Our excuse for being in New Zealand is the month that I am spending visiting with my colleague Liz Franz who is in the Psychology Department at the University of Otago. It is a good time for me, because I have no responsibilities (to teach or otherwise), and out-of-sight, out-of-mind seems to describe my interactions […]
Yesterday being Sunday, we decided to attend a service at St. Paul’s, the Anglican cathedral in Dunedin. This was especially fun today because it was Commonwealth Day, so, in addition to the singing of a small, but wonderful mixed, adult choir, we were treated the congregation singing “God Save the Queen,” the reading of the […]
If you have been following this blog, you know that there has been a 5-day hiatus in the posts. In part that is because I had gotten up to where we had finished the interesting, initial part of our trip and were settling into a month of work in Dunedin. Also, however, I expected that […]
Discerning that we liked gardens, because we were interested in their garden, Helen and Graeme suggested that we visit a large, private local garden called Maple Glen. It is about 40 km from their farm on the other side of Matuara River. I was amazed how the landscape changed from one side to the other. […]
News Flash: The events described below happened over a week ago. However, today Taylor and Haywood arrived in Auckland after a journey of over 30 hours from New York. They plan to spend ten days touring the North Island on their own. It will then take them another 2 days to make their way to […]
After a good night’s sleep recovering from the exertions of the Milford Track, we today drove south to a “farmstay” east of Invercargill in the “Southland.” The first third of the most direct route, would have retraced half of the drive to Te Anu, which we had just done twice, so we elected to head […]
Our last day of this trip actually involved no hiking. We were allowed to sleep in, until 7:15. After breakfast, we boarded a boat for a scenic cruise of Milford Sound. The weather this morning was almost perfect, if you like spectacular vistas of mountains and water. The next 3 photos were taken before we […]
It rains a lot in southwestern New Zealand. The moist air blowing off of the Tasman Sea hits the high mountains we have been walking through and, at times the water is said to come down as if from a fire hose. The Arthur River watershed averages 7 m (about 22 feet) of rain a […]
WARNING: This post is long and has LOTS of pictures. Day 3 of the hike is what makes the Milford Track famous. The Milford Track has a reputation of being the best hike in the world, a distinction that apparently began with an article by the New Zealand poet Blanche Baughan published by the London […]
Note to readers: Several of you have noted that you could not post comments because of a permissions problem. Nina has now fixed that. Your comments are most definitely welcome! Today we have our first real hike. It is ten miles long but not particularly hard since the track is generally quite good and we […]