In the Crib

Let’s talk about domesticity here in the little red cabin with a view of Blue Skin Bay’s changing tides.

We live in a crib - that would be a NZ summer cabin. And yes, it’s winter. That means you’ll usually find me wearing a hat and plenty of layers in the middle of the day, in the house. We have hot and cold running water, but the bathroom contains just the shower, sink and washing machine. The toilet is located about 15 paces out the backdoor and is, in a twist of fantastic English, referred to as the “longdrop.” On really cold mornings I call it “the hole.” This set up of course was unnerving to Armi, but she is quite relieved to know that I at least have an indoor, hot shower.

Mark, who thinks Julie should paint the longdrop with idyllic scenes of sheep and blue sky, visited us one day and ventured inside the structure where Julie snapped this photo.

Our kitchen is a galley affair with plenty of underneath cupboards, a stove/oven, full sink and ¾ fridge. Our shelves are full of winter vegetables, spices, legumes and other fun things needed for soups, and Indian and Thai cooking. I was especially pleased to find reasonably priced seasonings by Gregg.

Laundry is hung across our front ‘porch’ which is really a cement slab – perfect for sitting out on sunny days with friends to enjoy afternoon tea. And the laundry always has a great view of the bay and the hills surrounding Warrington.

Both bedrooms and the living room face North and that means we have heaps of sun on days when the clouds are less bountiful. Today we’re enjoying sun, clouds and snow. If it clears a bit, I’ll have a walk down to the beach. This is the door to my room - it must have been evening when I took the photo - thus the closed curtains.

And then there's Rua (Maori "Two"). He's just 6 months but is already chasing the bigger neighbor cats around the property. He likes to sleep on my bed and also enjoys hanging out with the cow skull Julie found in the yard.

The Tim Tam Promise

When I first sent around an email about the in.zed blog Karl replied asking if I knew about the Tim Tam Slam – he had seen it on the So Graham Norton show (here's a link to Graham's current BBC show). Karl also sent me the wikipedia link that explains Tim Tamming far better than I can.

Suffice it to say that the experience of a Tim Tam, used as a straw to drink tea, is a wonderfully childish pleasure that I hope to enjoy until I am no longer a child. During one of her visits stateside, Julie introduced the concept to Joey and me on what was perhaps my 2005 birthday. Unfortunately we had no Tim Tams and were reduced to using a similar cookie from the Vons aisles. Although I got the idea, it wasn’t until I was able to actually have a Tim Tam with Earl Grey that I finally understood the magic of Tim Tams.




My first week in NZ, Julie and I spent an evening in town with Leslie (that's her and if I remember correctly, she's just lost her Tim Tam in her tea cup). Now, Leslie is also a marvelous cook and after a lovely meal followed by a night out to hear local music at Circadian Rhythm (a great little vegan cafe started by Mike who is also a great singer/songwriter/guitarist), we returned to the house and had tea before bed.

Thanks Karl for the wiki link. I’m bringing some Tim Tams back with me and we’ll have a Tim Tam experience at Downtown Repalone. That also makes me think that my godson Khyber might enjoy a Tim Tam and perhaps we'll add it to our regular dessert menu of ice cream Topped with Lucky Charms.




And here you see just how a Tim Tam Slam is undertaken and enjoyed.

There is a moment of anticipation when the package is opened but the first cookie has not been disturbed from its little plasic bed.

Julie demonstrates how to bite off just a corner of the Tim Tam (this is done to both ends).

This would be me re-enacting my first Tim Tam experience.

But there's no need to re-enact the simple happiness a Tim Tam can bring.

You'll notice that the head always needs to be slightly tilted back to ensure the tea and the Tim Tam don't drip all over your clothes.

And on another subject: Mark hadn't arrived yet and while visiting Leslie, I saw this child art on the fridge. And because Mark really wanted to see Penguins and because it's the closest I might ever get to Antarctica, I had to capture the image. The caption reads: I like Penguins. And my daddy has been to Antarctica. I'm thinking that must be daddy in the pink suit.

Of Sky and Grub

After writing yesterday about the pleasure of waking up late, today I had to get up at 6:45 AM to catch a ride in to town with Julie. As Kris dropped us off at the bus stop (located conveniently across Highway 1 from the Waitati Dairy), I glanced to the north and saw the beginnings of a spectacular sunrise. Pinks and oranges seemed to hurtle across the nearly neon light blue sky. Clouds in the far horizon stacked up in such a way that, if you didn’t know better, you’d swear a distant island was rising up from the once flat ocean. The colours skipped across the underbellies of all the clouds to the west turning the lowest puffs of the normally dark grey clouds into tufts of deep pink and red. As we waited for our kind friend Richard to arrive from Warrington to carry us into Dunedin, Julie and I watched the sky. Brilliant yellows and golds began to brighten the edges of the clouds and purples appeared and then dissolved into New Zealand sky-blue (that should be a new crayon colour, by the way). The tide was just starting to slip out toward the ocean, and all of the sky colours were reflected in a shimmering, sort of gossamer angel-wing kind of way, on the bay. I’ve seen some eye-catching sunrises and sunsets, and this one certainly makes my top 5. And no, I didn’t have my camera with me. Neither a camera nor all my oil paints applied with my finest brush could do this particular sunrise justice. Yes, I’ll still sleep in, but perhaps Julie will find that her flat-mate does on occasion get up in time for morning coffee and a stroll to the beach. Perhaps.

Speaking of Julie. Julie is a frighteningly superb cooker of all things unexpected. By that I mean that she can take ingredients that I might never imagine putting together and turn out a meal of intriguing and delicious taste, texture and presentation. A little of this, a blend of yesterday’s leftovers, and some of that, and voila! she’s prepared a 4-course meal. Since arriving, I’ve been introduced to roast vegetables – in winter it seems mostly root veggies like potatoes, turnips, parsnips and other things your mother always said were good for you, seasoned and topped with a bit of olive or rice oil. It never occurred to me that you could roast a beet, but it’s one of my new favorite vegetables. Julie also concocts patties of various sorts – rice and beans, curry, spinach and beetroot or silver beet, and any number of other combinations. Lightly fried and served with spicy or mild sauces or sometimes plain yogurt. Dahl with all sorts of complimentary ingredients is a favorite as is Dukha (spelling unsure, must research) – a new compliment to bread that I’m finding is better than oil and balsamic, pesto or butter - is a mixture of ground seeds, nuts and spices which you dip your bread into. Soup is another feat of love, and that really is why I think Julie’s cooking rocks – she always says that she cooks with love. Not to be intimidated, I also cook (not nearly as often as Julie) and have discovered that making soup (barley and potato) isn’t as complicated as it appeared when I was 5 and my mom had the soup pot on the stove for 8 hours. I’ve tried my hand at scones, but they ended up as biscuits. This, even though Kris gave us a simple, even a fireman can make it, recipe. I’m sure his fire brigade colleagues would prefer his scones to mine. And of course, we’ve had to have some Mexican food and I happily made my Spanish rice recipe from memory.

In Dunedin you’ll find heaps of restaurants, especially Thai, Indian, Japanese and Chinese. In addition to all the cafes and coffee spots, the Thai and Indian fare is quite affordable. They usually offer a wide variety of items and the food is always delicious. I’ve especially been enjoying Thai or Indian curry – a great antidote on the days when it’s cloudy or raining. Not having had any Chinese food yet, I can’t comment, but the few Japanese restaurants I’ve been to serve excellent miso soup, well prepared rice and great sushi (although Mark reminded me that I only eat vegetarian sushi, so maybe you’ll have to rely on a sushi aficionado for a true perspective.) The one type of food missing, which will not be happy news to Doug, is proper Mexican food. There doesn’t seem to be much demand for it and, as the proprietor of Amigos in Wanaka told Mark and I, nearly every ingredient necessary to make Mexican food has to be imported. This puts Mexican restaurants at a disadvantage as most Americans are used to ordering a substantial burrito or enchilada plate for $5-8 USD and in NZ that doesn’t cover the cost of the food, much less the restaurant overhead expenses. Amigos, by the way, was worth the visit. I'd take Doug or Dwight there any day. They even had a parrot in the window (which I forgot to photograph for Gregg's pattern matching world.) And I guess they liked our guest book entry well enough to post it on-line.

To see some photos from our last lunch event, and to see other Waitati, beach, sky and Julie's hair (she likes it now), check out Julie’s blog. In the "Sunday Lunch" photo, you'll see the very computer I'm using to write this entry and the table at which I am sitting. The window looks out onto the bay and across to Warrington.

Perfect I Tell You

I’ve not before been likely to awake when the sun strikes my window, but it’s a little easier here in Waitati. The house is situated so that the sun comes over the nearby hill just at 9:30 and that’s perfect by me. This morning was particularly lovely as the sky was fully blue with just a trace of high clouds at the horizon. A true pleasure following a few days of mist and rain broken only by the occasional appearance of sun.

The laundry had been on the line for three days getting soaked daily by new rain so the first order of the day was to bring everything in, run it through the spin cycle and pin it back on the line. On a good warm day like today, most things will dry before mid-afternoon.

Clouds had moved in by the time tea was drunk and skype calls were made to Armi and Doug, so hat, polartec vest and raincoat were top of the list for a walk to the beach. Last night the brown and green tree frogs spent hours croaking away and the birds were equally boisterous this morning so it seemed unlikely that a deluge was on its way, but dressing for any weather event is dressing for success around here.

Arriving at the deserted beach, I noticed the tide was lower than I’d ever seen it, leaving bits of shellfish, seaweed and other sea articles close to the shore. Seagulls and other birds unknown to me skimmed along the white caps or picked steadily at oyster and mussel shells at the water’s edge. Walking on the sand is an experience unto itself as it is similar to walking in a foot or two of snow. In some spots your foot has a solid footing, barely indenting the fine grains of nearly white sand and then suddenly you’ll find your boots crunching 3 or 4 inches into the terrain. I’ve never experienced this with beach walking and you learn to gage the sand before trekking through it.

Within just a few minutes of arriving at the beach, the cloud cover disappeared and the sun shone so brightly on the water it looked like a billion strands of tinsel lit by a 10k. If you ever walk along this particular shore you will notice how the waves roll in so quickly that there is the constant sound of little waves breaking on the sand with very infrequent swooshing of receding water. And you will notice the incredible amount of movement in the water along our beach as it moves in and out with the tides – it almost feels like a river that reverses its course twice daily.

After passing the caves, I turned to head back toward the road and found a number of people had arrived and were out and about on the beach. Dogs running full gallop with that certain glee only a dog has when running along the shore and into the waves. Parents with their exploring kids. Others walking in solitude removing a hat or jacket. It seems that everyone was ready to come out of shelter of home or car to revel in the sun. Now it may seem like several hundred people had suddenly appeared, but in truth only 10 or so were to be seen – that’s a lot of people for our beach!

As I walked back along the curving lane that is Doctor’s Point Road, the shrubs continued to let go, drip by drip, the last bits of yesterday’s rain, the sun was warm on my back and the air crisp and invigorating. It was then I realized I could still see my breath on each exhale and I laughed. Apparently I’ve finally acclimated to the weather. Never before would I have taken the same delight in a temperature that allowed your breath to be seen at 1:30 in the afternoon.

Back at the house now where the sea is steadily filling up our little inlet. Soon it will be up to the tree roots and the sun will be resting on top of the western hills. Must turn the heavier clothing around so the damp spots get a few more minutes of sun. A nice cup of tea is the only possible end to such a spectacular afternoon. Yep, pretty great day here if you ask me : )

Once Upon A Time

As Julie Andrews once sang, "let's start at the very beginning!" It does seem like a good place to start today.


Flights on all accounts were great. Gregg spent time with me at LAX and made sure I had something to eat before boarding. His hugs and smiles made it hard to say goodbye to my LA family and home, but easy to get on the plane with confidence. With Bruce's help (hypnotherapy person), I really had no trouble, anxiety or fear on the plane.



In addition, Jeff gave me this faceless Buddha and although the Buddha refuses to ever be in picture focus (you'll see in future photos), he reminds me to be in the moment and have the adventure set before me. I caught the Buddha in a quiet grape contemplation just after dinner before the entertainment was announced.



As part of my send-off, the Brauns gave me a Sudoku book and I completed my first puzzle during some turbulence and paid no mind to the shaking and grumbling of the plane. For those of you who know me, you know that this is a huge improvement! I did get dehydrated on the long flight and ended up pacing up and down the 747 and spending time in the 'toilet'. And although it was horrible - bad headache and nausea for the last hour of the flight, it didn't detract from the trip itself. Besides, now I can say I know how to use those little vomit bags in the seat pocket. LOL



Auckland Airport is small compared to LAX, and they have a clear understanding of just who travels in and out of their airport - witness the quote emblazoned across their exit doors. But before I was able to have my first intake of fresh NZ air, I had to declare my thrift store wool sweater and my used hiking boots. Both items were examined and not confiscated. Thankfully, as I use them on a daily basis!


For those who have met FedoraMan, he was also quite eager to exit the airport and have a look at the NZ sky.


Once on board the flight to Christchurch, I was able to catch a first glimpse of the NZ coastline.



And of course I was comforted to know that anywhere in the world you go, you'll always have the MythBusters at your side.


Anthony and his wee son met me at Christchurch and drove the 4.5 hours south to Waitati. Anthony is a great car guide - full of knowledge and information about NZ places, features, politics and culture.



And his toe-headed son looks like it could be the child of Suzanne.


Julie met me at Anthony's and after a tour around the yard where Anthony and his son have worked very hard to turned the place into a garden, we headed off to the beach.


At last I'm off the plane, out of the airport, off the road and onto the sand. Still wearing what I started out in nearly 24 previous.



Julie's pretty psyched that she can finally show me the beauty that is to be found everywhere you turn in NZ.


Is there anything more to say?

Penguin Place

One of the coolest things I've done since arriving was to visit a penguin conservation area on the Otago Peninsula. Just 30 minutes from Dunedin city centre, the drive winds along the peninsula with views toward Port Chalmers (the main port for the city of Dunedin), Purakanui and the Pa (a fortified Maori site) just down the beach from my house.


Mark and I first stopped at the Royal Albatross Centre where the wind was so strong you could lean into it and not fall over. We didn't take the tour to see the birds nesting or flying, but later on in the day we saw several of these huge birds skimming the tops of the swell a few hundred meters out to sea. In this photo the wind is blowing pretty mightily. The way to tell? Notice the space between Mark's head and his hoodie.
[Note to Cameron: The wind would have taken our planes for a good long ride! Can we make paper airplanes that have the shape of an albatross' wing?]


At the penguin preserve, our guide used a system of tunnels and 'hides' that over look the bay to show us the penguins. Zoom in on the Google Map and you can make out the trail system. (Look for the top of a white vehicle in the upper left quadrant - the walking trails lead from there toward the beach.) In the photo above, we're in a hide looking out at a penguin.


Our best view found us just 10 feet from a pair of penguins preening in their penguin 'apartment.' The conservancy built these little structures to encourage nesting - much of the natural habitat has been destroyed by pastureland. These Yellow-eyed Penguins are quite rare and also endangered. 20 years ago this particular colony had just 8 pair of birds. The total population at the preserve is now above 70, but it has taken that long to quadruple the colony. The Yellow-eyed Penguin Trust website has a lot of additional information.


We also saw fur seals. There are four in this picture - can you find them? : ) I left the picture a little bigger to help.

Mark had two missions to accomplish while in NZ - see a glacier and see penguins. This day trip definitely took care of the penguin mission and when pictures are posted about our 2000k drive around the South Island, you'll see how we managed to get up close and personal with a glacier.



For now, here's a photo of the little bay where we watched the penguins.
[Note to Mark S.: 1 - 2 foot swell - I'm still looking for that perfect wave.]

7 Layered

It's been great making new friends and meeting lots of people in Waitati and Dunedin. Nearly everyone has expressed surprise that I would visit in winter. It is cold and I've entered a world where the weather moves quickly from rain to sun and clear blue sky to clouds to sleet and snow. More than one person has, with a hint of glee, told me that every day in Dunedin you experience all four seasons and so far they've been right on the mark. Here's the city's weather page.


Dressing is a puzzle all to itself. One needs layers - pants under skirts with long-johns on the bitter days - the most I've worn so far: 6 tops and 3 bottoms. Julie, here with a rock, shows off her NZ style.


I think Julie left the house today with 5 bottoms, but she was going to the Winter Solstice and was planning to be out in the elements. In this photo she's not got all her layers yet - and her provisions for the festival are in the foreground.

Hats, scarves, gloves and wristies are an absolute on the colder days. And everything has to be interchangeable and easily carried. For instance, on a rainy day you're going to want a at least 2 shirts, a sweater and a rain jacket, but head into the Central Library where it's super warm and you have to peel down to just a long-sleeve shirt. Why do I know this? Because the library has internet and as you know from my earlier post, getting on-line wasn't as easy as hoped. Also, the library is a great resource to check for upcoming events, conduct research (I have a few assignments from various friends), and catch up on light reading.


The elements recently have dumped snow at sea level turning the city streets into huge swaths of ice. Once the sun comes out it all melts pretty well, but until then walking and driving are treacherous. I drove home last night at 10:45 after waiting 2+ hours for the road to open. Snow was hitting the the hills between Waitati and Dunedin (300 meters at highest road pass I believe) and as I drove it was coming down in heavy flurries. This morning as I drove back into town it looked like about 8 inches had come down last night. And the views were just beautiful.


With the snow and ice it's been slow-going on the road and unlike the U.S., you don't always find barriers between your car and the cliff (or the ocean or the lake or the river), so driving slow is key to not ending up in the ditch. As I came back over the hill this evening the Waitati Volunteer Fire Crew were out assisting a driver whose car was off the road - he looked unhurt as I drove by at about 20kph.

Mark, who has been visiting for the last 10 days, and I drove around a big part of the South Island and just barely made it from the West Coast to the East Coast before all the passes were closed. The first serious winter storm has caught everyone by surprise - Queenstown has basically been shut down and Central Otago is also pretty cut-off right now. More on our 2000k drive around the South Island soon.


As some of you have read in my emails - a hottie is the most important thing you can have during the winter. This is mine - Julie gave it to me my first night here and it's my new best friend. Really.


The other thing you need, unless your house has great insulation and central heat, is a room heater. Ours is an 11 fin oil heater. And if we close off the rest of the house (a sheet hangs between the kitchen and our living room), it warms up the living space nicely. The warning label instructs users to never place clothing or other items on top of the heater due to fire potential, but I've not yet seen a room heater that didn't have something drying or warming on top if it. Here I'm drying out my boots after tramping around the Yellow-eyed Penguin Conservation Reserve today.

It's been raining steady now for several hours. Who knows what daylight will bring. Guaranteed a slow drive into town! Look for Penguin pictures tomorrow.

30 Daze

Well a month to the day and at last there is the promised blog. Blogging is easy once you have access to the internet. For Julie and I to connect we had to order the service and install the hardware/software ourselves. Not particularly daunting, but on the first call to the telecom people it wasn't clear whether or not our little community even had access to broadband. This took several days to resolve but it was finally confirmed we had the proper incoming wires. Our next step was to obtain an address to which the hardware could be delivered.


We have a lovely mailbox which Julie has painted with an inviting sun and our house number (it's wise to stay on good terms with the sun around here). Now, we assumed the Postman would deliver our mail without our having to let him know where we lived. It's a small community and Julie knows the Postman by name - he also happens to live right across the bay from our house and I can see his paddocks out my front window. But we've learned that he delivers to some 500 rural post boxes and that means a full day of driving a lot of backroads in all kinds of weather. And because Julie has lived in a few locations in the surrounding community, her mail was being kept at the Dairy.

The Dairy, in addition to providing milk, eggs and regular provisions, is also the perfect central location to have the postal boxes. Luckily, the day we went in to make arrangements for mail deliveries, the Postman was at the Dairy and we've sorted it all out. The broadband hardware box was sitting, with several other letters, waiting be be picked up. And, we now receive our mail at the Dairy where you can walk in and ask the person at the counter for your mail and you get a right friendly greeting, your mail, and if you're hungry, a package of Tim Tams. More on the Tim Tams another day.

Broadband box in hand we went back to our home on the hill and tried to connect to the world. Leaving the ugly details out, let us just say we had several days of difficulty that ended with a kind person at Julie's work making sure her computer was updated and in proper working order. All is well now and we are happily emailing, skypeing and reaching out to our family and friends near and far.

Because it's taken this long to get organized and because I have a heap of digital pictures, I'll do my best to post regularly - keeping you up-to-date on current happenings while reviewing some of the last 30 days.