Under the New Zealand Skies

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You may be wondering, just what are Duane and Charlotte up to lately. Well, other than working on our tans in the lovely summer weather....

We spent a few days in Christchurch. This city really impressed us with it's parks, gardens and general loveliness. We checked out the Cathedral square, with a beautiful cathedral, giant sized chess game and buskers. The botanical garden was so fragrant that you could smell it from the parking lot, probably still 200 meters from the gardens!

From there we zipped along to Lake Tekapo, which is somewhat remnicent of Lake Louise. Crystal blue lake and beautiful mountain views. There is a little church with a nice scenic lookout. The wild flowers here are amazing. I'm not sure what these flowers are called, but it's like a rainbow everwhere. One of the highlights was a real gas BBQ with flames (we'd seen only BBQs that looked like giant griddles). We had the best steaks we'd had since we left home!

On the subject of food, the food has been very tasty here. The kiwis like their pies, you can buy all sorts of meat pies. They also love to put eggs on burgers (Duane's new favorite) and beets and avocados on sandwiches. We have been mostly making our own meals while camping. Also, there is no Kraft Dinner here. Sigh.

We also checked out a place called Oamaru. The main highlight here is the penguins. From a viewing platform, we watched about 200 little blue penguins scurry up the rocky ocean shore to go feed their chicks in nests. These are the smallest penguin species, they are only 30 cm tall. We literally did see some crossing the road as well.

We are now in Te Anau, in the South West corner of the island. We checked out a beautiful day hike here. We are headed to the Milford Sound next, which is said to be one of the most scenic parts of the country.

On December 4th, we will be housitting in Dunedin until January 15th. We hope to do some working and we can't wait to just stay put for awhile!

We hope that everyone is well at home. We think of you all very often. Duane's grandma and my cousin Tanya and her family are especially in our prayers these days.

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Photos

a few of the 39 million sheep
the sheep look like polka dots on the hills

no joke!
The little guys were everywhere even hiding under parked cars!

World smallest movie theatre
We watched "The Evening" in this tiny theatre with 14 seats.

beautiful gardens
It seems most cities and towns have beautiful gardens and parks

Duane on the Kepler track
we did some tramping here, (that's kiwi for hiking).

Comments

[Lisa]

loving the pictures
The flowers are beautiful! I would totally be taking lots of pictures of them too. The scenery looks great and it's good to hear you guys are out enjoying the scenic hiking ("tramping") adventures NZ has to offer. The pic of the penguin crossing is also pretty funny.

[Adam]

A fried egg on a burger is also common in North America, land of the burgers. This practice is commonly known as a "mega burger" or an "ultimate burger". Adam, resident burger expert.