While Drea's away

Apologies that I haven't written in the blog for a while. I was a long way behind until this week and I've been playing catchup. For those who weren't aware, we recently made a quick trip back to the states to visit with family. Hopefully I'll be able to put together a post of our trip as soon as Drea returns with the camera.

Drea seems to have the uncanny ability to magically extend vacations beyond all normal expectations. Last year she managed to get a weeklong visit in boston on only 2 vacation days. This year she's worked an even more impressive deal. It just so happened that the end of our trip coincided with a physics conference in Denver a couple weeks later. Which also just so happened to coincide with her best friend Merritt's road trip from Connecticutt to SF to start residency at UCSF. So instead of coming back to sunny Dunedin with me (Sunrise 8:20 ...sunset 4:59, ugh) she got to stay on in the states for nearly an extra month on a road trip through the Southeastern US and is currently at a physics conference in Colorado Springs.

Meanwhile, It has been fuh-reezing here. My first morning back at the house I was greeted with this...

That's not snow... It's hail!
Lot's of hail!

The next week we got a somewhat rare snowstorm down at sea level. It doesn't look like much but it was enough to stop the busses from running, cause a mess of accidents in town and pretty much shut the whole town down. But I have to say that despite the cold it was really pretty out. Here's a pic of the chicken coop the morning after..

I've also been eating well since Drea left me to fend for myself. Here's one of my less than inspired dinners. Mom, you must be so proud. All those lessons on presentation. In my defense it was a long day and I didn't feel like cooking. ;-)

mmmm, can!

But one of the cool things that goes on in Dunedin over the winter is the midwinter carnival. To celebrate the longest night of the year there's a lantern festival and fireworks show in the center of town. This year's theme was flowers and there were some very creative floral lanterns in the procession along with dancers, drummers, bands and stiltwalkers...

One of our favorite local bands was playing (but they looked cold!)

A very cool little event. And it's nice to think that every day gets a little bit brighter from here on out.

But most of all these last couple weeks, I am missing Andrea very much. I'm looking forward to having her come home.

Dave

Dea's visit!

Our good friend Dea from the bay area stopped into Dunedin on part of her around the world journeys. We had a great time showing her around and loved loved loved that she baked us cookies. mmmm cookies. It is also clear from the pics that Drea and Dea were separated at birth...They even bought matching shirts together.

Thanks for visiting us Dea, hope your having a great time back on the East coast! When are you coming back?

Cheers,
Dave and Andrea

Chowdafest with Jan and Teresa

Our neighbors Jan and Teresa invited us out the other weekend for a day of fishing and cockle hunting out near Aramoana. We first went out onto one of the estuaries at low low tide to gather our cockles. We were a little late getting out there and the tide had just started covering the cockle beds. But we were able to fill our buckets and get back to the beach before it got too deep.

From the beach we drove over to the Aramoana mole to try our hand at fishing to supplement our catch of southern clams. Here's me pulling in the big one...

This "rock" fish was massive

I was actually able to pull in one keeper during our time out on the mole but unfortunately Jan and Teresa didn't have any luck. Andrea decided to skip the fishing and spent her time checking out the local wildlife. Here's a couple of the seals from the colony that lives at the end of the mole.

As we all gathered in our catch someone suggested clam chowder for dinner. This was shortly followed by the idea of competitive clam chowder. Yes! Chowdafest is on!

On the way back after giving most of our weights and hooks to the seaweed.

We got back to the house and started working up our respective chowders. Once everything was set we wandered over to their place for a fantastic wine and chowder dinner. We both went with fairly classic new england clam chowder and they were both delicious. We decided to call it a draw and celebrated with more wine.

Chowder makes good neighbors.

Best to all,
Dave and Andrea

ask a ninja - birthday

Drea's nephew, Luke, had a birthday a few weeks ago and about the time we started thinking about what to do for his birthday we had been watching a lot of "ask a ninja" episodes. So we said, "Let's make a ninja video and send it to Luke for his birthday."

If you haven't ever seen ask-a-ninja i suggest you take a look before watching the video. Click here We had a great time making it but in retrospect maybe we shouldn't have tried to sing the theme song. Apologies in advance. In my opinion the best part is andrea's sweet ninja chicken stalking ability. She's got mad skills.

best to all,

NZ ninja's Dave and Andrea

Kaikoura

Hi All,

Over Easter weekend Andrea and I finally were able to check off one of our main N.Z. to-do's. We had tried to visit the little coastal town of Kaikoura during our original trip out here two years ago but had to skip it due to lack of time. With the four-day Easter holiday we finally found time to head up the coast to experience firsthand what we'd been hearing about from friends for years.

Kaikoura is about 2 hours drive north of Christchurch (8 hours north of Dunedin) and is a delightful little village that used to be a whaling station in the 1800s. The town sits on a small peninsula at the base of a beautiful mountain range and due to it's particular underwater geography is home to abundant marine wildlife. People come to Kaikoura to see whales, seals and sea lions, Albatross and sea birds, but mostly they (and we) come to see dolphins. There is a very popular cruise out of the Kaikoura harbour that allows you to swim in a pod of up to a thousand dusky dolphins.

We drove about half way up the coast Thursday night after work and camped out along the Waitaki river. We got into Kaikoura on Friday and did some exploring, going for a hike around the Kaikoura peninsula...

The peninsula has a seal colony at the end. The seals were so accessible, it was as if you were able to walk through the seal exhibit at a zoo. There were heaps of them, and they weren't getting much privacy from each other, nor from the crowds of people there to see them.
We set out on a little hike after this first tourist attraction. Andrea had remembered there was a coastal route, and decided to drag the dubious Dave along. Drea tried to get me washed out to sea here. Perhaps it was a low-tide option and Andrea didn't read the fine print. The high road proved less treacherous.
Perhaps I shouldn't dance in front of a camera.

We went up the road after our hike to a little seaside trailer selling a variety of seafood along the beach. We'd read about this little place in our travel guide and the food was fantastic. We were also treated to an exquisite moonrise.

The next day we had our dolphin cruise. We were a little concerned about the weather being cold, since we'd waited until late in the season to finally do this, but we woke up to a stunner of a day. Not a cloud in the sky and very calm conditions. Perfect for going out on the Ocean. We went to the Dolphin Experience headquarters, got fitted for our wetsuits and given our safety briefing.

On the boat ride out to the dolphins we enjoyed the view back over the town and it's mountain backdrop.

This is Drea (I think?!?) in her full wet suit.

The pod we swam with had approximately 200 dolphins in it. Apparently a few weeks ago this pod had numbered around a thousand. We were told to make noise, sing and attempt to entertain the dolphins if we wanted to get them to interact with us. Both Drea and I had individual experiences with dolphins circling, swimming and playing with us. It was just amazing.

That's Drea in the center (I think?!?) with dolphins on her right. (this picture may not do the experience justice...)Ok, that's definitely Andrea.

So incredibly cool!

We went back to town and relaxed on the beach for a while soaking in the sun and reliving our adventure...
That night we wandered downtown and enjoyed a few beers while puzzling over a rugby match. It's been a year and a half in New Zealand and still neither of us understands that game. Then back to our holiday park for a soak in the hot tub. (best holiday park ever!)

The next morning we wandered down to the beach and had some fun with the mountains of driftwood that were washed ashore.

I call this "Evolution of a Walking Stick"Drea had the idea to create an anatomically correct driftwood skeleton.
Dave had the idea to call him Neptune, give him a trident, and have him point to the sea.

We then packed up our stuff and went to visit a little lavender farm and wandered through their cute little gardens.

Kaikoura is also reknown for being one of the best places in New Zealand for eating Crayfish. Almost every restaurant has a Crayfish entree. We decided to go back to the little outdoor cafe by the beach. Here's a shot of our dish. Crayfish barbequed in garlic and butter. Sooooo goood!!!

On the way back to Dunedin we stopped at a little local brewery for pizza dinner. We bought a sampler tray of beers and decided to do a little blind taste test to see if we could tell one beer from another. Andrea was able to identify all four without looking but unfortunately for me (and my pride at being what I thought was this couple's beer connoisseur) I made a bit of a mistake. Here's me and my shame...Smells like a pilsner... tastes like a pilsner.. Looks like a stout! Wait a minute.. did she switch these? Oh the humanity.

We got back to Dunedin late on Sunday and had one more day to relax before heading back to work so we took some time to explore the Botanical Gardens. We'd read about an agave plant there and wanted to see it for ourselves. The agave plant supposedly stores up all its energy over 25-30 years to produce its last hurrah: a bloom at the top of a huge central stalk that looks like an enormous asparagus. Here's Andrea next to it....
Hope you all had a happy easter.

Love,
Dave and Andrea