Sailing!

On Saturday, April 27th, we set sail! We left the harbour and motored over to a couple of motu (islands) beside Taha'a, staying within the lagoon the whole time. After dropping anchor the boys went snorkeling, Rory's new favourite sport!
Next day we made the 3 and 1/2 hour crossing to the island of Huahine. We went through a pass in the reef, crossing from dark blue ocean waters to the turquoise waters of the lagoon within the reef. A group of dolphins greeted us upon our arrival before we dropped anchor in the bay near the town of Fare.
We dinghied over to the reef for a snorkel session and Mike spotted a moray eel we all got to see, as well as tons of beautiful fish. On the way back the dolphins were out again but this time entertained up us with flips, tail spins and jumps!

Good-bye New Zealand

After traveling up the west coast we arrived in Auckland to spend our last two nights with our 'New Zealand family', Karen, David, Lauren and Helena White. Their hospitality and the friendship they shared with us during our time here has made this trip more memorable and will remain with us forever.

Karen managed to whip up a Sunday night roast beef dinner on a Tuesday, and on the Wednesday we cooked dinner for them and the Duffy's as a small thank-you.
Our last night in New Zealand was spent with good friends, some old and some new, sharing stories, laughs and New Zealand wine one last time before we flew off to Tahiti.

Hopefully it won't be 20 years until we see them again, we would love to show them beautiful Oregon!

Northbound

Our travels around the South Island are winding to an end. Fall has really arrived now, bringing grey, rainy days. Luckily we had sunny weather through almost our entire trip, right up to Kikoura, our last 'destination'. The locals and our friends tell us that we've had an incredible run with the sun - this has been their best summer-fall ever, because of the drought.
We've been making our way slowly up the east coast, staying on beautiful beaches that remind us of Oregon - mostly because of the weather! The hikes we've been going on have been shorter and we come back soaked by the rain, but there are still awesome views to see, we just can't see as far as on the clear days but the clouds and mist make them quite dramatic.

By highway, its only about 20 minutes from Blenheim to Picton. Because we have the luxury of time, we were able to spend two days taking the scenic coastal route. Half of the road is metal (gravel), half sealed (paved) and winds up and down the hills dropping into numerous little coves and fishing villages looking out into the Queen Charlotte Sound, part of the Marlborough Sounds. We stopped at a DOC (dept. of conservation; very basic) campsite and spent the night, checking out the hike to the viewpoint and beach walk to the rock arch. Today we drove the remainder of the route, stopping at scenic outlooks - looking out at what we admired on our way to the island 7 weeks ago from the ferry.
It's bittersweet leaving the South Island, a place that is hard to describe with words alone but we are looking forward to seeing our friends the Whites and the Duffy's, and we still have our Tahiti adventure ahead.

Kaikoura

We are enjoying this town so much we decided to stay for our third night! Kaikoura sits on a peninsula with the snowcapped Seaward Kaikoura Range rising, as if from the ocean, behind it. When we arrived it was cloudy and raining but we woke up to a gorgeous sunny day yesterday so we went for a hike along the coast and cliffs of the Kaikoura peninsula. We climbed up hills from which we could see whales spouting in the distance and seals on the rocks below us.
On the way back along the coast to town we stopped at a little BBQ seafood vendor and tried paua (abalone) fritters and whitebait fritters for our first time, and some great seafood chowder. Afterwards, the boys, including Nigel as usual, played tag at the coolest park in NZ so far!
Today we skyped our families, got haircuts and then went to a very small, non commercial sheep shearing show, to watch the sheep get haircuts too! It's amazing how much wool comes off these animals!
The best part of the day was watching the baby seals play in the waterfall at Ohau up the coast from here! Hundreds of baby seals too young to go out into the ocean, clamber up this fresh water stream about 300 meters, over rocks and logs to reach the pool at the bottom of the falls. In the waterfall pool there must be at least 30 baby seals. They play, swim, jump, twirl, twist, fight, all the time skillfully avoiding collisions. They are so fun and happy it just makes you smile.

Friends

We spent part of last weekend with some more friends from 20 years ago, except we hadn't kept in touch, like with Wayne and Sue, so we had no idea what to expect. Well, Darryl married Di, who I met as his girlfriend back in '94, and they built a house in the country north of Christchurch on 20 acres, for them and their 4 children, including 8 year old twins! They have a dog, a cat, a bunch of chickens and lease the rest of the land to a couple hundred sheep!
The boys had a grand time hanging out and playing with kids their own age and I enjoyed catching up with old friends over a few too many glasses of wine (and port)!

Castle Hill

Apparently this amazing place appears in the Narnia movies, I guess we'll have to watch them again and see! We could have spent days here exploring and climbing on the weird, smooth rocks! To me, they looked like a herd of elephants had been turned to stone and then the wind had smoothed and hollowed them out! To Liam, they seemed more like ruins of medieval castles. Whatever they looked like, they were a climbing paradise and made for some great photo ops!

Cave Stream

We've been in caves in the woods, coastal caves, lava tubes and now the 'Cave Stream', where a stream carved through limestone and decided to flow underground. Initially the stream was pretty deep and we weren't sure we should continue since it would be chest deep on Rory and it was bone numbing cold! Liam found that you could climb along the sides a ways and skip the deep bit, after which it was knee deep most of the way with occasional waist deep sections. The limestone was beautifully sculpted by years of water rushing through and carving this tunnel. It was smooth to hold onto and seemed to glow in our headlights, not slimy or muddy. Liam led the way upstream, climbing gradually and at times up small, rushing waterfalls. After about 45 minutes and at least a kilometer, when our legs were numb from the freezing water, we saw the light at the end of the tunnel and climbed up the metal rungs to emerge back into daylight!