Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Right hotel, wrong city

Am in the Courtyard in Salt Lake City tonight instead of the one in Boise. The last couple of nights the Boise airport has been fogged in at night. Some passengers elected to take a 6 hour bus ride from SLC to Boise, getting in around 3AM. Having already been travelling for about 27 hours I decided to take a flight (or at least try) early next morning and stay in SLC overnight.

So, got through 3 flights going down to NZ and 3 flights coming back, only to be stopped by the shortest flight! Oh well, should still be home sometime on Thursday.

Monday, November 21, 2005

Last Post from New Zealand

Found an internet cafe a couple of blocks from the hotel that allowed me to connect the ethernet on my laptop into their network, so here goes.

  • Some drunken Kiwis on a Friday night


  • The next five are from the Kaikoura area. A nice view from some vineyards


  • Seal refuge, no seals seen


  • The bay to the north of the town


  • The bay to the south of the town, notice how close the southern Alps are to the ocean here


  • It had to be done once, "Fush and Chups"


  • Lyttelton Bay from the top of the Gondola ride from Christchurch


  • And in the other direction Pegasus Bay and part of Christchurch


  • I drove up to Arthur's Pass, one of the passes accross the southern Alps. Glad I didn't take the train, it hit a car on the way there. Here are 3 pictures






  • And of course it wouldn't be New Zealand without the obligatory sheep picture



Heading home tommorrow, should be back on Thursday.

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Some more pictures

  • Hills around where I was in Wellington

  • Wellington Harbour

  • Went on a hour and half horseback ride near Bleinheim. Drier weather here as you can see. Had to chase some cows off the path, but a good ride.

Tomorrow I'm going down to Kaikoura which is right on coast. Then I'm headed to Christchurch for 3 days.

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

On South Island

Spent some extra money and got a motel with wireless internet access. After several hours trying to figure out what was going wrong, got it to actually work.

Here's the first bunch of pictures
    Click on a picture for full sized version
  • Harbour view from, strangely enough, the "Harbour View Motel" in Tauranga

  • Jennifer would like these, wall sockets in New Zealand have a on/off switch for each circuit

  • Here's the Pacific Ocean from down under

  • Mt. Maunganui is an extinct volcano (hopefully)

  • Lake Taupo drains through the Huka Falls

  • Lake Taupo during the day, kinda of reminds me of Lake Tahoe. I went on a one hour horseback ride nearby

  • And of course, sunset

  • This critter might make a nice dinner

  • I went wine tasting a few places in the Hastings area, from the Te Awa winery

  • I drove up to the top of Le Mata Peak, here's a view looking towards Hawkes Bay

  • Another view

Sunday, November 13, 2005

In New Zealand

I'm at GNS (Geologic and Nuclear Sciences) in Wellington today, doing some internet access while folks are in meetings. Can't hook up my laptop so won't be able to put up any pictures at this time. Got a little bit of rain when I first arrived but sunny and warm days until Sunday, have some scattered showers now.

Will play tourist in Wellington on Tuesday and then take the ferry to the south island on Wednesday. Silly "Barn Network" doesn't respond and stopped sending emails on the 6th so don't have a clue what's going on there. Haven't gotten any calls from Mark Witty so hopefully things are still working as far as feeding the horses.

All for now.

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Leaving Soon

Leaving on Saturday for New Zealand. Should arrive there Tuesday morning NZ time, which is Monday morning in the states. Because they just started daylight saving time and we just finished it they are 21 hours after Pacific time, or you can just figure 3 hours earlier there. Hope I can find some internet access in Motels so I can upload pictures while I'm there.

Since winter has started here they have been doing some slash burning up in the mountains.