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Published: February 21st 2010
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Greetings everyone!! This will be a short blog, but we visited a very cool point this weekend that I think you all will get a kick out of. We traveled for two days this weekend all the way to the bottom of the south island, to Invercargill, for a two-day assembly. Yesterday afternoon when the session had ended, we drove another half hour south to the southernmost point in the country, a tiny town called Bluff.
Here we gathered (with Hungry) for the obligatory photos beneath the Land's End sign. For those of us who don't think in kilometers (ourselves included, though we're slowly starting to after four months!), here are some conversions:
From New York City: 9,004 miles
From London, England: 11,374 miles
From the South Pole: 2,886 miles
Of course Florida wasn't on the sign, but if we compare it to the distance to New York, I think somewhere in the neighborhood of 8,000 miles is a good guess. It's crazy to think that you can't stand on any other major landmass on the planet and be closer to the South Pole than right there in Bluff (with the exception of Patagonia, the very southern tip
of South America). We figured the assembly is one of, if not THE, southernmost assemblies held anywhere in the world. Pretty nifty thought!
Now we are back in Queenstown and ready for another workweek. Our schedules have thankfully leveled out a little bit, but we're both very glad we don't have to do this job forever. I've been battling a head cold all weekend from our goofy schedule and lack of sleep, but today I am managing to feel a little more human. Next weekend we're planning a day trip (finally) to Milford Sound, which we've heard nothing but rave reviews about from everyone who's been there.
I will close with several humorous thoughts. On our drive from Invercargill to Bluff, we passed literally dozens of tractors chugging down the road, all brightly painted and waving banners. Wondering what was going on, we finally reached the front of the line and saw that it was in fact a tractor race of - get this - 1500 miles! They race their tractors from Bluff all the way to the top of the south island, to a town called Picton, and then all the way back down. We did the
math and figured at the slow speed they were traveling, they were looking at 80-90 HOURS to cover the distance. In a tractor!! Can you imagine?
We've also taken to scouring the newspapers here, searching for funny articles and headlines. Last week the front page bold headline read:
German Arrested with Sixteen Rare Jeweled Geckos. I'm not even kidding. Then, in the classifieds section of the Queenstown newspaper, we read these two ads:
To the British girl who works at Buffalo Bar: Look, I'm sorry for the kiss that night (maybe 3 months ago). It wasn't supposed to happen. One, maybe, but not the second one. XD Girlfriend required: I need a woman for my mate. He's 30, good-looking, outdoorsy, teacher, well-built, good laugh, bad dancer (needs teaching). Anything considered. If you needed a good laugh today, glad we could be of service!
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RKM
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funny articles and headlines
hi, hope you are not as ingnorant as you seem. smuggling those geckos is NOT funny at all. hope you have fun with your travels, but please have another think about what you said!