Sun Came Out: Wanaka, Queenstown and back to Christchurch

I am happy to report that positive thinking prevailed. The weather for my last three days in New Zealand was fantastic!

The day I last posted, the rain held off long enough for us to visit the Lake Hawea Sheep Station. There, we met Dougal Burton, who is a third generation sheep farmer. There are 10,000 sheep on their land, out of a total of 40 million sheep in all of New Zealand! To read more about the Burton family and their business you can go to http://www.lakehaweastation.co.nz/.

They had just been shearing last week, and we got to see some of the wool. All the shearing is done by professionals. Dougal told us that wool in general can sell from anywhere from $1000 to $100,000 per bag. A bag is about the size of two large garbage bags in the US.

Dougal treated us to a real live sheep herding deomstration by the working dogs. Unfortunately, one terrier got a little carried away and kind of messed up the demo. We got the idea, though. Note from the photo that Pam has dried off from her bike ride the other day.

That night, I saw the most beautiful sunset ever over Lake Wanaka. I love this little town. If I move to New Zealand, that's where I'm going to live (no, I am not moving to New Zealand).

The next day was the best day of biking for me. The scenery was beautiful and we did 43 miles before lunch. Thankfully, lunch was at a winery. Here I am going up the last hill:

From there, it was off to Queenstown, the adventure capital of New Zealand. They are best known for having commercialized bungee jumping. I did not jump from a bungee, choosing instead to relax in the hot tub at the lovely Nugget Point Resort. Nugget Point is a boutique resort and family owned operation, and I would highly suggest staying there if you are out that direction. look them up at http://www.nuggetpoint.co.nz/. You can see how pretty it is in our group photo, and in this photo of my friends, Debra and Larry.

The weather was so good, we decided to make another run at Milford Sound. We got to go! What an experience. We flew in a small plane 40 minutes each way from Queenstown to Milford, then took a 2 hour boat cruise. I think you will be able to tell the plane pictures from the cruise ones. Note that we were REALLY close to the waterfall - the boat pulled up so near it that my hair was wet! Brrrrr!

Sadly, it was time to say goodbye to all the Backroads gang that day. It was such a fun trip, made all the more so by our excellent guides, Paul and Eoin. Thanks guys, for making my trip special! The blog salutes you.

Although it was chilly, at least for Texans, the weather in Christchurch was sunny and clear the next day, as I wrapped up my Kiwi adventure. I got to spend the day with Jenny Meadows from the St. David's Writer's Group. She's over in New Zealand for two months, and left about when I did. We had a perfect day and I am really bummed we did not take a photo together. We did love this sculpture because it reminded us of Austin:

And, the begonias in the Botanical Garden were not to be missed!

I made it to Sydney and took possession of my flat in Bondi yesterday. Let's just say there will not be any idyllic shots of the building on the blog. It is, however, clean and well located. More on Sydney soon. Good on ya!

New Zealand is a Green Place: Rain, Rain Go Away

In the last 48 hours, we have discovered one reason New Zealand is so green.

When it rains here, they do not mess around.

I am sort of bummed out today because I was supposed to be flying over Milford Sound right now, and am not doing so because of the weather. Bummer. Since we cannot control the forces of nature, I am posting to the blog instead.

A few words about my stay at Lake Moeraki Wilderness Lodge - that place rocks. Check it out at http://www.wildernesslodge.co.nz/. The first night, we went to feed some eels. Here is Cory the naturalist with the eels. I fed them some pork tenderloin, which they seemed to like. My friend Deborah was much better at feeding them though.

The second day it was raining, but we still went on a walk to the beach, which was beautiful even though it was full of sandflies. Here I am on the beach:

The next day we were supposed ot have out longest and prettiest bilke ride of the trip. A huge storm moved in during the night, the likes of which I have not seen since the eve of the Gretchen 2.0 party in LaGrange last year! That storm dumped about 4 inches of rain, which was about the same as we got yesterday. I am certain it was raining sideways at one point. I chose not to bike, as did most folks. My friend Pam was hard core and knocked out 51km, here she is afterwards.

Our guide, Eoin (Owen), is Irish. He knows how to describe what type of rain is coming down in 20-30 different terms. Yesterday we moved from "wet" to "terrible." It stopped long enough for me to take this photo of a burned out pickup in front of a cafe:

No one biked up the Haast Pass, a 15k, 3000 foot climb. I did get this photo at the top:

We're now in Lake Wanaka, here was our first view of it, again in a quick break in the rain action:

Today may be better after all, even though it is threatening. Here was the sunrise this morning just outside my room.

Still having a great time. Otago region, where we are now, has wineries! And sheep. Plan for the rest of the day here is to visit a sheep station and a winery. A pretty good day if you ask me.

Bula from Fiji

Bula (hello) from Fiji!

Everyone says travel's not what it's cracked up to be. Sometimes I wonder, even I don't really belive it in my heart. I still love travel.

At the moment I'm on Denarau Island, Fiji, staying at a fabulous resort. My dear pal Sharon is en route even as we speak, and tomorrow we'll go to another island and another fabulous resort. So life is good.

Except for two small things:

1. I have no baggage and have not had my stuff for two days now.

2. It is pissing rain.

I can deal with #2. let's face it, I'm no sun goddess. And #1 was sort of funny yesterday. Today, it's less funny. You have to realize I have all my things for six weeks of travel in some fairly diverse climates, and that's a lot of stuff if you're me. The worst part is, no one at Air Pacific (Fiji's official airline, not the most sophisticated enterprise ever) seems to have a definite idea on when exactly the baggage might arrive. Maybe tomorrow, maybe not...

In the mean time, they're giving me $50 Fijian dollars per day to spend however I want. That's about US $35 for all you currency junkies. I got this great outfit, fashion police look out!

On the plus side, the book is coming along well. Here is one place where I have been writing:

Which looks out at this:

I'm sure it's even nicer in the sunlight. I'll let you know. And in any case, it;s right outside my room. So I'll stop complaning now and go have a cocktail.

Portland and San Francisco

As if I have not been on the road enough lately, I spent the first week in December in the west coast of our lovely US of A. Except, it was not so totally lovely that week. It all started when I flew into Portland on Sunday night, into hurricane like winds. You may not believe this, but I swear it is true. Just read the Oregonian:
http://blog.oregonlive.com/breakingnews/2007/12/sunday.html

In Portland, I was visiting my sister Laurel. She was in transition between places to live, so we stayed at the Avalon Hotel, which is WICKED. If you go to Portland you simply must stay there.

We got to have dinner at Veritable Quandary, which was super yummy. And, we got to move Laurel into her cute new house near Hawthorne Avenue. It even stopped raining that day just in time for the move. Here are some photos. The U-Haul part was especially fun...



From there it was off to San Francisco to catch up with some old friends for a few days. The weather was: raining! It did get sunny the last day, which was nice. I stayed at Lory's house in Pacific Heights. She has moved into a new place which is just fabulous. Her shower pressure was a bit lacking, but she's had it fixed since and is super happy. I also go to see Mary Ragan, Corbin and Ho at their fantastic house in Menlo Park. And, I caught up with Michelle and Becky. We hit the Christmas party scene Friday, here we are all dolled up (except for me - that sweater needs to go).


When I got home after being on the road for two weeks, I was convinced I was done traveling until Australia and New Zealand in February. Since then, however, a couple of January Vegas trips snuck onto the calendar. More detail on these later.