Our Quote

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

Kiwi Flag

Kiwi Flag

Friday, September 24, 2010

Enjoying the Queen

It has been a hectic last couple of weeks. Starting with the visit of my mom from good ol' Atlanta, Georgia.
For those of you who don't know, coming to our city is a very difficult, time consuming process (but we think it is worth it!)
Mom's trip included a 4.5 hour flight to Los Angeles
A 3 hour stop over in Los Angeles
A 13 hour flight to Auckland
A rest stop/overnight in Auckland
Then a one hour flight through earthquake stricken Christchurch followed by the last (an final flight) here to Invercargill.
Mom made it and was horribly chipper for a woman who just traveled for over 24 hours.

Mom just arrived!!!

Now that she was here, we had an action packed vacation for her!
Her first weekend we drove up to Dunedin to explore the beautiful Otago Peninsula. Mom really enjoyed seeing the "big city" of Dunedin. We packed in shopping, eating and enjoying the scenery.

Mom and I at Lighthouse Point in Bluff

The Otago Peninsula outside of Dunedin

Mom at Sandfly Beach

The Hills are Alive-With the Sound of Music

Little sheep, dotting the landscape

Our next trip was the "big one". We drove up to Queenstown to enjoy the beautiful surroundigs. Its no secret, I'm in love with the Queen!!! Queenstown is the most awesome city! It is clean, compact with great restauraunts and very international! It has everything you could want or need. Mom and I drove up and enjoyed a day of wine tasting around the Central Otago region, famous for its wine production. The day was perfect except for the massive storm system that was coming in.

Riding up on the Skyline Gondola. The Remarkables Mountain range is in the background

Mom and I-before the weather got bad...

Mom at the top of the Skyline in Queenstown

Little did I know, a giant storm of epic proportion was forming over the Tasman Sea and coming right at us. Not long after we got to Queenstown, it starting snowing. Not a little cute little snow. No, it was giant snow flakes pouring down out of the sky. It made it perfect. Everyone was out, hitting the ski slopes, it made it feel like a perfect winter day (except its spring here). We walked around, got hot chocolate and window shopped.

View of the Remarkables from our hotel

Snow coming in...

The next day, we went on a tour of the wine country. The tastings were much better than we ever experienced in California or Italy. In those places, you got a small 'splash' of wine, just enough to get your palate wet. No, not in New Zealand winerys! We got giant glasses of wine, actually each tasting was about a half a glass! We got 3-4 tastings at each winery and visited 4 wineries...Lets just put it this way...i'm SO glad we had a driver to take us back!!!

Driving the Central Otago wine region

Mom at Gibbston Valley Winery

Tasting room at Chard Farm Vineyard

Mom, after about 4 glasses of wine!

Snowy day in wine country!

Mom and our new wine friends

The next day, we drove up to beautiful Te Anau. The area there was jaw droppingly beautiful. It was a long day. We were driven to Manapouri where we got on a boat to cross Lake Manapouri to the famous Manapouri Hydroelectric Power Station. What makes this amazing is that someone had the thought to harness the energy of  a huge, deep lake and use it to generate electricity.

Map of where we are...

The Manapouri Power Station

Inside the Manapouri Hydroelectric Plant

What makes it even more amazing is the fact that there is NO HUMAN SETTLEMENT after the hydroelectric plant! There  is a small windy highway that goes from the shores of the Lake Manapouri and the power station up and across the mountians and down into the rainforests of Deep Cove and Doubtful Sound. It was amazing to get off the boat and be covered in snow. To get on a coach and drive almost straight up through snowy mountain passes. It was scary cause every now and then you would feel the bus do a little skid and the snow on either side was piled up several feet high. Even scarier was that it was a sheer drop off of several hundred feet on one side of the bus! We were driving this tortuous road and then all of a sudden, we started heading down. The scenery started changing...the snow was melting, the grass and plants became greener. All of a sudden, we came out of the high snow pass and down into a subtropical rainforest! I have never seen something so odd in my life! To go from alpine snow which was feet deep to a beautiful rainforest. Amazing!

Snowy mountain pass

Bruce in his snowy wonderland


Transition from snow to rainforest

We arrived at the dock in Deep Cove to get on our boat. From there, we went on a amazing 3 hour cruise of Doubtful Sound. The weather changed from snow and fog to pure sunshine during the journey. It was truly memorable.

Can you believe we were just in 2 feet of snow!

Mom enjoying a waterfall

Bond, James Bond...

Capturing the beauty of Doubtful Sound



Enjoying our cruise on Doubtful Sound!
We had a wonderful 3 weeks with mom visiting. Unfortunately we only have one week left but I think we have shown mom a good variety of New Zealand!

Check out all of the pictures from our tour and mom's visit to NZ by clicking here

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Silence the Lambs!

Spring is here and it seems like everything is renewing.
The days are longer, the weather is warmer...
The grass is green.
All the animals are having babies! First we noticed a couple of cute little wobbly legged calves, then all the sheep starting having their cute little lambs!
I thought it was so amazing to have little lambs in our back yard! You could see them playing together, following behind their moms...
It was beautiful at first...


New mom and her baby

Then the cute little lambs lost their cuteness...It started with the damn bleating at night. I didn't even know that was the sound that lambs make until I asked someone at work. Lambs bleat. All night long.
They bleat when they can't find their moms.
They bleat when they play.
They bleat cause they can.
And the most annoying of all...they bleat, A LOT, after 12 midnight.

It was cute, but now I see why they silence the lambs...

Aww..so cute...til night falls


little lamb...i think i'll call her "Chop"

I can't wait for spring to end!!!!