The Superbowl

Today was a tough day for the Eagles, we fought an awesome game and I introduced Rowan to American Football and had the fun experience of watching the Superbowl in a sports bar in Dunedin on a big screen. I may even be on the local news since they were taping all of us watching the game. Though it wasn't a huge amount of people, I think about 12 Americans and others, a mix of Patriots and Eagles fans. Definitely a fun thing to do and I took the afternoon off, which felt right. Now its just a matter of waiting till next year since I know we'll be there and win. But we did an awesome job.

I have a lot of lovely pictures of New Zealand to post and so I'm going to do a couple of entries today so that the trip is actually broken up and not too crazy for anyone to understand. The first pictures and going to be Dunedin, decked out for Christmas, the woman I worked with at the Cancer Society and the beauty of Otago Harbour.

To the Deep South...

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More Pictures

Alright, on this round of pictures, I'm to focus on the critters that live out on the Otago Penisula, which has the only mainland breeding colony of Royal Albatross in the world. I've already posted some pictures of yellow eyed penguins, which live out here, so this one is going to focus on albatross and lots of cute seals.

New Zealand Critters


A Royal Albatross in flight and one of the most beautiful sights, I've ever seen. To give you a sense of the size, the wingspan on these birds can be as long as six feet.

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Christmas

My parents and I spent Christmas Eve going on the Tranzalpine, a train trip through the Southern Alps and across the top of the South Island. Here's a link to information about it and a map so you can see where we went. We spent Christmas at a lodge in the High Country not too far from Arthur's Pass. http://www.tranzscenic.co.nz/services/alpine.aspx# This part of New Zealand is incredibly beautiful since you're surronded by mountains with glacial lakes. The place we stayed was interesting since most of the other guests were American, which I found odd since I'd gotten so used to New Zealand accents that all those Americans threw me for a loop. But the best part of Christmas was when we went horseback riding way into the High Country with this amazing woman named Heather, who didn't use bits on the horses. Instead she wanted you to just lead them like you would a dance partner. Okay time for the pictures.


The High Country

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Onward on the journey

The next stop on our journey was on the East Coast of New Zealand, a place called Kaikoura, who's name means crayfish. This little resort town is famous for its wildlife, you can swim with dolphins, seals and sharks as well as go whalewatching which we did. The sea was rough and rather grey and sadly I was quite seasick, but it was an amazing experience. After Kaikoura we went north to Blenheim, which is where the wine country of Dunedin is and had good meals and enjoyed the beauty of this part of New Zealand. Blenheim is in one of the parts of the country that gets the most sun of anywhere. So we did wine tastings and spent some lazy days.

A whale and A vineyard

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New Years

We spent New Year's in a beautiful and rural part of New Zealand beside a river. The weather had been grey and damp and was throughout our entire trip, but we never minded though everyone apologized to us about it. http://www.maruiariverlodge.co.nz/index.htm This is a link to the lovely place we stayed with a helpful map showing where we were. Now for the pictures.

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Final Leg of the Trip and Random Dunedin

For the last part of our trip, we went to Nelson and from there to the Abel Tasman marine park. This is just a beautiful place and we had a busy day there. We spent the morning kayaking for about 3 hours with this awesome kayaking company full of fun, interesting people. Then we spent the afternoon having a short hike on the Abel Tasman track, which is one of the most frequented in New Zealand, along the way we stopped by Tonga Island, a seal colony. This colony is an island, and you're not allowed closer than 20 metres. By the end of the day, we were sore, tired and very happy. We fell over in our hotel room, had long showers and baths and a lazy dinner. Then I took a plane from Nelson back to Dunedin as my parents continued on to the North Island. The last set of pictures show why I really enjoy Dunedin, because you never know what's going to happen. One Saturday I walked into town and found lovely vintage cars, so of course, I had to get photographs. Also there's a pictures of a classic New Zealand bird called the Tui or the parson bird. Then I shall stop and go eat since I've been working on this for a while. I hope you enjoy the pictures and a glimpse of this beautiful place, I'm lucky enough to be living in.

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