Moving in and moving up

Let it be known- I no longer force my lovely girlfriend to sleep in a van. Although Beagle has served us well for months, we finally found a place we wanted to stay and as of about two weeks ago have been living in a beautiful home about 10 minutes from downtown Queenstown. The Remarkables mountain range is just outside, so we can moniter the snowfalls from the front door. Our room is spacious, light, and unlike the van, the ceilings are tall enough for me to sit up straight while on the bed. Such luxury! We share the house with a young Kiwi couple, both from Canterbury, and it's a great match. My new roommate Blair and I have discovered that having two women in the same house who both love to cook is only to our benefit.

Hooray for Moms everywhere!

Mother's day was a good one this year as my mom Julie and her friend Carol did 99% of the work. First, they flew to New Zealand to see the country and visit with Christine and me. Second, they took us along for a two day trip to Te Anau and the Milford Sound and this was something that we never expected to do with them! Frankly, we'd wanted to go to Milford for a while but it was a little bit cost prohibitive due to our, ahem, lack of income. I suppose that's just one more thing that moms are there for.

Milford Sound was incredible. Sheer schist cliffs rise vertically hundreds of meters out of the water while waterfalls intersect the landscape. It is very harsh, very dramatic, and although it's a very touristy thing to do (what in New Zealand isn't anway?) our South Island venture would have been very incomplete without it. Thanks again to the moms for taking us along.

Julie and Carol's visit to Queenstown was peppered with plenty of good food and wine, and we shared a few days of great stories and lots of laughs. If anyone out there needs advice on how to maximize your fun while traveling, my advice is to ask your nearest United Airlines flight attendant and they should be able to get you on the right track.

p.s.- if you want to know how to instantly gain a mother's sympathy, try sleeping in your van-which you pretty much live in- on the streets of Queenstown while the mothers rest comfortably in a hotel room two blocks away. That seemed to do the trick for us, anyway.

Netting: It's got to come down

When internet costs up to 8$ an hour, it's easy to let your blog slide...

Where are we now? At a vineyard just outside Queenstown. We've decided to WWOOF (see the link on the side bar) for a few days. Despite our vast differences (Andrew is systematic and..um one could say anal retentive and Christine is somewhat of an organizational disaster) We have managed to work together and bring in hundreds of metres of vineyard netting. Our hosts Russell and Glenda have been most welcoming and gracious, and we are sad to go.

Only in Texas... and NZ

Pink Cadillac, 60" lift, bullhorns on the hood, my girlfriend, enough said.

Rally time

Our visit to Dunedin a little while back "just happened" to coincide with the Rally Otago, which is the first round in the New Zealand Rally Championship. They ran two special stages in the city itself, and the final stage was run around the outside of a horse racing track. While the venue itself was a bit lame, it gave a great view of all the cars without having to hike off into the forests to watch them run. Plenty of modern cars were entered- Subaru STI's, Mistubishi Evo 9's, etc., but the classics were even more fun to watch. A Mk.4 Ford Escort 1800 RS- fully sideways- is Andrew's idea of what rallying is all about.

Inspiring times

A winding drive past Lake Wanaka's north shore delivered us to Mt. Aspiring National Park, one of the south island's most famous wilderness areas. From the road's end, a hiking track took us across a valley floor bordered by dramatic peaks on both sides and inhabited by miscellaneous cattle and flock upon flock of sheep. We never did actually get an opportunity to see Mt. Aspiring as close as we hoped due to cloud cover, but numerous glacier, waterfall, and Kea (the world's only alpine parrot) sightings more than made up for it. Our trails also led us across some of the longer swing bridges in New Zealand, which can be a little unsettling- but fun.