the pineapple track

Hey all,

Last Saturday before going to ultimate we finally hiked the pineapple track. The track goes up to the top of Flagstaff hill which overlooks Dunedin. This was our third attempt to hike the track after two prior attempts failed due to poor planning and our running out of time. It was a nice hike up through stands of native bush to the tussock and flax covered hilltop. We had lunch up near the top before heading down for our regular Sunday ultimate game. (Although for future reference it's impossible for me to run fast after hiking all morning). Here's the pics (you may have noticed that some of the pics in here seem to have gotten a lot better in quality. You noticed right. Several of these were taken with Drea's new camera)...

Interesting tidbit from the New Zealand Travel website: "The Pineapple Track is a walk along Dunedin's skyline with magnificent views of the city and Taieri Plains. It passes through the tussock country above the tree line of Flagstaff Hill.The Flagstaff Hill vantage point, high above the harbour and inland plains, proved useful in pioneering times. When a ship was entering the harbour, a flag was raised on the hill signalling the ship's arrival to the people on the plains and surrounding areas. Given the shortage of women at that time, bachelors from the Taieri Plains would make a hasty journey to the port in hope of getting a wife. The Pineapple Track's name comes from much later. In the 1920s a local grocer guided people up the track and provided a snack of tinned pineapple for the hikers when they rested at the top of a steep section. They would often leave the tins hanging on trees or fences."

Drea and Coco relaxing in the back yard.

Aramoana Cleanup and Harbour Bike Ride

Hi All,

The other weekend Andrea heard about a beach cleanup out at the little town of Aramoana 15km north of Dunedin. It was being organized by the local scuba diving group so it was a cleanup both on the beach and in the water. We thought it sounded fun so we hitched a ride with the group up to the beach and got to work. The weather out was gorgeous so we wandered up and back the mole (the constructed spit that prevents the channel into Dunedin from silting up) and then up and down the beach before breaking around 12pm for a barbeque.
Besides garbage, the people in the water were taking out invasive weeds. Andrea was inspired enough to climb down the on rocks and negotiate the tides to grab some of these from the shoreline.

Dave and Jeremy cleaning up on the mole

After the barbeque we were able to bike back home along the lovely coast road along the Western side of the Dunedin Harbour. Here's some pics from our ride...

A flax plant along the road.
A cute boatshed on the harbor
We stopped about half way for hot chocolate at a nice little hotel bar
Some public art along the road
Yay for Spring!!!!
We stopped off at the university on the way home. This is the Leith River as it runs through the university.
The Magnolia's were in bloom!
We also had some fun taking pictures around the university

Last stop, Dunedin botanical gardens (I think this is a statue of Peter Pan)

Miss you all,
Love,
Dave and Andrea

Yay Molly!

Congratulations to Molly (Andrea's sister in law) who is either:

a) the only person who actually reads this blog
b) the only person who knows how to leave a comment
c) the only person who wants a postcard from us
or
d) all of the above

The answer to the trivia question was that 204,000 current residents of new zealand were born in England. Molly won by being the only guess at 50,000. So we'll try this again for those of you that actually might want a postcard...

The current NZ population is roughly 4 million people and 40 million sheep. A ratio of 10:1 sheep to people. But how many sheep does Australia have? No fair googling. Closest guess gets a postcard.

Baaaaa,
Dave and Andrea

SHE PASSED!!!!!

Congratulations to Andrea who having passed her most recent exam is now one third of the way towards becoming a bona fide certified board approved medical physicist!!!! YAY! Please join me in sending her massive congratulations. Way to go Andrea!!! Woop woop!

The Catlins Weekend

Drea on a boardwalk in a Catlins estuary

Hey All,

So to celebrate the fact that Drea no longer has to spend all of her free time studying for exams we decided to take off last weekend for a little getaway to the Catlins. We rented a little cottage on the beach in Papatowai. Papatowai is a little beach town not far from where I did the DOC trip back in August. I'd attempted to book a farmstay for the weekend but the host I got in touch with were in the midst of remodling all their farmstay rooms. But they offered us the use of their beach cottage and included a tour of their farm and dinner at their house on Saturday night. Sweet!

Saturday morning we checked out Mclean Falls and wandered around Papatowai beach and a little nature walk before heading over to the farm for our tour.

The tour was much more than we were both expecting. September through November is Lambing season in New Zealand and there were lots of brand new lambs and calves running around the farm. So cute. I think we were too busy marveling at the new lambs, so for some reason we didn't get any pictures of them. The farm was also one of the sites used for the filming of the Chronicles of Narnia. Here's some of the pictures from our trip...

The rocks at the end of the beach at Papatowai

Mclean Falls

Our hosts, Helen-May and Alan Greenwood

One of the new calves

I was terrified to be standing here (and I was at least 12 feet away from the edge)

One of the castles from the movie Chronicles of Narnia was right where we were standing.

This beach was also featured in the Narnia movie (Aslan walked across it at the end)

We watched the movie when we got home.

We went on a couple hikes Sunday morning before heading home to Dunedin. Here's a few pics from our hikes...

Dave on Cannibal Bay

Sea lions at Cannibal Bay

Terns at Suvat Bay

Drea on the beach at the end of Old Coach Road

Kereru near Papatowai

Till next time,
Dave and Andrea

Ohau I love to ski!

Hey all,

I finally got up to try out skiing in New Zealand and I definitely cannot say I was disappointed. I went up with a group of about 10 of my coworkers for a weekend of skiing at Ohau Ski resort. Just a few miles just south of Mount Cook. It turned out to be an absolutely beautiful weekend. The ski field was small but there probably weren't more than 200 skiers total and the views were tremendous. A lot of the most interesting parts of the field required a bit of hiking but it was all worth it. You could ski a powder line on Saturday and that line was still there at Sunday afternoon. I don't think I've ever seen that in California.

I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking...

The gang (Rhys, Jackie and their two kids, Dave S, Jenny, Melvin, myself and Mike)

From the top of the hike on Saturday




Lake Ohau
The top of the hike on Sunday

Cheers,
Dave

row row row your stupid boat

Hi everyone,

We're back in Dunedin after a nice little trip back to the states. I'm happy to report that my dad is doing very well, back walking every day to the coffee shop and annoying my mother with his request for driving privileges. (In a rare twist, I got to give my dad driving lessons back in the same place he taught me to drive 20 years ago. Hands at 10 and 2 please!)

After getting back we had a full weekend to catch up on our sleep and enjoy some beautiful weather. It's exciting coming back to town and finding that all of a sudden it's light out until 6:30. Before we left it was barely light at 5:30.

We went back to our regular Monday night trivia game as well, with our friends Frankie, Gabby and Danny (Tom's still on vacation and we're looking forward to having him back). We've been fighting for third place with another team from Andrea's work but this week, for the first time, we won it!! On a tiebreaker question against the group that wins every week. The winning question was "how many current New Zealand residents were born in England?" Feel free to guess, closest guess gets a postcard.

Also new for this week, I took up a new sport. I got up at the ungodly hour of 5:30am, went down to the harbor and took part in my company sponsored crew team. You know what I learned? I really suck at crew. I should have known it was going to be rough when putting the boat into the water I ended up getting soaked well past my knees. Then while rowing I kept getting my oar stuck underwater, which they call "crabbing" here. One particular "crabbed" oar jumped out of my hands and fattened my lip. Stupid oar. I also managed to cut my foot, get a weird bruise on my stomach and break my seat. To everyone's credit they tried to stay encouraging.

Sorry no pictures, we'll take some soon.
Love,
Dave and Andrea