The Walk

I took my camera with me this morning. Won't you come along for a walk with me?

First path

Second path

Plethora of ferns in the bush before getting down to town

Not so pretty part of the walk

This is when you know you are in New Zealand

Some of the steps I take back up

City view

More steps

Path in the bush

Wild flowers

Last view before heading home

As you can see, this place is hilly. And picturesque. And green.

It is also full of pathways that meander through neighborhoods, streets and bushes. They twist and turn, and you never quite know where they will end up. It's ironic for me to be taking these paths everyday right now. It's a symbol of our transition in life.

We are not quite sure where our paths will go, but we know that along the way, there are some beautiful things, and not so beautiful things that we will encounter. And that these paths always go forward, and do lead somewhere. We just need to make sure that we choose the right ones.

Thank you for coming along on this ride with me.

The Situation

Each day that I read the weather forecast here, I have wanted to share it on the blog. Maybe because we came from the land of 'no weather' that is called California, the weather here has been a bit of a shock.

To give you a glimpse of what happens around here meteorologically, here is an excerpt of today's "Situation" (don't you like how they call it, too?) from the Otago Daily Times.

"A ridge of high pressure slowly pushes onto the South Island while a low over the central Tasman Sea extends a warm front over western areas of the North Island and moves slowly south. Fronts east of the country move away to the northeast. A low approaching from the Tasman Sea crosses the South Island tomorrow night. A southwest flow then gradually spreads over New Zealand on Thursday and persists on Friday and Saturday, with several fronts passing over the south of the South Island."

In short, today, we are going to have some 'fine spells' (beautiful sunny day), and the next few days ... well, who knows!

Around Here

Our house here faces East, over looking the Otago Peninsula. On most days, even with clouds, I wake up to see the sunrise. Some days, I can tell exactly which way the wind is blowing by the way the clouds are (quickly) moving. And occasionally, there will be nothing but the shimmering light of the sun coming up to the clear blue sky.

Around here, I take a lot of walks. After I drop the children off to school, I put on my ipod, and I walk down the hill, just so that I can walk up again (for my heart). I listen to my favorite podcasts (This Story, and This American Life) downloaded effortlessly from the computer. It makes me feel closer to home somehow, even if I am thousands of miles away.

On my walk, I see a lot of familiar plants (to the ones in California), and a lot of unfamiliar birds. I take note at how a lot of things here are the same as back home, and yet...so different. I also question little things. People dry their laundry outside here even on cold wet days. How come Californians with more sunshine than we ever need, don't do that? Most of the mailboxes here have "No Junk Mail" right on them. Does that work? How come we never thought to put that on ours instead of complaining about how much junk mail we get daily? I also question more meaningful questions. Life questions. Why are we here? And where are we going?

Around here, I am learning a lot. Big things. Little things. And I remind myself that I am very lucky to be living life to its fullest.

Life without the internet

Near Allans Beach, Otago Peninsula

Living space in our house

Beach north of Port Chalmers

We are back. Online, that is.

We spent the last couple of weeks visiting internet cafes, and the library for access to the internet. And while it is a good reminder how much more challenging it is to live without internet access at home, it was not always fun (and quite expensive, I might add).

Needless to say, I am glad we are 'online' and connected again.

We have explored some more of our new neighborhood. We have also learned a lot about living here, and the pros and cons of life outside of the US.

Sometimes, it takes being away from 'home' to see things more clearly. I believe that this is one of those times.

The Road Trip

Lake Tekapo

Lupine grows wild everywhere here

View from our cottage

Kapiti Point, where we saw yellow-eyed penguins yesterday!

I may have to write a book to really share with you our experiences so far. And it has not even been a month!

I have just a few minutes to share some photos with you, and to tell you that, yes, we found some sun finally. We also got to see friends who we shared memories, and laughs with. Over all it was a good two week on the road, seeing this beautiful country. Our last three days at Lake Tekapo were somewhat surreal. Our cottage at Parkbrae Estate literally faced the lake, and the picturesque church. We saw it all, right in front of us. It was the first and last sight we had to our days that thankfully were full of sunshine.

It seems as though summer has arrived in Dunedin as well. We are not taking it for granted, though. It can change anytime. So we are enjoying it while we can, as much as we can.

And so continues our transition to our new life. Although the pictures show unbelieveably beautiful sights, wonderful weather, and happy children, we do go through hard times (well, not so much the children - they are so adaptable, aren't they?). It's only natural to live through and grow from these new challenges. We remind ourselves daily that we are living in a foreign land, no matter that the people here speak the same language.

We are getting used to driving on the other side of the street, and understanding the different lingo of the Kiwis, and learning about the weather here. But you know, it's still hard when you have to set up the phone, the internet, the bank accounts, the school, the tax ID, in a place you barely know... You would think they would be simple, but if everything was that easy, why would we call this an adventure?

Anyhow, we still don't have internet at our new house, so I won't be posting as often for the next few days. Enjoy the photos! There's more to come, as always.

MacKenzie Country

Moeraki Boulders

Lupines grow wild here, everywhere, and I love it!

We were lucky to get to spend three days at our friends' bach (holiday home for the Kiwis) by Lake Ohau, in the middle of the south Island.

On the way to the lake, we stopped one night in Oamaru where we got to see little Blue penguins in the wild... That was a pretty amazing experience, and it was not in some crazy wild place. It was a in parking lot by the Oamaru penguin colony, at 11pm, for free. Sorry no pictures. They are very shy and cameras are prohibited. We felt like we had completed a mission, however. A memory that will last a long time for all of us.

We also got to see the Moeraki boulders - huge round rocks washed up on the beach. Of course we were joined by numerous Japanese tourists taking photos after photos of themselves by the rocks.

The first two days at Ohau, the clouds hung low. We knew we were in an amazing natural scene, but it was not until the day before we left when the clouds lifted, and before us was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen.

We are still on the road, exploring more of this country. Stay tuned!

Tunnel Beach

Sunny day.

Thank you sun goddess!

We had a few errands left to do, but we also wanted to explore Tunnel Beach, supposedly just outside of town.

One nice thing about Dunedin is that it really is accessible to nature/ wildlife/ beaches. Within a few minutes out of town, we came to a road with a clearly marked sign for Tunnel Beach. The grassy path went down a steep hill for about 15 minutes before we were met with a long tunnel that took us even further down. The beach greeted us at the end. It was a little dramatic, actually.

The beach was not big, but the sandstone cliffs surrounding it was most impressive. The ocean was roaring, too, like a creature in itself. It was not too dissimilar from a beach in Santa Cruz. Just a bit more rugged. More wild. More New Zealand.

How wonderful to have had the warm sun shining on us most of the day today.

We head up north and inland tomorrow. More exciting stories to come...

Sandfly Beach

Second attempt at looking for penguins.

Another unsuccessful one. But we kind of expected not to see them because we went in the morning when they are often out fishing at sea. On the beach, there are blinds where you can quietly wait for them to come back 'home' in the evening. We will have to do that another day.

Sandfly Beach is just north of Paradise Track where we went a few days ago. The access to the beach was much easier, and the beach is rather impressive. We found a lone seal sleeping on the beach, and the boys spotted some sea lions on the rocks. Claire and I saw the black birds that we had never seen before. Apparently, they are called the 'oyster catchers'.

From our time at Sandfly Beach, we went over to the other side of the peninsula. University of Otago has their marine research lab/ aquarium there, on the harbor. We were familiar with many of the creatures there, having lived on the coast for a while ourselves, but there were some different looking things that perked our interest as well.

The sun came out on the way home, so we headed over to Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world, apparently. Jim and Momo walked up the street, reporting back that it really is steep, impressively so. I would have gone, too, but my little daughter had just woken up from a nap, and a power walk up that hill was not in her card at that moment. No worries, we have a lot more time to do it again.

We ended our (long) day at the Botanical Garden. I will post more about that later, but it may perhaps be my favorite spot in Dunedin so far...

The Weather

pile of hail

I have been postponing writing this post.

I wanted to see if things may change. If we were in some strange weather pattern. If the locals have been joking with us.

I am pretty certain that what we have experienced here, weather - wise, is the norm.

Our Kiwi friend, Rob, warned us that we are not in 'Cali-Kansas' anymore. We are not going to get the several days of sun, several months of dry weather, or even two days of either in a row.

Dunedin is notorious for its changeable weather. It is mostly cool, windy, and rainy. On top of that, though, things can change at any time. And we mean, any time!

When we arrived on New Year's day, a mere week ago, the skies were clear, the air was sweet and warm. The driver told us that he had been cold the week prior, and even hailed. No way, we thought. This is beautiful.

Well, when the weather is fine here (that how they describe a sunny day), it is an amazingly beautiful place, no question. But we have seen a lot of the not so fine days. In fact, as I write this, it is HAILING, with strong winds, temperature hovering 45 F.

And it's supposed to be summer!

Adventure. That's what we are doing here, right? And the kids seem to have a good attitude toward it since they ran out to collect the hail, and are now are eating it with syrup!

Paradise track

Sunny morning. We cancelled plans to get cellphones. Who needs phones, really? And who knew when the weather would turn! Weather...a whole post about that later!

We jumped in the car, drove 20 minutes out to the peninsula, and started our first attempt at finding penguins.

A Kiwi friend told us that we could hike down to Boulder Beach, off of Paradise Track, and see some Yellow-eyed penguins. Not too far, he said. Maybe 800 meters?

The peninsula, as you can see in these pictures, is stunningly beautiful on a fine day. It reminded us of Big Sur back home in California. With sheep, of course.

We got to the beginning of the track, and sadly, the sign said that the beach was closed due to Penguin breeding season... Never mind. We pushed on. Who knew what was ahead when we had not been there before!

The trail went down steeply. Beautiful New Zealand birds sang. We met a few sheep along the way. But mostly, it was the view of the hills, the meadows, the ocean in front.

It was longer than 800 meters...and it was really all downhill (which means back uphill). But sooner than later, we did get closer to the beach. There was another 'beach closed' sign. So, we turned around, hiked back up hill, determined to have our second attempt be more successful.

Penguins or not, we had a wonderful hike this morning. That's success in itself, if you asked me. We were also proud of our children who managed a relatively difficult hike for kids with minimal whining!