Don't Judge a Book by its Towel

Speed limits are enforced for safety reasons, right?  They're supposed to prevent accidents, right?!?  Then why, oh why, is the speed limit 80kph on one of the most snake-like roads I've ever driven upon, where one spasm of the forearm could send you and your car tumbling down a (admittedly beautiful) hill, taking out who knows how many sheep on its way.  At 40kph, I can already feel the car struggling to grip the roads around turns.  You may think, perhaps, that New Zealanders are better drivers than I, having grown up driving on the left side of the road.  Well, sir or madam, I say to you: I almost got run off the road more than ten times by New Zealanders who also could not control their cars at speed on said road.

Now that I've cleared that bit of business, let's get down to it.  I had a mostly lovely time today.  For around six hours, I toured with two slightly beyond middle aged British couples, led by a guide with particularly deep knowledge of birds.  We went to the beach, where the wind was so fierce I'm pretty sure I'd be blown over had I not been angled so obliquely.  We went on a boat, where at least one gliding albatross took an interest in our boat…I suppose he must have been hungry.  

Really, the trip would have been quite pleasant had one of the British ladies kept her mouth shut a bit more often.  Frequently, she'd propose intricate scenarios for our brave guide to decipher, such as: "If one female albatross runs away, and then the male albatross moves on to another mate, but then the first female albatross comes back years later, would the male albatross abandon his second mate for the original love of his life?"  Her bizarre and ill flavored inquiries delayed us from moving on many times.  If I had the power to do so, I would have caused her to vomit as she opened her mouth every other question.  I'll bet THAT would prevent her from getting too excited about albatross mating rituals.

After the tour (make sure to check out the album of pictures from today to see what I saw), I headed back to my bed and breakfast before taking a scenic drive to a lovely location in Dunedin where massive waves crashed incessantly onto the walkway and little children ran screaming through torrents of violent water.

After a quick dinner, I headed back once more to my cocoon for the night.  I really must say, The Yellow House is quite nice, mostly thanks to its lovely host, Jan.  Aside from the rough towels, which might be better suited to sand the rough edges off handmade furniture than dry my pale flesh, everything about the stay here has been just great.  While my innate desire for anonymity is simply not possible in a two room B&B, I find myself (almost) half-enjoying the care Jan clearly has for her guests.  

And on that note, it is time to once more pass out and hopefully wake up tomorrow. 

The Yellow House

Here's where I'm staying in Dunedin, The Yellow House B&B:

Fried Brains

If anyone's in the mood for fried brains, they're welcome to mine.  You'll have to remove them from my skull first, though...

I arrived in New Zealand today, which is really tomorrow, having barely slept and not eaten.  During my seven hour layover in Auckland, a fairly old Croatian man by the name of Marcus (I may have just made that up -- I'm terrible with names) drove me around to see the sites.  Aside from discovering that Auckland is somewhat like San Francisco in layout, I learned that Marcus has two children, aged 31 and 36.  His son is happily married, and his daughter was happily married until she became unhappily divorced.  Neither of them would go see "The Hobbit" with their father.

After that surreal adventure in between flights, I boarded my last plane to Dunedin.  I'd like to pause here for a moment to describe the somewhat hilarious routine I went through over the course of my flights.  You see, the airlines wait until you're just about to board the plane to announce that -- just for your section -- they're not allowing carry-on luggage due to space concerns.  Not wanting $15,000 of camera equipment to go missing, I began to load up my jacket pockets with every single item from my backpack, stuffing lenses and memory cards into every available crevice like a greedy squirrel storing a few too many acorns in his cheeks for winter.  

I should mention that the jacket, borrowed from my father, is designed for just such a purpose...although I doubt the jacket's creator had in mind the sheer weight with which I loaded into its cavernous pockets.  In the end, I gained the appearance of a man with a generous amount of blubber around his waist.

Understandably, I think, I was in somewhat of a wretched mood by the time I reached Dunedin.  32 hours of travel tends to fry one's brains.  To add insult to injury, I had to regain enough human awareness to navigate the roads, while driving on the left.

My whole mood changed, though, when I encountered this:

P.S. Be sure to check out the New Zealand Galleries.  I'll be adding pictures by the date they were taken.

The First Airport - JFK

Or, as my long lost school-mate would insist upon calling it, "John Fitzgerald Kennedy International Airport in New York."  That same school-mate might also recall that in several (hundred) million years, increased gravity from the moon's closer Earth orbit would cause the tides to completely cover John Fitzgerald Kennedy International Airport in New York.

Travel Documents Have Arrived!

I sit in front of my bed with this array of non-digital information spread out before me.  Reading through the hefty itinerary, I can't help but feel as though I am cramming for a history exam.  Soon, though, these pages will become my current events.

Thank you, Donna, Vicki, and co. from New Zealand Travel, for pulling all of this together.  Though you seem like you could use vacations yourselves, you managed to put together an intricate trip in a relatively short period of time.