

For all this trip, the car was left at home; and we took public bus etc. Mary did the planning and I followed. No problems driving left sided!

Weekend in Palmy

It's Monday morning here, Sunday afternoon back in the USA. Ralph was off for the weekend and we decided to stay local since we're going to Wellington tomorrow for 3 days. It was a very relaxing weekend. We visited a church yesterday. It was good to be with believers and we enjoyed the service, but it was not a good fit for us, nor was a different church we visited earlier.

Saturday we biked round trip the 10km long Manawatu RiverWalk Track right here in Palmerston North. It is so beautiful, with changing scenery at every bend. In the middle of our trip we stopped off for coffee at the Victoria Esplanade cafe. Victoria Esplanade is a very large city park with botanical gardens plus a lovely rose garden that looks like it will be blooming in a couple weeks. There are lots of walking paths, an aviary, fountains, a children's playground and a little kids' train that winds around the whole park. The river walk trail goes right by it.

We also discovered a farmer's market that covers a city block that runs every Saturday morning. We just followed the hoards of people right to it.

Picture of Ralph was taken in our backyard.