Blue Penguin

2/21/12 (Tuesday):  We're enjoying spending some quiet days with family now that our adventure on the South Island is done.  Mark and Heather have a beautiful home just a few blocks from Worser Bay.  Mark and Wiley have been fishing several times (and actually caught some fish).  Heather is teaching me how to knit socks, which I've wanted to do for a long time.  I've taken the dog for some walks on the beach where we explore the tide pools.  We even saw a blue penguin right at the pier!

Pavlova

We've driven to Breaker Bay, also nearby, a couple of times and had lunch in the little cafe.  Restaurant food is very expensive here, though, so we're mostly enjoying Heather's good cooking.  (And I've cooked some of the fish the boys caught.)  Heather even made us a Pavlova, which is a Russian cake that's very popular in New Zealand (go figure!).  I'm bringing back the recipe, Mag.





 Yesterday, Mark took us into Wellington to the part of Weta (where he works) that allows tourists.  He actually works for Weta Digital, and the Weta Cave that we visited puts more emphasis on Weta Workshop, where they craft the props and costumes.  He has a very cool job!

Fishing on Seatoun Pier

The guys have gone fishing several times right from the nearby pier.  They caught enough fish that I did a fish fry for them one night.  Mark and Hudson are like me and don't care for fish, so there was plenty for Wiley, Heather and Austin.

Last Friday, Mark drove us to a wildlife sanctuary on Mt. Bruce, about 2 hours from home.  I just realized that I haven't showed many pictures of the little villages in New Zealand.  There are only a couple of real cities in NZ (Aukland and Wellington are the only ones we've visited).  The villages that we've been through on both islands remind me of Old West towns in the U.S.  The black and white pole with the red circle on top is a pedestrian crossing.  They call them "zebra crossings" and pedestrians in them have the right of way.

I love the railroad crossing signs!

But I digress...  The Bruce Mountain Wildlife Center was great!  They had a great walk through a forest with a creek (this is a redwood grove).

Tui

This bird, a tui, has a terrific song that just surrounded you as you walked.  Some of the rare birds were in large landscaped enclosures, but many, like this tui, were free.

Pukekos

 
These Pukekos look a lot like our purple gallinules in Florida, but they're much larger.

Kokako

 This Kokako is supposed to have a haunting cry.  This particular one actually does the wolf whistle over and over.  You could hear him throughout the grounds.  When I wolf whistled back, he got very interested and responded to me every time.  Poor thing must have been very lonely and bored!







The little creek that wound through the park was very jungle-y and pretty.  It made you feel like taking off your shoes and socks and going wading.

Giant Freshwater Eels

I lost the desire to wade when we came upon these giant eels.  They were hanging around the part of the creek where they get fed on a regular schedule.  Ick!

Kiwi

The big draw of this wildlife preserve is the kiwis.  They are nocturnal birds, very shy and endangered, and therefore very difficult to see in the wild.  Here they're kept in an enclosure where they turn on lights all night and keep it dark, with red lights, during the day.  It's very difficult to get pictures of them.  I felt super bad because I thought I'd turned my flash off, but it was on.  It didn't seem to bother the bird, which kept on feeding, but that mistake could have had awful consequences.

 This particular photo was a mistake, but I thought it was kind of amusing.  I was trying to take a picture of the grocery store so I could show you how each village has its own little shops.  Now you can see how I operate -- I always have the camera with me and I'm prone to drive other drivers (and passengers) crazy when I pull off the road and shoot pictures!  (I was in the passenger seat on the left side of the car and Mark was driving here, so it's not quite as dangerous as it looks!)

This is the New World Supermarket that I was trying to take a picture of from the car.  They're very similar to supermarkets in the U.S., including having a lot of familiar brands. 

Not every village has a supermarket, though.  There are a lot of small towns that have a small, old fashioned grocery store like this one in the next town we visited, Castle Point.

Castlepoint is a tiny seaside town where there was a lighthouse we wanted to take a picture of.  The Castlepoint Light was named by Captain Cook because the promontory on which it sits resembles a medieval fortress.

They were pulling boats up out of the water with these odd tractor devices when we arrived.  The beace is very hard sand and there was nowhere to put a boat ramp, so these unique vehicles were used.

Mark and I ignored this danger sign about rogue waves and climbed to the top of the rocks to get a better view.

From the top you can see that there's a rocky ridge separating the Pacific from a lagoon area.  The lagoon is filled at high tide when waves crash over the low point in the rocks.  Or when a rogue wave comes along, which is the reason for the danger sign.

It was altogether a lovely day.  Today Mark is back to work, the boys are back to school, and we're having a lazy morning.  This afternoon Heather has a friend visiting.  We may walk down to the beach to get a picture of the arch I saw when I didn't have my camera.  Or we may just continue to be lazy and knit.  Both sound like pleasant choices.  We head back to the States on Saturday the 25th.  Not sure whether I've got another blog in me, but I can still be reached via email or Facebook.  Bye for now.