New Zealand - Auckland - Meh vs. 'O' for Awesome

Let me tell you straight off, buses in New Zealand are not as good as buses in South America. On my eleven hour overnight ride from Wellington to Auckland, my seat reclined exactly 3 cm. 3 useless cm. Thank goodness I brought my travel pillow and blanket on board, which kept me warm, if not comfortable.

Eleven hours of tossing and turning later (did I mention the bus stopped every half hour to pick more people up or drop them off in the middle of the night?), we pulled into Auckland bus terminal at about 6:30am. Malheureusement, my hostel's reception desk didn't even open until 8:30am, so I had to kill time having the most leisurely cup of tea of my life at the station. Luckily I had a book to read, or it would have seemed interminable. Better yet, when I arrived at the hostel, my room was mercifully empty so I could crawl right in and crash on the bed without having to wait for the 1pm check in. Whew.

I woke up several hours later ready to explore a bit. And I have to say that after a day and a half of wandering around Auckland, I don't love it. There is the Sky Tower, the tallest structure in the southern hemisphere. But after seeing the CN Tower... it kind of pales in comparison, alas. And the whole vibe of Auckland is just... bland. Most of the activities they advertise here are all *outside* the city, so that is pretty telling. Now I know I can't love every place I get to on this trip, but Auckland is the first time I've been really unimpressed.

Luckily, the rest of New Zealand more than makes up for Auckland's blandness, so I head off to Australia tomorrow being able to advise other travellers to not judge NZ by Auckland. The concise summary being: Auckland = meh; NZ = 'o' for awesome!

New Zealand - Wellington - Seafaring to the Capital

I was really dragging my feet on leaving South Island after realizing it would be a tough act to follow. I was dragging them even harder as I rolled out long before sunrise in Christchurch to catch my 7am bus to Picton. Although all I wanted to do was sleep out the ride, the absurdly beautiful sunrise over the plains of Canterbury province wasn't having it.



And then it was three hours of driving right along the shoreline on the coast, notably Kaikoura.



It's really not fair for one island this size to keep so much stunning scenery all to itself!

In Picton, I scurried off my bus right onto the Interisland ferry, which is a three hour crossing of the Cook Strait, noted as one of the prettiest ferry rides in the world.



The first hour is spent winding out of the Marlborough Sounds (wine country, where some of the trees were red) to the strait where you can see the coasts of both the North and South Islands at the same time. Then another hour coming around the point into Wellington Harbour. And I don't know what's with my weather luck, but the sun has followed me everywhere I've gone (notable exception of Dunedin). The crossing is apparently quite hard when the seas are rough, but we had a clear day and moderate conditions, so it was smooth sailing. Except in one respect...

For the ride, I opted to sit up on the top observation deck to enjoy the sights and to avoid the hordes of schoolchildren running around the lower decks entertaining themselves. The wind was quite loud, despite it being a rather calm day, which I didn't mind until the crew started making announcements over the speaker. Turns out the wind drowns them out. Here is what I heard: "Attention passengers... garble, garble... emergency... garble, garble... fire on deck seven... garble, garble, garble... abandon ship." And then the emergency siren sounded.

No surprises, I was somewhat alarmed. Now, during emergencies, passengers are directed to gathering points to await further instructions from the crew. I and my fellow top deck observers looked around to the designated meeting place; there were no staff in sight. Huh. Not encouraging. So more than a few of us proceeded downstairs to a passenger deck. Where we were bewildered to discover everyone just sitting around watching the tv and playing cards. At which point we learned that the announcement had in fact been: "Attention passengers, at this time the crew will be running an emergency drill. Please disregard the following instructions. Crew members, assume there is a fire on deck seven. The emergency siren will sound. Prepare to abandon ship."

They really should look into amplifying that top deck speaker.



Wellington had heaps of things to do, but I wasn't feeling ambitious after my whirlwind tour of Christchurch. I took the cable car up to the Botanic Gardens (which I liked better than the one in Christchurch) with a British girl I'd met at the hostel who enjoyed my pronunciation of the word 'duvet'. We agreed that the view of the harbour was quite pretty and there were some very impressive trees (a big admission from two people who aren't horticulturalists). However, since it's autumn, the flowers were all dying off, the ducks were gone from the pond and the observatory and treehouse were closed. Oh well. Spent the afternoon wandering around town down Cuba St (the "latin" quarter - mostly trendy shopping and cafes) and the waterfront.

Day Two was spent at The Museum, Te Papa. It was enormous - six floors of interactive exhibits. You could spend hours in there. I was suffering from information overload fairly quickly, so I tried to pick and choose areas of interest. Coolest part: preserved giant squid on display. I do not want to run into one of them in the wild. They could definitely eat me. There was also a high tech floor map of NZ where if you step on a square, pictures of the area would appear on the walls in the room. Before I knew it, I'd been in there for three and a half hours, so I had to book it to the grocery store to get some dinner organized before my 11 hour overnight bus ride to Auckland that night.

Could have done another day in Wellington I think - missed the free tour of their Parliament buildings, which was highly recommended, as well as the film archives which screen any NZ film for you for free as well. Ah well, time is short, what could I do? I probably should have left more time for North Island, but South Island was too hard to leave.

New Zealand - Christchurch - Best Sign Ever and Free Day

"Attention customers... we would like to inform you that our business will not be participating in the recession."

-Barbershop, Manchester St.

Fantastic.


Leaving Dunedin was bittersweet. With my flight to Australia impending (in less than a week!), lots of ground to cover, and increasingly cold rainy weather arriving, it was time to get on the move again. It was sad to leave Mike and Ashley - staying with them was a) super fun b) delicious (shout out to Ashley's Chicken Parmesan especially!) and c) did I already mention super fun?

I am once again rocking the buses. I left bright and early Wednesday morning on the six hour bus to Christchurch. The drive was especially nice around Timaru, which has a beautiful stretch of coastline. Christchurch itself was pretty nice - I only had two days there and could have done more. I spent the first day shopping for groceries and enrapt in some fabulous second hand bookstores. No surprises that after this I spent the evenings enrapt in a good book. My hostel was pretty sweet - it had a community herb garden, excellent showers and a pool!

My second day I ran around to the listed must-see tourist attractions. First up was the Arts Centre, which literally felt like a beehive of creative activity. The winding halls of rooms with everything from carpentry to glass-blowing to painting to ballet were really impressive. Afterwards I wandered over to the art gallery, where I perused the work of Rita Angus, a pacifist NZ painter who protested WWII, and the contemporary art exhibits.




When I felt I'd used up my enthusiasm for art, I ambled around the Botanic Gardens (are there any cities in NZ without these?) until I found myself in the Canterbury Museum, where I learned about the extinct moa (wingless giant ostrich), the existence of the shark-toothed dolphin and 2m clams in prehistoric times, and about the discovery of Antarctica. Poor Scott, who died on the expedition, was a month behind the Norwegian who got the credit.

I then explored the market stalls in Cathedral Square and popped into the Christchurch cathedral, the centre of town. It was quite a pretty church and merges different Maori, Polynesian and European influences into its design, but I probably wouldn't have liked it half as much without the choir singing in the background (they were rehearsing for evensong later that night).

Not a bad day's work all in all.

Did I mention every activity I did that day was free? Nice.

New Zealand - Moeraki, Mount Cook, Wanaka - Lil Miss Muffet Roadtrip

Happy Anniversary Otago! My enthusiasm for this regional public holiday springs from the fact that it gave both Mike and Ashley a long weekend which gave us a window of roadtripping opportunity. So we rented ourselves a car and made plans to go to Mount Cook.

Bright and early on a dreary and rainy (i.e. usual) Sunday morning in Dunedin, we loaded ourselves into Lil Miss Muffet, aka SuperLame, our Vitz rental hatchback and set out for Mount Cook and sunshine.(The more curious may wonder about the nicknames for the car. Within about fifteen minutes of driving around in it, we were forced to conclude that this car was powered by a lawn mower engine and made of plastic. We tested out this theory. Maximum speed flooring it in D2 was 123km/hr and that's coming off a big downhill stretch. Maximum speed flooring it on flat road was 113km/hr. Maximum speeding climbing a hill was 78km/hr. There were some hills we really wondered if we'd make it. Also, the ventilation system would only work for ten minutes at any time, leading to multiple fog ups in the car in the mornings. And the CD player would only play ten tracks off of any CD before skipping tracks automatically. Quality.) We had been told by many locals that it's only Dunedin's cursed coastal location that makes its climate so appalling (sorry Mike and Ashley...) and that inland Otago usually had great weather this time of year.

We decided to drive north to Oamaru then west to Omarama and then north to Twizel and Mount Cook on the way there. About twenty minutes outside Dunedin, the skies miraculously cleared and the sun beamed upon us. Along the way we stopped at one in every ten photoworthy moments - you become a scenery snob pretty quickly when the getting's this good! Stops included the Moeraki boulders, 15 million year old bowling ball shaped rocks on the coast; the dams of the Waitaki River; and Lake Pukaki, which we would never have found had it not been for a missed turn off for Mount Cook Road.



The brilliant sunshine continued in Mount Cook. The Visitors Centre in Mount Cook Village recommended we spend the afternoon on the Hooker Valley trail, as it offered some of the best scenery of the mountains. So we did. It's about an hour and a half to two hours each way. The path winds through the pass between the mountain ranges along the river between Mueller and Hooker Lake and includes three bridges. Mike, being the least keen walker I've ever met, was shockingly content with this choice. At least, until we were close to the end, at which point we were all ready to see Hooker Lake already.



The walk certainly did the trick for wiping us out though - we all slept like babies that night. Just before bed though, we got up the energy for one more activity - stargazing. The skies over the Mount Cook area are renown for their lack of clouds and generally awesome potential for stargazing. But because we are cheap travellers and students, instead of driving an hour each way and paying $35-60 to go to an observatory, we drove ten minutes each way and spent $2 of gas money to go back to the Hooker Valley trail parking lot and did it there. And let me tell you, no observatory was needed - the sky was phenomenal. We were entranced for a good thirty minutes despite fairly cold night temperatures.

Mount Cook had clouded over overnight, which was unacceptable to our trio of sun hunters. We were on the road again chasing the blue skies south by 8:30am to drive down to Wanaka for the afternoon. We caught up with the sunshine quickly and two and a half hours of more stunning scenery later, we arrived.

Since it was still early, we opted to check out Puzzling World, a local tourist attraction of mazes and illusions. Pretty funny photos were a result. Note about the mazes: while I completed all four and Mike and Ashley completed three of them, we were too hungry to bother with the final challenge of finding the exit again, so we cheated and took an emergency escape door. No regrets.

Wanaka was lovely - the lakeshore looks across to Mount Aspiring National Park. We enjoyed a leisurely picnic bench patio lunch and then were off again for the four hour drive back to Dunedin. We also ducked off the main motorway to the Southern Scenic Route for the last half hour of the drive, and though its monstrous hills taxed Lil Miss Muffet to the max, totally worth it for some of the views of the coast. The highlight of the trip was really the drive moreso than the destinations. South Island is absurdly beautiful on a sunny day. Too bad the whole island has to share the one sunny day that travels around the jetstream with the other fourteen days of rain and cold.

New Zealand - Fiordland - Te Anau and Doubtful Sound - Words Fail

So this week I decided to take a mini-break and give Mike and Ashley the chance to miss the joy, laughter and humility I bring into their lives with my presence here. I headed out for a quick three day excursion to Fiordland, in the SouthWest region of New Zealand to check out the slightly less famous and way less touristed Doubtful Sound (the more famous and incredibly touristed one being UNESCO World Heritage Site, Milford Sound). Doubtful Sound is ten times as big as Milford and probably ten times as remote, hence has ten times fewer tourists. This was not a cheap excursion, but I sensed it was one I would regret not doing so I ignored my cheap miser instincts and forked over the cash for the day cruise.

In order to get there, I first bussed from Dunedin to Te Anau, the gateway town to Fiordland National Park. About four hours drive across the prettiest farm pastures and rolling hills you ever saw with a liberal sprinkling of sheep here and there. And then in the last half hour of the drive, these looming mountains (the foothills of the Fiords) appear out of nowhere. Very cool.

Te Anau itself I found pretty vanilla. It had lots of hostels and shops and info booths, so it was a useful place. And it was on a big lakeshore, but not a particularly remarkable lake in my experience. Very quiet place too - full of trampers and campers, so the whole town is in bed by 9:30pm (even on St. Patrick's Day!) and up and off to the trails at 6am. Quietest big hostel I've stayed at so far, that's for sure.



I was disappointed to awaken to dreary plentiful rain in the morning. The weather in Fiordland is notoriously wet, fickle and often unpleasant. The day before had been a stunningly sunny day, so I was bummed I'd missed out on the Sound's one decent weather day this week. Turned out not to matter, since the weather on the Sound blows in from the Tasman Sea and changes every few hours regardless. All four seasons in one day indeed. And it turns out that regardless of the weather, the curse of Fiordland perseveres - the evil sandflies. They literally swarm any open skin when you are not on water. Unrelenting and far worse than the mosquitos of northern Ontario, the sandfly is my new most hated insect.

After being picked up from my hostel, I was driven to the nearby town of Manapouri, on Lake Manapouri, a far more impressive and generally gorgeous lake to the south. In order to get to Doubtful Sound, we had to ferry across the lake to the Manapouri Underground Power Station, to transfer to a bus to drive forty minutes along the length of Wilmot Pass Road to the wharf at Doubtful Sound, where we would take a 3-4 hour cruise out through the Sound to the Tasman Sea and back again.



On the way there, we also were given the chance to tour the power station, which produces 15% of NZ's power and 85% of which is used entirely by an aluminum smelting facility in Bluff. They hollowed out a 2 km tunnel leading into the station, which looked a bit like a James Bond villain's lair. I didn't find the station itself that interesting but the tunnel was fascinating. It took two years to build and because the rock around here is all quartz and granite, i.e. super hard, they had to blast it out the entire way! The rubble was used to pave the Wilmot Pass Road.

The Sound itself is not actually a Sound (drowned river valley taken over by the sea once the glacier retreats), but rather a Fiord (land carved by glacier, filled in by sea). But English didn't have the word Fiord when Doubtful was discovered so they call it a Sound. Doubtful's water comes from three places. First, the Tasman Sea. That's a no-brainer. Second, when the 5-9m of monthly rainfall lands here, the temperate rainforest filters it to the ground and then the hundreds of streams of waterfalls carry the rainwater back into the Sound's basin.



Third, the power station diverts the water from Lake Manapouri that churns its turbines to generate electricity through the mountain into a manmade river that empties into Deep Cove, the harbour for Doubtful Sound. That's a whole lot of water.





And true to form, the weather was rainy when we embarked, misty as we neared the Tasman Sea and then cleared up into a lovely sunny afternoon. As for describing Doubtful Sound, I could try to tell you about the steep fiord cliffs, the buffeting winds, the landslides from the earthquakes, the waterfalls, the mollymawks, the sea lion colony, the wild dolphin pod and the utter remoteness of this place. But they have to be seen to be believed.

New Zealand - Dunedin - Criminal Activity

We recently went for dinner with some of Mike's Scottish relatives from the Watters side of his family... whom he had never met before. It was particularly interesting walking into the appointed restaurant when Mike had no idea what they looked like or what their names were. We agreed that to resolve this problem, he would enter and loudly announce that he was Mike from Canada and hope they identified themselves. It played out exactly that way. Bonus: they treated us. Nice.

On our way home, our party broke apart. Ashley headed off to the gym, while Mike and I caught the bus home. Now everytime we leave the house all together, we take a poll to see who has the key. There are only two keys between the three of us and generally one key cannot be found when it is needed. Hence, we double-check. This excursion had been no exception and Ashley assured us vehemently that she in fact had a key.

Unfortunately said key remained with her upon our parting. Mike and I arrived back to the flat and realized this. Couldn't we call Ashley, some might say? No, since none of us have a cell phone. Couldn't we wait until she got back then? Estimated time until Ashley returned home: 60-80 minutes. Too long for those of us who'd worn shorts to dinner.

We were obliged to consider criminal acts to force entry into the flat. Sadly, this is not the first time I've had to break into the place I call home. I also had to do so with my sister when I was younger when we got locked out. It was frighteningly easy with a little imagination.

I took stock of the situation while Mike tried to pry open the downstairs windows with little success. We had at our disposal: one second floor open window. One garden ledge. Two bobby pins. One broken clothes-drying horse. One garbage can. One baby plant. Two reasonably useful individuals. One kitten. All in all, not great resources. Surveying the upstairs window, the height and potential for serious damage should a climber fall made it an unappealing choice. We brainstormed for solutions.

Mike suggested we throw the kitten through the open window so that the kitty could then come open the door for us. He then bargained with the kitty, reminding her that she owed him for the bacon treat of the day before. The kitten responded by playing with a ball of garbage. Mike was fired from brainstorming.



Now Mike generally boasts his ninja talents to anyone who will listen (not many people, since he has zero ninja skills), I asked if they extended to lock picking skills and loaned him my bobby pins. Turns out he (and I) have zero lock picking skills too.



That left us with the dodgy option of scaling the wall to the open window. Seeing as neither of us were Spiderman, that meant someone was going to be a human ladder and someone was going to put their life at risk. No surprises, I volunteered to be the ladder with the condition that he not stand on my head. Shockingly, this plan worked extremely well. Mike stood on my knee as I boosted his other foot up to my shoulder and slid up the wall till I was standing, at which point he somehow moved his feet to the ledge of the window frame and then chin-up'ed through the open window above.




Not to be a nay-sayer, but I definitely didn't think he could do it. Way to prove me wrong, Mike!

New Zealand - Dunedin - Not the Wonka Factory and the Pride of the South

Saturday we were feeling ambitious. Ashley and I decided to tour the Cadbury Chocolate Factory before hitting up the farmer's market. We presented ourselves at 9am sharp for the tour, after busting a move to walk there in less than twenty minutes. I had already been warned the tour was a bit disappointing, and it was if only because there is so much more they could have done with it. You're not allowed to take any pictures inside the factory (trade secrets, etc.), but seeing as the factory itself was closed because it was the weekend, I really didn't see anything worth taking a photo of, let alone pirating.


We did learn a fair bit about the history of chocolate and how to make it. For instance, most white chocolate is not real chocolate because many companies make it with artificial flavours instead of with cocoa butter. And Cadbury chocolate tastes far better here than in Canada because they get their cream from Otago Holstein cows, as opposed to the Jersey cows used in the North American factories.

And of course, we saw the famous Chocolate Fall. While watching 1 tonne of liquid chocolate drop the length of the 750 tonne silo we were standing in was fairly impressive, I secretly wished it had been more of a chocolate waterfall like in the Wonka Factory. Plus, the fall itself is only aesthetic; it serves no functional purpose at all (except luring tourists in, I guess). Ashley almost got caught in the splash zone of chocolate too - the entire inner railing was splattered in deliciousness. We did get free treats out of the deal though.

Far far far better was the Speight's Brewery tour that Mike joined us for that evening. We were guided through the history of beer from Ancient Egypt to the foundation of the brewery in Dunedin.


Interesting trivia fact of the day: the expression skull/skol in Australia and Scandinavia derives from the Vikings' practice of honouring their fallen enemies by hollowing out their skulls and using them as beer mugs. No joke.




We also learned about beer is brewed. A lot of the information was really boring, so here are the highlight facts.


1) Malt dust is highly combustible. They use wood shovels to move it because any spark from contact between a metal shovel and the ground could ignite the dust. The malt warehouse burned down in the 1940s because some dummy used a metal shovel.







2) Hops is the only other plant in the same genus as marijuana.








We also really enjoyed the continuous showings of the Southern Man ad campaign for Speight's beer. Mike asked if it bothered us at all how the commercials were entirely geared towards men and honestly, at least they were shameless about their target demographic. In North America, they're also targeting the male audience but are sly about it. The Southern Man heavily draws on the beer's motto of Pride of the South too, which means all the scenery in said commercials is spectacular South Island vistas. And I know some of my more feminism and gender studies-inclined friends would probably be very critical of the identity construction of the Southern Man - have a peek here: http://www.speights.co.nz/Southern-Values/Southern-Man-ID-Chart.aspx

Obviously the best part of the tour was the half hour at the end dedicated to tasting six types of beer brewed by Speight's: Harvest, Summit, Gold Medal, Distinction, Old Dark, and Porter.

Did I mention it was unlimited supply? We were encouraged to at least try all of them and work our way from lightest to darkest. Seeing as we were drinking... I mean 'tasting'... alongside two Aussies and three Germans guys, there was some pressure to keep up. Mediocre fan of beer that I am, I am proud to say I did try all of them (and then some - I think I made it through eight glasses in 30 minutes). I figured I'd like the Harvest one the best, since it was the girly apricot flavoured pale lager, but I was surprised to discover that my favourite was Distinction, followed by the Gold Medal ale.

New Zealand - Dunedin - T-Shirt Slogans and Non-Winterized Housing

"Dunedin - it's cold but cool!"

I kid you not. I cannot verify if this slogan is officially sanctioned by the town, but it's certainly on enough T-shirts. Not the most persuasive marketing campaign I've seen, however honest it may be. Especially since this week, we have really noticed just how far SOUTH Dunedin lies on the world map. This was brought to our attention because it's awfully crisp weather for just the beginning of autumn here. And we personally experienced the Antarctic weather patterns during our thwarted day at St Kilda beach:



Not to mention the sleet, snow and hail that made cameo appearances in last night's rainstorm (although some scientists are claiming a lot of the weird weather in Dunedin is after-effects of the bushfires in Australia, since the jetstream wraps back around to here after passing through there - I don't really understand the logistics myself).

And apparently only the extravagantly wealthy have central heating here, leaving the rest of the Kiwis to improvise on staying warm in the cold weather. How very unegalitarian. So Mike, Ashley and myself are on a mission to insulate the flat. Right now, it's a bit like living at the cottage at Lake of Bays... in January. We've put up blankets over the back door and the big window to cut down on the draft (which we can see pushing against the blankets), but it's not cutting it. And while space heaters are great for a band-aid solution of one hour of reasonable warmth, that's going to add up on the electricity bill pretty quickly once they're going regularly throughout the winter. Hence, we have begun a hunt for insulation related products. There was a great Saran Wrap-like film I used in my university apartment in Halifax that worked like a charm, but we're having some trouble locating it here. We're hoping the Mitre 10, NZ's Canadian Tire, may carry it, but of course when we scurried down there last night it was already closed! Our next best bet may be an invention called Thermal Curtains, but we are unclear what they do exactly and they don't create an air seal, so draft may still find a way. The mission continues...

I am definitely out of here before the real winter sets in. Best of luck to you, Mike and Ashley. Bundle up.

New Zealand - Dunedin - 'O' for 'Awesome'

This university town is nestled into the rolling fairytale pasture hills of the coast of South Island. Saturday mornings they hold a sizeable farmer's market at the train station with everything from fresh blackberries to lamb kebabs, and it's the one place to get cheap produce in town. The shops all close on Sundays, and everyone's out and about in the parks. Everything is within walking distance, although Mike is adamantly anti-walking at most times, so we've been flagging down the buses a fair bit, with success being 50-50... I'm quite surprised how often the bus drivers fully ignore you at the stop and keep going. If you really need to catch that bus for sure, you pretty much have to jump in front of it on the road!

Contrasted with this Pleasantville lifestyle, there is a social, ready to party energy that radiates from the University of Otago. There are a million pubs and bars around, sports events and concerts on regular rotation, and generally at least one front lawn of afternoon beer drinkers per block throughout Dunedin. While that may sound like a generic description of any university town, there is plenty of personality here as well. For instance, when walking downtown with Ashley to the farmer's market on Saturday, she pointed out Loose Hair Salon and whispered that there were never any customers inside. Glancing in the window as we passed, she was right. And not only no customers, there was no evidence of business period. It was a white room with a few barber chairs and a till on a small table in the rear. The only person inside was an older Asian lady, who was brushing her teeth while watching the street. Can anyone say dodgy? I can't decide if it's a racketeering front or if that woman is illegally living in a commercially zoned space.

Or better yet, let's look at the kids running around Dunedin. When they're not dressed up in their whites to spend 10 hours of their Saturday playing the world's longest game, cricket, in a little league, their parents randomly let them run around in costume. Maybe it's a Halloween envy complex, since they don't have it down here, but seriously, the number of times I've seen a small Spiderman running around the grocery store or a Dora the Explorer skipping down the sidewalk is unbelievable. Not that I disapprove... I wish my parents had let me dress up in costume when we left the house as a kid. It's certainly good for a laugh now and for perking up otherwise dreary or unremarkable days.

And I should be fair... it's not just the kids who like to dress up. I attended the big professional rugby game on the weekend, where more than half the stadium had gone all out to support their team. Otago fans had dusted off their best blue and yellow ensembles, even painting all exposed skin in the team colours. Canterbury fans dotted the crowd in red and black as well. And let's not forget to mention their abundance of funny hats to complete their outfits. I'm pretty sure there were more adults decked out in costumes at that game than children.

Now, Mike, Ashley and myself had been talked into said rugby match on the pretext that it was THE sporting event of the year in Dunedin. Pretty big claim. Ah, but this was the level just under international league, we were told. And an epic rivalry, as the Otago Hilanders were playing the Canterbury Crusaders, the neighbouring province. Kind of like if the Leafs played the Canadiens in the NHL, we were told. A pretty big deal. Alright, said we. If it's THE sporting event of the season, we'd better go.




Sigh. It turned out to be THE (WORST) sporting event of the year. Otago's team hasn't really been much good in the past five years, and Canterbury was missing a few of its star players due to injuries. And it showed. The game was pretty crap. Each team dropped the ball without cause five or six times during the game. And the score was pitiful. It wasn't due to excellent defense, that's for sure. Otago managed to fumble into a try in the last five minutes of the game (at least, that's what I was told happened... Ashley and I had stopped paying attention part way through the first half) and then grabbed another 3 points on a penalty kick. Lame-o. Otago then had the nerve to brag that this was the first time that Canterbury had ever been held to zero in a game. I wouldn't broadcast that, boys. That game was an embarrassment, although it did provide an excellent opportunity to observe the crowds and get a glimpse into rugby fever.

The Kiwi crowds are pretty crazy and harsh for such a mellow, otherwise easy going culture. Upon each fumble or error, they chant loudly in unison "you f---ed up, you f---ed up!". Even to the poor ball boy on the sidelines when he tripped. He couldn't have been more than twelve. Otago fans were happy to cheer the victory and assault the Canterbury fans after the great victory too. Beer was sprayed everywhere, notably all over my right side. Two streakers made it onto the field, and holy cow, those security guys are way faster than they look. Might have been a better game if they'd played - they were made better tackles on those streakers than we had seen all through the game. Outside the stadium, a bunch of Otago boys swarmed a guy wearing a Canterbury shirt and dumped about ten beers on him.

Half time was also filled with entertaining antics. They had a giveaway of some kind. One guy was wearing a brown cloak and had to run across to the other end of the field while four other guys, plus the team mascots and the midget stadium host, tried to stop him. Or so we thought. Once they caught him, they seemed to be stripping off his clothes. Which was hilarious and baffling. Until we worked out that he had prize money stashed under the cloak, which was what they were after. The next giveaway, they had four girls trying to land a ball into a boat (again, did not understand the logistics of the competition) from about ten metres away. None of them were even close. So they gave them another go. Which resulted in even more embarrassing misses. And another go, when by sheer chance, one girl managed to ricochet the ball in off a guard rail. Don't even know what she won, but it saved us from watching the train wreck of effort they were putting into this game.

More importantly, at this time I also learned the origins of the expression 'O' for 'Awesome'. Heavyweight boxing champ David Tua appeared on NZ's version of Wheel of Fortune in the mid 1990s and when asked for a consonant, he requested 'O' for 'Awesome', which became a legendary moment of New Zealand's modern history. Indeed, Kiwis pronounce 'awesome' as 'o-some'. All in all, the day panned out. After all, as one of Mike's friends said, we experienced more of Kiwi culture in that hour and a half of bad rugby than we would in an average week of traveling around New Zealand. Fair enough.

New Zealand - Dunedin - Dinner of Disasters and Moonlit Serenades

On my first excursion from the house, I wandered over along the Oval, the local park and cricket-playing field, to the grocery store, which demonstrated to me that we literally live on the other side of the tracks in town, the division between North and South Dunedin. Mike walked me as far as his bus stop at the bottom of the street, where I had a sink or swim introduction to traffic driving on the left.

Although I obviously knew they drive on the opposite side of the street here, I was unprepared for how my brain was trying to correct this phenomenon. It literally refuses to believe my eyes showing the cars moving on the other side. I feel like shaking myself or slapping my head a few times to correct what I'm seeing. Makes jaywalking especially difficult, let me tell you! I may very well get hit by a bike or car if I'm not careful.

Upon my return to the flat, I discovered a note from Ashley requesting my assistance in preparing the pot roast for dinner. While I'm happy to help out in exchange for the free room and board I get from them, Ashley obviously was unaware that cooking meat is definitely not a culinary strength of mine. The directions seemed fairly straightforward though, so I ambitiously accepted the task. Defrost meat - check. Season with garlic, salt and pepper - check. Oil big pot - check. Brown meat on both sides - mostly check (a little too hot when it first landed, one side noticeably crispier than the other). Add broth and already chopped veggies in fridge - check. Let it sit till Ashley gets home - check. And it smelled so good. Ashley made the sides of mashed potatos, broccoli and wellingtons. It was shaping up to be a great dinner right?

And then Ashley spilled the pepper in the potatos. Whew - were they peppery. But not the end of the world, since the pot roast was central and was so full of promise. Mike and I soaked it in tasty gravy and dug in. We are chewing our way through the first amazing bite and yet... we slow the chews and glance inquiringly at each other. Ashley pauses as she notices and hesitates to take her first bite. "What? Is it not cooked?" she asks. Mike and I continue to look at each other in genuine puzzlement tinged with disappointment. "No, it's cooked" says Mike. "It's just not..." I say. "Beef..." supplies Mike. Ashley's face joins ours in puzzlement. The package fully said beef. It looked like beef, and smelled like it cooking. But it distinctly tasted like ham and the texture was totally off. And holy cow, was it too salty, courtesy of the broth. Still tasty, but you don't pot roast ham in beef broth until tender. It just tasted... wrong. Upon further investigation, we discovered it was corned beef. Which we will never buy again.

We also treated ourselves to a movie on my parents, who sent a little play money our way, let's say for Mike and Ashley's six year anniversary which they celebrate today. We saw The Watchmen, which Mike and his friends thought was awesome and philosophical, which Ashley thought was total crap, and which I found pretentious and unintentionally hilarious. On our walk home up our beloved dodgy Maitland street, we were serenaded by four drunk guys fumbling with a guitar on their front balcony. "And a very good night to you cuties!" they hollered as we passed. To which Mike turns and announces, "Um, I'm a guy." Priceless. And we waved to them again this morning, as they were still drinking on their front porch as Ashley and I went to the market at 9am. Nice.

New Zealand - Dunedin - Welcome to the Bermuda Triangle

I arrived in Dunedin airport not even knowing which way was up. I had gone with Mick to the airport in Santiago at about 1pm, despite the fact that my flight wasn't until 11pm since we were low on cash and reluctant to go the bank AGAIN. The Scotiabank branch manager back in Ottawa has already emailed me to remind me about international ATM withdrawal fees. Thanks, sir, but I am aware and would certainly be using affiliated ATMs if I could find them.

Anyways, this meant that once Mick was checked in for his flight at 2:30, I had a glorious 7 hour wait to endure in the terminal before I could even check in. Two books and one two hour conversation with an elderly South African couple later, Qantas finally opened a counter. I fought my way through the hordes of American tourists who had all just arrived to fly home to Dallas after a cruise to Antarctica to get to the check in desk and was rewarded for my absurd earliness with an aisle seat next to an empty seat for my 13 hour flight. Unfortunately, that massive line of cruise passengers got ahead of me into the security and customs lines, so some more line ups delays passed my time before the flight actually left.

The flight wasn't too bad... after 24+ bus rides, 13 hours on a plane doesn't really compare. I did overhear a rather disturbing conversation behind me where some Aussie girls were advocating the mandatory drugging of infants and young children on flights to keep them quiet. Which was totally uncalled for in the case of the six kids on our flight, who slept soundly through the night and the one baby who really only fussed when the plane was landing.

After deplaning (which I maintain should not be a word), I then was thrilled to find out that the check in counters in Auckland don't open before 5:30am. It was 3:30am when my plane landed. Sigh. I took my time going through immigration and customs again. In New Zealand, it turns out you have to declare hiking boots, since they may have foreign bacteria or plants in the soles, so the agent had to check my shoes. It was no easy task wrestling with my shoelaces at 4am, let me tell you. And let's be honest, I'm hardly outdoorsy... the guy was more likely to find gum from the city sidewalks than foreign plant species from tramping in the woods. And so I passed on, shoes unconfiscated, to wait to check in for my connecting flight to Dunedin.

On that flight, I had an early introduction to the craze for low fat food in NZ cuisine. I had the choice between low fat muesli or a fat free muffin with a low calorie orange juice or water for breakfast. Having now been to the local grocery store as well, I can tell you that every product comes in either light, low fat or fat free varieties. Except ice cream, which is an institution around here.

Finally made it to Mike and Ashley's place around 10am, no thanks to Mike. He figured it would all work out by itself. Luckily Ashley was a bit more proactive and emailed me the address, directions, and transportation options from the airport, as well as leaving me the key and detailed instructions in the mailbox. I was overwhelmingly happy to get in and throw my bags on the couch and then spent the rest of the day puzzling over what kind of jet lag would eventually settle in. Turns out I just wake up a bit early... should be over that soon.

Mike and Ashley have scored themselves a nice 2 floor flat (in which I have a bedroom all to myself!) in what is known as the Bermuda Triangle. Maitland Street, their place of residence, earned this nickname through having a somewhat shady reputation, which originates from a couple of halfway houses and group homes on the street. Mike, Ashley and I have decided to believe it's just bad press. We shall see...