What does Op.27, No. 2 have to do with anything? Just a big smile and a good laugh no matter how it turns out. What is this riddle, this vagary? Just the ramblings of someone up for nearly 20 hours. David Letterman is firing on all pistons tonight. Too bad you’ve already seen this episode (john Madden look alike). Tomorrow AM at work will surely go by quickly. No matter if you’ve think I’m delusional. I can confirm that I am quite lucid. Will it float? Will it float? Will it float? What are we playing for Allen? Dave tonight were [View Full Entry]

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Done! All Done. Took a while but here are photos from the last few days of Road Trip 2006-07. Now back to real time. "Whips and Spurs" this weekend -- Social/fashion event of the season. Search the phrase and add Elersllie. [View Full Entry]

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Toured the Christchurch today. My first day to take it slow in nearly two weeks. OK art museum, great public gardens, and the new James Bond. On to Kaikora late in the afternoon.. [View Full Entry]

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Arrive in kaikoura just in time for this sunset. [View Full Entry]

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Repeat: The proof is in the photos and their descriptions so I will leave most of the explanation to those devices. Up early and toured the town, including the cathedral art museum and the Cadbury factory. Left Dunedin heading north for Christchurch. More wildlife hunting with little success. The weather was fantastic and the water aquamarine. Christchurch is flat and sprawled. Checked into the hostel and headed out for dinner and then on to a bar called the Stock Market or something similar. I watched the markets close across time zones as the hours passed by. I spent a good deal [View Full Entry]

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The proof is in the photos and their descriptions so I will leave most of the explanation to those devices. Left Invercargill around 10am and headed east towards Dunedin. I realized ten minutes out of town that I had forgotten to capture Invercargill on camera. Fortunately I had a postcard of the town at hand. We stopped at various sites along the road, which was the southerly most route that we could take. Seals and penguins were elusive to our search as were the dolphins at Porpoise Bay. We were not disappointed by the wildlife on the Otago Peninsula (Dunedin). The [View Full Entry]

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New Year’s in Queenstown was a lot of fun. We went out around 9:30pm and did a little bar hopping. Then we moved out to the central waterfront park for the fireworks display, which turned out to be eight minutes of fizzle. Back to the Buffalo for pool, music and drinks. It was entertaining to see a group of women aged 50 to 60 that were trying to blend in as they chaperoned their teenage daughters/granddaughters. I called it a night around 3:30am only because I had the big bungy jump that morning. No sense trying to jump with no sleep [View Full Entry]

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We left Te Anau early to make the two plus hour drive to Milford Sound. Beautiful scenery that makes the two hours slip by in moments. The car climb the steep roads and got us to the other side safe and sound. We were lucky that the weather was in our favor, as the photos document. Please feel free to enjoy the Milford Sound photos I won't attempt to fill this blog up with text. After the boat cruise we made the four hour drive back to Queenstown for New Year’s. Fun time….. [View Full Entry]

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Brief and to the point. Left Wanaka later than planned. Stopped at a pharmacy to pick up flu medication. Stopped at Puzzle World just outside of town. Then on to Queenstown for just a brief tour and visit with a friend of Marcos (we’ll be back in Queenstown for New Year’s). Leave Queenstown early afternoon for Te Anau, our base camp before our onward march to Milford Sound. The drive from Qtown to Te Anau reminded me of the landscape around Eugene along the I-5 corridor (dry hay fields surrounded by rolling hills). Te Anau is on a lake of the [View Full Entry]

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Lots of driving these days. I could write and write and write but would be unable to satisfactorily describe what we did and saw in any reasonable amount of time. To be honest I just want to post a few photos. I’ve seen glaciers and glacier valleys, but never a glacier quite like Fox. The glacier brings together ice/snow and heat/rain - a glacier in a rainforest. We tramped in the rain for nearly three hours. Up narrow cliff face trails and down loose gravel/stone paths and finally onto the ice. The ice was hundreds of feet thick and an ever-changing [View Full Entry]

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