Wednesday, Nov 9th, Queenstown


Greetings!

We slept in this morning after picking up BT from the airport last night.  Her flight was delayed, and we spent the evening watching a Eurasian Blackbird from the porch and planning today's activities.  We're looking forward to seeing as much as we can of New Zealand's South Island.  As we do, BT will help us learn more about birds, plants, and how amazing are the views of New Zealand's mountains.

Today, we drove into a nearby shopping center to find a guide to New Zealand's birds.  We found one on the way to Glenorchy, in a collective of farm buildings converted to shops.  Our drive to Glenorchy was one of the most beautiful short road trips imaginable.  We stopped at trailhead, and hiked down to a small lake where kayakers and boaters were enjoying the day.

The last stop we made was at the Little Paradise Lodge & Wild Dream Garden.  This bed and breakfast nestled in a huge garden has been the work of the lives of the most talented of owners for the past thirty years.  We wandered over only a small portion of the property, but came away as impressed as we have ever been over the immense skill and dedication with which they have applied to both the house and the garden.  

To see the photos taken today, click on Wed, Nov 9th, Queenstown.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tuesday, Sep 19th, Bucharest, Romania

Image
Greetings! When the revolution came to Romania in 1989, one of the most shocking news that emerged to the rest of the world was the number of children that were living in orphanages in complete squalor.  In order to fulfill Ceausescu's grand plan to build Romania into a super-power, he encouraged (required) mothers to increase the number of children they bore to absurd numbers.  All families were to have seven children, and bonus were given for every child beyond that.   Abortions were illegal, and housing was distributed to large families.  At the time of the revolution, over 100,000 children were living in 1700 orphanages at a subsistence level barely sustainable.  This morning, we met Ionut, a 36-year old who told us about that history as a result of his research after attending school with some of the children of the orphanages. Most of our group went to see Ceausescu's house this afternoon, while Pat and I went to the Museum of Geology.  We took ...
Read more

Thursday, Sep 14th, Sibiu, Romania

Image
Greetings! Today was a transit day from Sighisoara to Sibiu.  On the way, our guide (Joe) took us to his home in Targu Mures.  The family homestead his grandparents built, it is a continually-remodeled and expanded one-story structure containing many stories.  Joe and his brother own it now, and he proudly revealed all of its secrets of his childhood.  Pat commented that it was much more liveable than her grandfather's home house in Italy.  I took the opportunity to photograph family member photos displayed in the living room to use in an Ancestry.com family tree I'm playing with for Joe's family. Next, we went to the Salina Turda Salt Mine.   Like something out of a science fiction movie, this enormous hole in a dried salt lake is a must to see.  Not only is the mine itself a spectacular work of man, but so is the adaptation of its insides to accommodate the thousands of visitors who descend sixteen floors via impressively-lighted and speedy elevators...
Read more

Saturday, Oct 22nd, Mackay

Image
Greetings! Well, it seems we're taking you all on an internet travel.  On Thursday, in Arlie Beach, we joined about twenty-five holiday snorkelers out on the Great Barrier Reef.  RedCatAdventures provided us with an 8-hour double-dive, and lots of very speedy, DJ-enhanced, very wet racing around and between the WhitSunday Islands.  We don't know when we've ever been as wet and wind-blown out of the water. But the very important lesson learned was to make every effort beforehand to waterproof your cell phone.  Nothing in the boat avoided getting soaked.  Not in the tightest wrapping, in the most secure hole, did the backpack holding the cell phone survive.  So a week after finding the best computer geeks in Cairn to try to fix our precious and essential Apple MacAir (and eventually buying a new MacAir from JB High-FI ), we found the best computer geeks in Mackay (who were again unsuccessful in repairing what seawater will do), and eventually bought a new G...
Read more