Happy New Years e-mail: January 5 2009
Kia Hari Te Tau Hou!
I hope everyone is happy, healthy and relaxing after the holidays.
Christmas here in New Zealand was very mellow. Without the family and friends it really didn't seem like the holidays this year. We spent Christmas Eve at home watching American movies on TV and Christmas Day enjoying the Summer sunshine that has finally appeared. We decided not to exchange gifts and save our money for road trips instead, although I did cook a yummy dinner for us.
Almost the whole of New Zealand goes on holiday for at least 2 weeks during Christmas (and it is "Christmas" here, none of that PC American lingo for the Kiwis). With the Dunners (those that live in Dunedin) away and the students still out on Summer break, Dunedin has been sooooo quiet. Only cruise ship tourists during the day and no one is out after 5 pm, the city feels like a ghost town!
We did some curling at the ice rink here in Dunedin earlier in the week. Curling is an ancient Scottish sport that involves sliding granite "curls" across the ice in order to get it in the center of a bulls-eye down on the other side of the court. You sweep the ice with brushes in order to speed up the curl to get it closer to the center or slide your opponents out of the center. It's kind of like the Italian bocce on ice. It was actually a lot more fun that I thought and if any of you come visit us, we are definitely going curling! We also did a little night hike to see glow worms in a canyon just NE of town. It was amazing! They looked like constellations on the canyon walls!
With the University closed for 2 weeks and my boyfriend unable to work, we decided to take a day trip on NYE to an area on the South coast called "The Catlins." It's a beautiful, rugged coastline about 1.5 hours drive south of us. There is lots of native forest, waterfalls, dramatic sea caves, and quirky Kiwi settlements (not big enough to really call a town). Since we are getting 16 hours of daylight right now you can really pack in a lot in one day. We did some great hikes in the podocarp forests - a very old family of trees that exists from Gondwanaland. We even had a crazy run-in with little fan tail birds that decided to put on a show for us, they were hilarious!
After a day to re-group and pack lunches we were on the road again. This time we headed inland to Central Otago, which is gold mining country turned wine country. And in fact, it looks a lot like the Sierra foothills in CA, although there are some amazing rock formations and scenery that was used in filming Lord of the Rings. We continued on up to Queenstown, adrenaline capitol of the world where you can find all sorts of death-defying activities to empty your wallet. We did a beautiful hike in high alpine beech forest on lake Wakatipu. There were amazing lichens, mosses, and ferns, and the waterfalls were roaring because it had been raining earlier in the day. After dinner in a very crowded Queenstown, we drove back to Central Otago and stayed in a B&B in Alexandra. The next day we spent wine tasting (where I learned the true meaning of 'minerality'), picking cherries at a small pick-your-own farm, and enjoying the small towns in gold country.
Our road trips were so fun and it allowed us to finally see the New Zealand that everyone raves about. Although, we did have to deal with the Kiwi drivers.....many of the roads are narrow and/or winding but we consistently had cars tail-gating so close we could see the driver's blood pressure rising. We were even passed by a double fuel tanker on a blind curve! Even so, I can't wait to explore more!
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