Last post from New Zealand

First of all, to answer the number one question about the last blog: Hokey Pokey is vanilla ice cream with bits of honeycomb toffee mixed in. Our Hokey Pokey ice cream was, in fact, that plus a generous bit of heaven.

Today, the weather was still unsettled. But we were treated to a trip out of the city. We headed west to the Waitakere Regional Park to see the rain forest. We got to see a kauri tree. (They were nearly felled to extinction by the lumber operations run by the early settlers and were saved mostly only by the lack of sophisticated equipment available at the time which limited accessibility to certain areas.)

 

Then we traveled on to the western coast to take in a bit of the 50km plus stretch of volcanic black sand beach at Muriwai. Apparently just three weeks ago the gannet birds had not returned yet from Australia to nest on the cliffs. But since then they have been showing up to stake out their nesting areas and to commence their adorable courtship and breeding rituals.

The stretch of black sand beach at Muriwai was striking and provided a good sample to add to our sand collection.

 

It’s especially sparkly sand and is supposedly very magnetic due to a significant iron ore content. I’ll have to test that out when we get home…which will be Monday. Tomorrow (Sunday) we leave the hotel at 5AM, fly to Sydney, then to Dallas and then to Miami arriving still on Sunday after doing the time warp thing over the dateline heading east. We’ll rest up there overnight before taking what will seem like a mere skip of a plane ride home.  Next travels? South Africa and Portugal…in less than 4 weeks. (We are making up for that ridiculously long 8 month hiatus before this trip.) Safe travels.

 

Auckland

Not much to write about for the past couple of days. Traveling here was not particularly noteworthy. And yesterday was full of professional meetings. By the time our 'free time' for dinner came around the weather (which had been unsuspectedly sunny and beautiful) had turned pretty bleak. So that Michael and I ended up just grabbing a bowl of soup at the nearby Irish Pub. We did get a  nice view back towards the city earlier in the day though:

 

Today's forecast included a 90% chance of rain/thundershowers. We walked along the waterfront where they have a couple of ex-Americas Cup yachts bobbing about but then were off to the War Memorial Museum. It's a great museum but unfortunately we ran through only a few selected exhibits (did you know that Kiwi birds lay eggs that are 1/4 the size of the actual bird?) on our way to the Maori Cultural Show. Given their Polynesian origins you can certainly see the similarities in their dances when compared to those we've seen in Hawaii or the Cook Islands. And the haka (war dance) must have been quite daunting if you were getting ready to fight them. Even the women looked pretty darn fierce.

No that's not a woman, I know. But that's pretty much the gist of the facial expressions in the dance...wide eyes and wagging tongues.

After that we rode up into the Sky Tower (in the first photo) for the view of the city from there. And then we were on our own for a late lunch. We went down to Princes Wharf and split some really wonderful shrimp and calamari. And then stopped in at Giapo's Gelateria in search of the local favorite ice cream flavor Hokey Pokey on the way back to the hotel.

The rain held off until just about then so we were REALLY lucky. The last group dinner is tonight with everyone else leaving tomorrow while we stay on until Sunday morning. What we end up doing tomorrow will be weather dependent. Fingers crossed that our luck holds and it clears again.

 

Wildlife and Fun Facts

This morning we headed out west to the Blue Mountains and the Waradah Cultural Center. Our first picture is of the Three Sisters rock formation that sticks up from the valley floor. Pretty rock. Pretty rock.

Then we spent some time in the cultural center itself to see a 30 minute presentation by some indigenous aboriginal people explaining part of their various traditions and demonstrating some of their traditional dances. Stopped for lunch in the little town of Luera where we had fabuous meat pies for lunch. And then on to the Featherdale Wildlife Park to see a vast array of Australian animals. Of course the biggest hits are always the koalas. Here’s the requisite photo of us beside one:

But here’s another much better picture of a koala on his own without our ugly mugs messing up his close up.

And we were also lucky enough to catch not only a glimpse of but an image of a wee joey:

BTW, kangaroo fun facts….did you know?

-        That females can store fertilized embryos for later use?

-        That they can also choose the sex of their offspring?

-        That they can alter the composition of their milk based on the age and needs of their joeys even when they have two totally different aged offspring nursing at the same time?

-        They can’t effectively move backwards – only forwards and then sideways if needed.

And while we are this little educational sidebar….I forgot to mention from the Great Barrier Reef part of the trip….did you know that all little Nemo clownfish are born male? And that if they lose the one female in their ‘family’ the next dominant male becomes a female? Guess they left that out of the Disney film.

Tonight we have our going away dinner here in Sydney as tomorrow we head off to New Zealand where we will be two time zones back closer to the U.S. but with two hours MORE between us time wise. (I'm so confused!)

Happy First Day of Spring!

Yes, today is the first day of Spring in Australia and New Zealand. Who knew? It just never occurred to me that there was any other way to mark the change of seasons than with the corresponding solstice or equinox, and yet apparently there is. (Luckily you all back home can still wait a few more weeks before you have to accept the fact that summer is over!)

As an aside, meanwhile, a quick check of Wikipedia reveals that in Ireland Spring traditionally starts on February 1st which seems downright insane given how bitterly cold it must still be in February in Ireland. On the other hand, in Sweden the meteorologists define the beginning of spring as the first occasion on which the average daytime temperature exceeds zero degrees Celsius for seven consecutive days. That makes some sense at least though this approach allows for Spring to start on different days depending on latitude and elevation.

Anyway, back here in Australia, we have a day of professional visits today so there won't likely be any pretty photos or funny stories. So I'll just mention dinner last night. We decided to stroll down to Chinatown. One little block is just crammed full of Asian restaurants. No way for us to know which one to pick so we chose the most crowded one. While eating our chili king prawns and noodles we noticed a long line snaking away from a tiny window next to a bakery. In the entire time we were eating the line never got any smaller. We had no idea what they were selling, but we were darn sure we wanted some.

So after dinner we joined the line. The sign said:
Emperor Cream Puffs
$.35 for 1
$1 for 3
$2 for 7
$4 for 15
$5 for 20
Fresh and hot

So we were in line to get the local equivalent of Krispy Kreme doughnuts!
Needless to say, at the back of the line we figured we'd get 3 just to see what they were like.
By the middle of the line we realized they were only about 1-1/2" in diameter so we had upped our intended order to 7. But by the front of the line we realized that if you bought 15 or more they actually packed them in a little kind of Tupperware container. So 15 it was.

I wish we'd had the camera, though the sign said 'no photos', because in this tiny little room - not much bigger than a king-sized bed, was one girl and an amazing little assembly-line machine that squirted out the dough on two sides of a cast-iron mold, snapped the sides together like a book, worked its way around like a little model train track, injected the custard and Voila! out dropped the little cream puffs right back in front at the window.

Very cute and VERY YUMMY!


 

Opera House

Today dawned clear and sunny which was a good thing since today was also all about the Sydney Opera House. We admired it and took pictures from across the way from Mrs. Macquarie's Point. Then we admired it and took pictures from inside. Then we admired it some more and took more pictures from a Harbor Cruise during lunch. We saw it from one angle after another which only proved the architect's goal since Mr. Utzon felt that the location of the Opera House out on a point such as it is required that the structure be visually interesting from all sides. And that it is. It is just stunning.
So here you go:

 

Sydney

Today is Saturday down under. It was a quiet day waiting for the rest of the group to arrive after their long flight from the States. Just as well, I suppose, since the weather was pretty bleak. Dreary and drizzling. But it was nice to sleep in and relax. We did some strolling. Went in search of one more inexpensive sweater (since I don't think I should wear the same one every single day for a week...). Checked out the Paddy's Market in search of little souvenirs. That sort of thing.

The group only consists of 10 people total including the two of us. And four of them have been on other trips with us, so learning everyone's names was pretty easy. Dinner was here in the hotel tonight and that was the whole day. Tomorrow we go sight-seeing. That means I will hopefully have better, closer, sunnier (dare I dream) photos of the sights of Sydney. But meanwhile, here's the one that Michael took through the window of the plane when we were landing yesterday....

 

I came to the land down under

Here we are in Australia.

(First of all, let me say that I was SHOCKED to see that I have not posted anything to this site for over 8 MONTHS! What is up with that? Have I really not been anywhere noteworthy since our trip to COPENHAGEN? That is pathetic! We have simply got to do better than that in the future. )

Anyway, after breaking up our trip with a few days visiting in California, we headed to Cairns.As it turns out we can still survive 30 hours of traveling (with 15 hours on one transpacific flight) in coach. But we don't much like it. And we only managed because Michael's status with American Airlines still got us (even without business class tickets) into the Qantas business class lounges. He will lose his executive platinum status this year unless I make him fly to Dubai or some such place for an overnight...and I'm beginning to think there is real value in that!

Anyway, Cairns is a quite enough little town where we came just to take a day snorkeling trip out to the Great Barrier Reef. The Reef is a huge - spanning about 1400 miles, 900 islands and almost 3000 different reefs. Our tour took us to Michealmas Cay....about 20 miles off of Cairns. A two hour boat ride out, a few hours there, and a ride back in. Coming from the Caribbean we were fearing ridiculously cold water, but with our wet suits on it was quite tolerable. And while the numbers of fish weren't that impressive the coral certainly was.....so many shapes and sizes and colors. Unfortunately the gopro camera photos just don't do it justice. The colors don't reproduce well, and the wide angle lens takes in so much more that what is right in front of you so that giant clams don't look that impressive at all. And the absolutely brilliant colors on the velvety edges of the clams are stunning in person but barely visible in my photos. So here's one of my images, but you'll have to trust me or google someone else's better representations.

















While you are googling, perhaps you can figure out for me why it's so chilly here at night. I checked and we are currently about 17 degrees south. Anguilla is 18 degrees north. That means that we are closer to the Equator here than at home. Now before you snort in disgust at the implication that I don't realize that it is still winter here and summer at home, I know that. BUT never, at ANY time of year, does the temperature in Anguilla drop to 60 degrees at night. How come?

Meanwhile, we are off to Sydney today....for now, G-day.