Good news about great people

Just a quick note to congratulate my friend from 3rd grade, Dahlia, on her engagement :o)

Also, Seth just received his first request for a big job interview from Brandeis University in Massachusetts. It is a tenure-track position with the title of assistant professor and would be a fantastic job. Oh, I'm so excited for him!

Some of Seth's pictures

Here are just a few of Seth's photos--he has a nice camera and lens to help get a bit closer to the wildlife :o)

Rare yellow-eyed penguin coming ashore (Curio Bay's petrified forest)

Royal albatross nesting after spending years at sea (Taiaroa Head, Otago Peninsula)

Curio Bay and Seth's one-week stubble. This was nearly two weeks ago and he still hasn't shaved!

22.2.08 7:30pm- Lake Tekapo IV

This afternoon, after our daily hostel cleaning, Seth and I went out with Michael (the owner of Tailor-Made-Tekapo Backpackers) in his 4WD to Clover Hill, located on the bank of Lake Tekapo. Michael, once a farmer, is a keen birdwatcher and knows quite a bit about plants, animals, and all sorts of other interesting things. He is an intriguing fellow--keeps to himself but has a good sense of humour and a kind demeanour.

Clover Hill was just like the rest of this region—flat, dry, and treeless. Michael explained that the reason the land is so dead is because it is very dry. This side of the mountain range only gets about 12-16 inches of rain a year. What little that seems to grow also gets its share of sheep to graze it down!

Michael brought his spotting scope and pointed out some endemic birds—such as paradise shelducks, New Zealand scaups, and rare black stilts (these long-legged black curiosities have been recovering from devastatingly low numbers, with only 23 birds in existence in the early 1980s).

Black stilt (photo from Department of Conservation website)

Being an enthusiastic fisherman, our guide then also pulled out his pole and invited Seth to join him in catching “a wee fish or two.” Michael started it off and only a minute or two later reeled in a large brown trout (an introduced species, of course). It weighed in at 4.25lb and was 22inches long. Seth had his turn, but no luck.

When we returned to the hostel Michael gave us his trout and even gutted it for us (which we had no idea how to do) then gave us a lemon and fennel from his garden to cook it with. The fish was very good, though it was a little strange to eat something I watched die just an hour or so ago.

21.2.08 5:30pm- Lake Tekapo III

The past few days in Lake Tekapo have been pretty cruisy, and I have even managed to get a bit of work done! It feels great to be able to unpack our bags and stay in one place for more than one or two nights. We have already gotten into a daily routine—go running first thing in the morning, do two hours of housekeeping, have lunch, read/work/check email, have dinner, play tennis (there are courts about 20m away, at the community centre next door), pick a big cupful of raspberries hanging on the bush in Michael’s garden, do a bit more work, then have supper (evening snack), and go to bed. Not a bad way to spend our days! In some ways, when I begin looking forward to going back to Canberra at the end of the month, I remember that there really is no home for Seth and me to return to when we get back. We don’t even have a mailing address (Seth’s superannuation forms got bounced back from Johns and they can’t be delivered). Tailor-Made-Tekapo Backpackers is our only home for now, which is pretty silly and a bit depressing.

Lake Tekapo

Chapel of the Good Shepherd, Lake Tekapo

Fresh raspberries, every day!

Today we mixed things up a bit by visiting the observatory on the top of Mt. John, which overlooks Lake Tekapo. Lake Tekapo offers some of the clearest sky in all of New Zealand, and at an elevation of 700m it is also the coldest region in New Zealand. The sky always seems cloudless and immaculate and at night the temperature drops very quickly. I believe the southern lights are visible here, so I will have to dig up information on when to look for them. The top of Mt. John gave a full 360 degree view of the electric blue lakes and desolate ranges (all brown save a few pine plantation). I still can’t help but wonder why it is so treeless…

19.2.08 2:30pm- Oamaru and Lake Tekapo II

When I returned from the run (Seth was still out), I went to grab some clean clothes off the line. As soon as I stepped outside, Agra grabbed my shirt sleeve and firmly told me to leave $10 for the laundry. She asserted that I had “done at least five loads worth, used up all the detergent, did the washing way too late at night, and tied up the washing lines.” Stunned, I didn’t know what to say and let her walk bitterly away from me. Well, we had only done two medium-sized loads of laundry, used the recommended amount of detergent, did the washing as soon as we returned from viewing the penguins--which she insisted we do--and used the lines she told us to hang our clothes on. I was a bit confused over the whole thing, but she was so stern she left me in shock.

When Seth returned from his run I could hear Agra outside arguing with him about the laundry. Seth is much better at putting up a fight than I am, and I knew he would not let her get away with pulling a fast one on us. After a while he came in to the room and said she had told him the same thing about the laundry, and he refused to pay. I bumped into her a few more times in the morning, and she didn’t bring it up with me again. It was hard to read Agra: she seemed really generous and protective, yet also burnt out and tired of backpackers. Perhaps she had gotten taken advantage of the past few weeks from the hordes of people passing through her home. She had mentioned that she had been fully booked the past two weeks, but for some reason it was very quiet when the two of us were there. Instead of fleeing her house on a sour note, it would have been good to speak with her, but at that point we just wanted out. Besides, it was 10:38am, and she warned us the night before not to be in her way after 10:30.

We spent the rest of the morning exploring Oamaru. For a town its size it sure had some pretty impressive features, like that opera house! We did some last-minute grocery shopping, knowing that good food from that point on would be harder to come by. One place, Bin Inn (which we also found in Nelson but it was closed), was really great—it was full of reasonably priced organics, bulk grains and mixes, and other splurge items.

We left Oamaru, heading northwest through the Waitaki Valley, passing farmland and beautiful grassy hills. Our first stop was at the Elephant Rocks, giant limestone rocks formed 25 million years ago and eventually exposed by the sea and wind. The rocks are so named because they look like huge, lumbering creatures grazing in the fields. This site was used as a setting in the movie Narnia, which I have yet to watch.

We carried on westward through Omarama, then north, past the fabricated, overly modern Twizel, and finally to our grand destination, Lake Tekapo. The drive was extremely flat, brown, treeless and dry, but the entire time this landscape was contrasted by the surrounding mountains, equally barren. The more distant Southern Alps, however, were also visible, but snow-capped. We passed by several lakes and rivers, damned up for hydroelectric plants. What an eye-sore! The lakes, however, were extremely opaque and blue (like a swimming pool with too many chemicals in it), but this milkiness is caused naturally by sediments called “rock flour”, remnants from when the glaciers carved the lakes.

The town at Lake Tekapo (pop 315) is small, yet booming. It is pretty flat with not many trees (which I didn’t notice before when looking at pictures of Lake Tekapo), surrounded by brown, chiseled mountains, and has a great, open, cloudless sky. We went to Tailor-Made-Backpackers and checked in with Maryrose and one of the owners, Wilma. We will be working here the next ten days.

Wilma gave us a brief tour and let us have the afternoon off, which we spent cooking dinner, walking into “town” and exploring the area, and writing. (Seth played his guitar, which he had regretfully neglected the preceding week or so.) Tailor-Made-Backpackers is very comfortable, clean, and new-looking (even though it is somehow considered a heritage site because it was built for people who worked at the hydro-electric plants some years ago). It consists of several little buildings (VIP, Singlemens, and the Kitchen Building) so the rooms are set apart a little. It does lack a bit of character, but the way it is set up reminds me of my old house in Raleigh. Luckily, Wilma gave Seth and me a nice big double room to ourselves. There is also a garden with veggies and a raspberry plant, some kiddie play areas, and a little community centre with tennis courts right next door. This suburban neighbourhood makes me very nostalgic for home!

This morning (Tuesday 19^th Feb) Seth got up early for his run and I slept in a bit. At 10am we went to reception to begin working. Wilma hired a few external girls for the morning to clean the kitchen and bathrooms, and she had Seth and me help her make a few beds and vacuum. Her husband, Michael, is out of town for a few days, so she has been working like mad keeping things in order (the hostel is fully booked three days in advance). Wilma is very nice and genuinely friendly, which is a huge relief. A kind owner or manager can make all the difference in a person’s experience of a new area, especially if working for them. We did light work until noon, but stopped 15min shy for tea and biscuits. If this is all we have to do every day in order to stay in a large double room in a peaceful town (with nice people), I will be very pleased!

18.2.08 9pm- Lake Tekapo

Nugget Point, on the way to Dunedin

The past few days have been pretty wild. On Saturday morning (16^th Feb) the storm was still very active, and Seth went running by himself. There were hardly any trails in the area and he was reduced to running along the side of the narrow, twisting road, with one side a steep drop to the sea. (If you couldn’t figure it out, Seacliff is characterised by the sea and its cliffs).

I did a bit of work on my stats, had brunch with Seth, and toured the vast Asylum grounds, which was built up around the 1880s. The Asylum was, before parts were burnt down and other sections demolished, the largest public building in New Zealand, home to hundreds of ‘insane’ men and women. The owner of the hostel and remaining buildings, Frank, is himself totally mad (but in an energetic, and not a bad, way). He looks and acts just like an old Beach Boy. Very relaxed yet full of childish energy, he owns about 50 antique cars, keeps several beautiful horses that roam freely on the grounds, takes guests out to swim with dolphins every morning, and when we were packing up the car that morning he was bringing a group of people over to one of the barns to go shooting. What a life he leads!

It would have been really great to stay at the Asylum another night (Frank didn’t even care that we were checking out around 1pm), but it was booked up that night, so we drove 40min back into Dunedin.

Our first stop in the Big City was Baldwin St, the steepest street in the world. It didn’t look any steeper than those crazy hills in San Francisco, but it was sure long! We talked up it then came back down to a souvenir shop at the corner to pick up our free certificate stating we scaled it :o)

We didn’t spend much time in the city and drove to Otago Peninsula, about another 40min east of the city. We drove all the way to Taiaroa Head, a long , skinny, wind-weathered point jutting in the ocean that looks like it marks the edge of the world. We stepped out of the car and were instantly battered by that type of wind that blows so hard it makes the skin at the corners of your mouth and eyes wrinkle a bit. The reason we were out here was to try to spot Royal Albatrosses, absolutely amazing birds with the longest wingspan in the world (about 3m), which spend years at sea before coming in to Taiaroa Head to breed. To get a good view of the colony one has to pay $30 per person, so we stood on the other side of the cliff and hoped one would fly overhead. After waiting for about 15-20min in that terrible, cold wind, one albatross flew above us and began circling the peninsula.

After gawking at the bird for a while, the wind got the better of us and we drove back down several kilometres to check in to our next accommodation, the Penguin Place. Just a simple building with several rooms, it was basic, straightforward, and peaceful. We didn’t spend much time there and took off back towards Dunedin. This time, instead of driving along the narrow, twisting road right along the ocean, we took the narrow, twisting ridge road down the middle of Otago Peninsula. I think it freaked Seth out to be driving so high up and with so little between us and a steep drop, but it did offer a great view.

We walked around the city for a while, looking for a coffee shop that was still open. Dunedin is a very cool Uni town (pop. 110,000), with a grungy, alternative big city feel and packed with extremely cute coffee shops. However, it was only about 6pm (on a Saturday night), and every place was closed, except for the Arc Café, which doubled as a music venue at night. That night was a dance party called “Pirates of the Gay-Are-Be-In.” Fortunately we went early enough and were able to share a nice quite mocha before the rapscallions arrived.

At that point it was beginning to get a little dark so we hustled back to the peninsula. We took the lower road, along the water, and made a brief stop at the historic Catholic Church, hidden behind a steep driveway. It was one of those small, one-room churches, and we noticed that it only holds one mass a month (the third Sunday of the month), and the next service would be the following day. How lucky! I really enjoy going to services in old, grand churches, but this time it would be a small, equally old and quaint church.

It was getting late so we kept driving through the peninsula, but we stopped to pick up a hitchhiker on his was to the pub to listen to music. Seth spent five weeks hitchhiking when he came to New Zealand 10 years ago, and he figured it is his turn to give people rides. After we dropped the fellow off we ended up back at Taiaroa Head, at Piolot’s Beach (down below the cliff), and waited for the little blue penguins to arrive. Once again, the wind was treacherous--we had not been that cold for a long time. After a brief introduction by a volunteer “penguin keeper” we waited in that wind for about 30min until it got really dark, and then watched the little guys come ashore. They were so cute! Being a gray-blue hue, and also the smallest penguin in the world, they didn’t really resemble penguins at all, but it was great fun to watch the 20-odd birds scurry across the sand to their burrows. We even got to watch an adult feed its hungry chicks. After observing them for about 30min, we took off and headed back to the Penguin Place hostel to warm up, have dinner, and go to bed.

The next morning, Sunday Feb 17^th, we got up early to try to make it to Mass at the historic church. Because of the steep conditions on the narrow peninsula, there were only two options for running—either down the road toward Taiaroa Head, or down the road away from the head. We went out towards the head and ended up back at the albatross colony. Oddly enough, it was eerily calm. However, not too long after I returned from the run the wind picked back up to at least the strength it was the day before.I cooked up some salty pancakes for brunch (I accidentally used salt, which was disguised as sugar), then we checked out and headed for the church. I can’t remember the name of the church, but I was really taken by its quirkiness and intimacy. The congregation consisted of about 20 people (mostly older folks, many of whom were Polish), and a little old nun in the back trying her hardest to play a small organ. The priest resembled David Attenborough perfectly, and had to speak above the wind, which was shaking the walls and making the hanging pictures rattle. The Mass was so personal that during the service the priest had the congregation show hands of everyone who wanted communion, just to make sure he had enough wafers.

After the service many people approached us and said hello, and had us join them for tea and attend a rose-planting ceremony to honour Sir. Edmund Hillary, who recently died.

After leaving the church on the hill, Seth and I drove back into Dunedin to explore the city a bit more. We checked out a few more coffee shops, eventually stopping at Modaks, which was a bit smaller but just as grungy as Arc, and reminded us of Strongs Coffee back in Chapel Hill.

While in town we also visited the Cadbury Factory (we didn’t take the tour but the gift-shop was a real let-down), browsed a used book store, and really stocked up on groceries.

We left Dunedin for Oamaru, about 2 hours north. Oamaru was pretty dead, being a Sunday afternoon, but the first hostel we tried was booked up. There was a food and wine festival winding down and people were still filling the town’s accommodation. We were referred to Swagger’s Backpackers down the road, and after getting turned around a bit, finally found it.

The woman who owned the little hostel, Agra, lived in a side room, and came out to check us in. She was a bit of a hippy/witchy woman, and though not exactly warm and inviting, was strangely motherly and very insistent that we help ourselves to the food in the pantry and on the shelves (crackers, toast, spreads, even milk, cereal, and ice cream), and showed us the “free” washing machine and detergent. The house was extremely homey and the bedroom we got (a full 5-bed dorm room to ourselves) had a desk, huge window, nice beds, and lots of classic books on the windowsill. It was the most comfy place we had been to so far.

Agra, however, was a bit too “involved” in that she kept popping up to check up on us and keep us in line (such as explaining very carefully when she wanted us checked out of the house in the morning). She insisted we go see the penguins (Oamaru is home to both the little blue and yellow-eyed varieties), so we went down to the very windy shore and watched several yellow-eyed penguins come in (this time we went when it was still light outside so we got a few decent photos). We skipped the little blue penguins, went back to another grocery store, and spent the rest of the evening at the hostel, doing laundry, eating ice cream, and playing guitar. Agra had great wireless internet, so I was also able to take advantage of that.

This morning (Monday, Feb 18^th) we got up early for a run around town and through some poorly marked bushland. Oamaru (pop 12,000) is described as New Zealand’s only Victorian City, and is characterised by great stone buildings and an artsy culture (we ran past several theatres and even an opera house!).

15.2.08 11pm- Curio Bay and Seacliff

Yesterday morning in Curio Bay was rainy, windy, and cold, but Seth somehow persuaded me to go for a run with him anyways down the gravel road we drove up on (long and boring…).

After the sun came out, we had a quick lunch and walked over to get a closer look at the Hector’s Dolphins that live in the bay (Porpoise Bay). There are about 20 in there and they spend all day ‘surfing’ in the wave breaks. They will even come up and join humans who are gutsy enough to go swimming in that oh-so-cold water.

Hector's Dolphins in the bay

We next walked over to the other side of the bay, which is Curio Bay, famous for its 160 million year old petrified forest. It was really cool walking along the rocks (exposed during low-tide) and getting up close to old tree stumps and trunks, turned to stone. I had always wanted to see a petrified forest and didn’t quite know what to expect so it was really interesting to see. Oddly enough, Curio Bay is also the home of the yellow-eyed penguin colony we watched the night before.

We walked back to the Dolphin Lodge and finally had a full afternoon to spend working. I got about 10min into trying to figure out where I left off in my statistical analysis before my computer started giving me major problems. I shut it down and we decided to go to use the internet at this man’s house. The man, Jim, had a flyer posted at the hostel for people to use his personal computer to get online--for $3 an hour. Probably the only internet within 50km. We called him up and drove down to the ‘town’ and he welcomed us in to his little green, four-room house. I only had enough time to get through my email and post a few journal entries, but no pictures…

At 8:45pm we rushed back over to Curio Bay to watch the penguins come in, but were again too late. Most of them already arrived. We did, however, get to watch the last pair.

This morning was equally cold and windy but the rain held off just long enough to go running down that boring road again. We then had a quick pancake lunch and checked out of the Dolphin Lodge. This hostel had alright facilities, but the people staying there were particularly cool. Most of them were German girls (and one French girl) and they were all very friendly. Unfortunately I never even caught their names. Oh well. The owners of the hostel were out of town and they left two of the girls ('WOOFers') in charge, so the atmosphere was exceptionally relaxed.

We continued driving along the Southern Scenic Route to The Nuggets (nuggetty rocks all along the shore), where we spotted a lone sea lion, a yellow-eyed penguin crossing the road (in the middle of the day, and on a cliff!), a breeding colony of little egrets, and more New Zealand fur seals. The seal pups were swimming in a small inlet protected from the rather stormy ocean—it was like a little kiddie pool! We didn’t walk all the way to the lighthouse (which was only a 15min. walk) because of wind and increasing rain.

We were starting to get worried about accommodation for tonight so skipped the other highlighted points along the road and went straight for Dunedin, the big city. We drove right to the visitor information centre in the middle of town and were placed in a long queue of people also trying to find a place to stay the next few nights. The Uni students returned today (about 25,000 of them), along with their parents, and every single hostel was booked the next several nights.

We could either camp out in a holiday park during this storm, or go back the way we came, to a backpackers 45min away. We asked about a hostel in the neighbouring town of Seacliff. Conor, from Dash, had told me about this place called the Asylum Lodge, where he had stayed before. It is an old insane asylum that had a part burn-down, killing several of its residents. Pretty crazy! The girl at the visitor information centre called them for us and they actually had a room available!

It was a bit disappointing that we finally got to a city and felt like doing ‘city things’, only to be turned around and sent back to a small town (Seacliff) in the middle of nowhere. So we spent about an hour walking around Dunedin and decided we were too hungry so bought some groceries and drove to Seacliff.

The Asylum is pretty spooky, and the wind, rain, and narrow gravel road leading up a cliff where this place is located made it seem like something out of a horror movie. The hostel is separate from the part that burnt down and inside it isn’t very scary at all.

For dinner we cooked up ‘rissoles’ (they are basically Australian meat patties with veggies and things mixed in them) with mashed potatoes and gravy. It had been a long time since we had a good serving of meat and after driving past lots of cows today we decided we needed some beef. Luckily mince is on sale for really cheap, so we indulged in these giant meatballs—and boy, did they hit the spot!!

After dinner I got to check my email via the hostel’s free internet. They only have one computer so the second someone left it I jumped on it. It was nice to use the internet for a few minutes again (the second time in two days!) but the connection was slow (just like at Jim’s house) so I could not use blog (too many photos).