I'm trying to get a picture of how sharp and jagged these rocks are on the lookout at Harwoods Hole. Can you tell? They are razor-edge sharp and have these deep crevasses between them. I was being careful not only with my cameras, but also with my feet!

The view from the lookout above Harwood's Hole in inland Abel Tasman National Park, which I stopped to hike in and check out on my way from Motueka to Golden Bay to meet up with my friend Karin.

We hiked out as far out onto Farewell Spit as you are allowed to go (the rest is a bird sanctuary and only licensed tours are allowed to go through). This is at the farthest point out on the eastern (calmer) side. After this, we crossed sand dunes of fine, white sand, forming endlessly varying and complex sand patterns and punctuated by occasional plants, (many of them thorny - yikes!), to the western side of the spit. There, we encountered more endless beaches and only one other person during our entire walk.

Karin and I woke up early to head down to catch low tide at Wharariki Beach on the west side of the Farewell Spit. There is a seal colony there that supposedly comes in to play at low tide. We didn't see any seals, but we saw and explored more than enough amazing scenery to keep us fully happy!

One of the rock arches on Wharariki Beach that particularly enchanted us.

Here's me at the helm as Karin and I kayak through more of that spectacular Abel Tasman Coastline.

Karin watching the seal pups along the coast of Tonga Island. They were the most playful, joyous creatures, leaping along as they swam, just like in The Little Mermaid. Sorry for all those of you who know more about the ocean than I do, but that's my reference point for ocean life... Disney's Little Mermaid. And I can sing all the songs too!

A seal pup playing in the water next to our kayak. One even snuck up onto the rock that we were holding onto and climbed onto our kayak! Oh, it was so cute with those big, blueberry eyes and dense whiskers!!!

Karin packs our lunch food back into the kayak after our lunch on the boulders at the end of Onetahuti Beach, where we went to drop off our kayak at the end of our second day of paddling. How we hated to leave it after such fantastic coastal views! Our sadness was quelled somewhat by the amazing beach at Onetahuti where we camped out for the night and had a nice swim. I even got out my goggles and checked out some of the fish, barnacles and other little sea creatures and plants along the cliffs at the other end of the beach.

A view onto some of the spectacular Abel Tasman coastline from the coastal track.

The view from the track out over Anatakapau Bay and Mutton Cove, curving around to Separation Point.

Exact Geographic Center of New Zealand

The official geographic center of New Zealand is in the botanical gardens in Nelson. I don't know if it was politically expedient to claim a mountaintop in the botanical gardens as the exact geographic center of the country, or if they were just extremely lucky, or if the gardens and parkland grew up around the monument, but either way, I went there to see it 2 Sundays ago. I went to visit my friend Dana and we had a great time, chatting over lunch out on a patio, hiking up to the 'Center of New Zealand Lookout', or as Dana puts it "Center of New Zealand, Lookout!!" and smelling the variety of roses in the Queens Gardens. I also saw a hedgehog at my campground that morning, which was quite an exciting event for me, becuase I have been wanting to see a hedgehog ever since I was staying with Savage and his flatmate Alan said that he could hear hedgehogs rooting around outside his window at night. Well, I took it into my head that I would hang out in their backyard after dark with my headlamp and wait for the hedgehogs to show up so I could see them. I staked out a place in the tall grasses next to the house - not directly under Alan's window, since that might be a little weird, but close enough so that I could hopefully see those same hedgehogs. If you have ever tried to spot 5 inch high animals in 18 inch high grass, you will guess that I did not have much luck on that little quest. I heard some snuffling that might have been hedgehogs, but all I had to show for it in the end was a bunch of mosquito bites. And up until last weekend, the only hedgehogs I'd managed to see were dead ones on the side of the road, which obviously doesn't count. But there was a cute little baby one that came snuffling about, wandering through the campground in the morning. I think it was a little confused and was looking for its home. I was assured that although hedgehogs are normally nocturnal, it is normal for the little ones to get disoriented and come out during the day time. It doesn't mean that they are sick or injured or anything, which made me feel a lot better.

Boat Names

Have you all noticed the horrible boat names out there? I thought I'd come across one of the worst out on Waiheke Island, the Oh-Fish-L. But Lundi beat that one out with a southern California specimen called the Butt Ugly. And she gets extra points for sending me a photo of it! That made it very "oh-fish-L". I'll let ya know if I find any that can top that one. Or even come close.

My Life in Motueka

I wrote this up earlier when I was in Motueka, so I'll just type it in as I had it written, but don't be fooled by the present tense - I've done a lot since then! Things have been chill here in Motueka, being that the greater part of my days have been spent picking fruit (and chucking the unacceptable specimens at my fellow crew members!). Notice how I did not use the word "unsuspecting" when describing said crew members, since we all very well expected to have fruit launched at us from time to time. Especially when walking under a tree where someone was picking. That was one of the drawbacks of working the bottoms of the trees: its much easier to accurately drop fruit on people from above than it is to throw it up and hit them from below. The tangle of branches have a bad habit of getting in the way and diverting your aim as well as diminishing any forward momentum of the pears. The branches don't have such a marked effect on the way down, unfortunately. I usually had to wait until they came down to empty their picking sack into the bins on the tractor. Thats when I had my best opportunity for stealth attacks between the tree trunks. After hours, I've been hanging out back at my campsite, which I've been sharing with an English guy named Steve. He's been living here in New Zealand for a while and is down here working in a fruit packing house at the moment. We've been making shared dinners with Mark, another guy in the site next to us, since its much easier and more fun to cook for multiple people. I've got a bit of a problem though, because Steve looks like Dr. Green from ER, so I keep wanting to call him Mark, which luckily I've avoided so far, since that might lead to some mass confusion and embarassment for me. My other tent neighbor is a guy named Peter. He's from New Zealand, but has spent a lot of time fruit picking over in Australia as well. We got to talking since I was noticing his road bike, a bit enviously, I'll admit. The guy is amazing. He get up, goes for a swim, picks apples, does a long bike ride after work and then swims again in the evening. Can we say energy much? Oh. And he plays violin. Jeez. Most people, including myself, come back from a day of picking and hang out, make their dinner and go to bed. So compare and contrast those two scedules there. Yeah, the guys has got some energy! He's really into the Outward Bound stuff though, and said I should look into doing some of that... sounds good to me! He also told me about the saltwater pools where he swims down at the beach near our campsite. Our pool here at the campground is large to play in but not quite up to lap-swimming size. It would be excellent for practicing flip-turns though. I figured on Saturday I'd go down and check out this saltwater pool and have myself a little workout. Well, Saturday rolled around and I was quite homesick. The travelling thing gets tome from time to time. I don't want to cook out of the trunk of my car anymore! I've got so many plastic bags in there, its a headache to find anything, even though I have them all sorted and organized and neatly arranged (as is possible with a bunch of plastic shopping bags). I have my breakfast food bag, my tupperware and cookware bag, my snacks, my dinner ingredients, my nonperishables, my fruits and veggies, my wash liquid and sponge, plus extra plastic bags all on the left side of my trunk. On the right side is my file folder with all of my important info, my plastc bags full of journals, books, cameras, film, scarves, jewelry, shower stuff, dirty laundry and all sorts of little odds and ends. In the middle are my Granite Gear compression sacks full of my various articles of clothing: outdoor and sports gear in the large red one, heavier clothes in the medium blue one, and smaller things like t-shirts, socks and underwear in the small purple one. Thats how its supposed to work, anyway. In practice, the blue and purple bags tend to get mixed up a bit. Keeping all of your clothes in 3 bags may not seem like a big sacrifice to many of you, but for me, who normally keeps even my underwear neatly folded and arranged just so in my dreser drawer, having to dig unceremoniously through 2 bags in the trunk of my car, fishing around for something down at the bottom that might feel like the t-shirt I'm loooking for is not one of my favorite pastimes. At least the t-shirts are better than the socks. Those seem to have a habit of consistently coming up as only one of the pair. Then I have to fish down back into the depths of my bag, trying to remember where my hand first encountered the other half of the pair before the struggle of pulling it up through the layers of shirts, jeans and undies. Oh the sacrifices I make for the sake of travel! :) Dang! I got a bit off track there. Right, so I was talking about swimming. And I decided that a swim would be a good idea to take my mind off homesickness. I didn't really feel like going swimming. I'd stayed up late (past midnight!... didn't make it 'til one though...) with my picking crew at Hot Mama's the night before, hanging out and listening to a band for a while. So my energy level wasn't at max. I got all suited and sunscreend up, threw on my sweats since there was a chill in the air, grabbed my towel, goggles, watch and waterbottle, and hopped into my ccar to head down to the pool. When I arrived, it of course was even chillier since the wind was stronger down on the beach. I bravely took off my clothes and stepped down onto the first stair under the water. Whoa! Stop right there! I stepped back UP from that first stair in the water, first of all because it is cold and second of all because there are FISH in the pool! I knew it was filled up by the water at high tide, but somehow I wasn't expecting it to have sea life in it. I alked around the edge, taking a surreptitious, but thorough look to make sure that there weren't any other, more hazardous, marine creatures lurking about. Sorry, but you never know! I could just see myself backstrocking right into a jellyfish or something. I saw plenty of seaweed and what looked like some barnacles, so I determined that even though it didn't quite quite fit my usual definition of a lap pool, at least it was safe. Then I fell to the task of convincing myself to get in the water. After checking over the wading pool as well, I stodd mid-calf in its slightly warmer water, leaning on the wooden railing separating the two pools, looking down into that big, cement fishpond full of cold water, trying to convince myself to get in. Eventually, my logical half won out. I KNEW I'd feel better if I got in a good workout. So before I could change my mind, I popped on my goggles, checked their suction, (I didn't want any of that salt water in my eyes), and dove in... yes, all the way under, head and all. After that first shock, I'm already used to it. The pool looked about as big as the pool at the Midtown Y at home, only without the pretty turquoise tiles and lane lines. When I called it a cement fishpond earlier, I was not being disparaging. It truly was just a concrete basin filled up by the tides each day. It is 36 laps to the mile at home, so I figured I'd do my usual workout, mixing up strokes and intensities so I'd get a little of everything. And man, it felt good! By the time I'd reached 20 laps, I was going strong and didn't want to stop. I did, however, stop at 36 laps, because the pool was in the direct sunlight and I wasn't sure how well I'd done with my self-application of sunscreen on my back. I drove home absolutly glowing, feeling so strong and refreshed. I left those poor little fish in peace. They were probably grateful to have this gigantic land creature finally leave them alone after barging through their midst 72 times in a row. When I went to bed, I fell asleep happily with that post-workout ease of happy sleepiness. I think I started feeling it a bit early, since I woke up in the morning wearing my pajama top backwards. I obviously hadn't noticed when I put it on the night before. Whoops.

Quick Update

I finished my pear and nashi picking job, headed up to meet Karin in Golden Bay and now we're off to kayak and hike the Abel Tasman track (2 days of each). Afterward, I am returning to our awesome hostel up near the Farewell Spit to help manage it for a few weeks. I'll write more later, but won't be close to a computer again for a while, so just wanted to let you all know!

I did most of my picking as the ground crew with Hiromi, thus why I spent so much time looking UP for pears! We cleaned out those bottom branches like nobody's business!

Picking pears in the treetops. Notice my hardcore sun protection: I took my sunglasses off for the photo, but I've got my sunhat, longsleeves (with sunscreen underneath just in case), long pants, close-toed shoes and a scarf to cover up my neck, since my hat works pretty well, but I'm doing lots of looking up for pears above my head, which exposes my neck and face to the sun despite my best efforts. The scarf is an interesting find, actually. I got it at the India Emporium in Auckland for free. It was supposed to be some part of a Sari, but they were giving them away. Probably because it is coming apart with the threads coming off the edges all over the place, but it worked perfectly for my purposes. And to think I just took it because it was free and I liked the color (bright golden yellow). I thought I would decorate my car with it or something, but it is perfect for this purpose! Next best thing to Alley Shopping!

Our crew hanging out during our afternoon break in the orchards. Fritz, Helen (our fearless leader), Richard, Hiromi and Alex. What an awesome group!

My beautiful brown Nashis! Laid by the magical night-hen... :)

Nashi Nashi

A few little thoughts here: 1) I won't be posting so much in the near future, cuz I am moving to a campground out on the edge of town that is only $55 a week, as opposed to $126 at the backpackers I was at (although I'll definitely miss the complimentary muffins and wonderful staff). I will not miss the woman who was snoring in my room last night, however. I am a big dork and I put in my earplugs to muffle the snoring, forgetting that I was on the top bunk, so just using my watch alarm. If any of you have watch alarms (the Timex Ironman, to be specific, but I bet they're all pretty similar), you know how quiet they are. Yeah. Can't hear that through ear plugs. I woke up an hour later than I'd meant to, but luckily still had enough time to move everything out of my room and get some breakfast to eat in the car on the way to work. It was harried though, let me tell you! I was runnin' like a whirlwind all over that hostel! 2) As I pick my nashis, I think you all the time Val. "What's the name of Nate's cabin again? Nashi Nashi?" You won't live that one down. Or "huff huff," our famous Minnesota saying. 3) Speaking of Nashis, I am in love with the brown ones. Walking through the rows of brown nashi trees is like a wonderland for me. I think they are some of the most beautiful fruits I have ever seen (and you all know how much I love my fruit, so that is high praise! Although I wouldn't put them quite as high on the taste ratings of favorites. They're good, but not in my top category). But anyway, let me just tell you why I love them so much. They are about the size of big (Braeburn) apples, but rounder. They have the most wonderful curves across their bodies, which are colored in varying intensities of golden brown, and sprinkled with pale golden spots scattered across them like the stars. When I look at them perched there in the trees, I feel like a magical hen came along during the night and lovingly nestled each of her eggs into the dark green leaves of the nashi trees so that they might bask in the moonlight and the cool dewiness of the dawn. They wait there for us to find them with their dusting of stars to remind us of the beauty of the night and everything around us. Maybe thats a bit fanciful of me, but I couldn't get the image out of my head as I searched through the trees for each beautiful, prefect, brown nashi. Except when I was laughing about Val's Nashi Nashi question, of course! 4) My picking crew is excellent. We all have a good time together during the day, despite our hard work. We have Pete, the guy in charge of the operation, Helen, who leads our crew, Richard, who's done this a lot and knows whats up (all of those guys are from here in New Zealand. Then we have me, Hiromi (a girl from Japan), Fritz (a guy from Austria) and Alex (a guy from France). Its a good group. The 4 of us travellers carpool each day (well, starting today!) and had a fun disco dance party on the way home, including... THE CARWASH! Yes, I did the dance, although the car hampered the sideways leaps a bit. Alex has an old Toyota hatchback, so its not big enough to be leaping around like I'd like to. 5) I was telling people today that I'd gone down for a walk near Mapua on the Ruby Bay beach and Helen and Richard commented that they thought there used to be a Nudist beach down there... Yup! I can attest to that one. They told me its only part time now though, since the new management has changed it a bit to only be for nudists during March. Lucky me. I've had a request for photos from my Mapua Leisure Colony experience, but I regret to tell anyone else who is wondering that no, I did not take photos. :) 6) I just thought I should let you all know that I'm aware that the moral yesterday wasn't actually a moral, but it sounded good, so I used it anyway! 7) My new favorite thing to do when I meet Israelis is not to tell them my name right away, as this always affords much amusement later since they all have EXACTLY the same reaction. We'll be talking for a while and eventually we get around to doing names. I tell them my name and the conversation has two possible routes: First one goes something like this: "Ilana? That's a Jewish name.... Are you Jewish?" Or the second possibility: "Ilana? Oh.... Are you Jewish?" I guess the long pause is what it takes to register that we've been talking for this long and I haven't mentioned the fact that half of my family is Jewish. Its much more fun this way though! 8 - and final) I am on the Ned Flanders computer today. That's it. Okilly dokilly, its time to go-killy! Sorry... that was soooooo bad!!!!

I got a job!!!

That's right, Larissa, I'm working!!! Hahaha. Don't worry - I know you were joking!!! I was turned down for the one apple picking job for which I could find someone home to ask about it because I'M A GIRL. The guy straight out told me that his tractor driver had refused to work with any more girls because they just couldn't cut it in the picking fields. Jeez. I had been warned about that, but it still felt weird to be told to try for a job in the packhouse (less pay, easier work) since the apple picking is too hard for females. However, I mentioned to the woman at my hostel that I was looking for a fruitpicking job and she put me in touch with a woman who needed help picking Nashis (Asian Pears) and pears. She hired me on the spot (apparently girls can pick Nashis just fine) and I had my first day of work today. It was good. We had a small crew with two supervising pickers and only 4 of us making up the rest of the crew. Its a nice little group. We get paid $12/hour before taxes, which is actually quite decent and affords a nice, cooperative atmosphere rather than getting paid by the bin like they do at so many places. I'll be doing that for the next two weeks until I head out to do some tramping around this area. I also set up an appointment to get my hair cut on Saturday, cuz its getting long, and that means that my layers are growing out and its just BAD. You all know I'm not vain, so when even I start wearing my hair in a ponytail every day, it means its time for a haircut. I also want to get my right heel looked at. Its been painful for a while. I doubt I would have broken it, since I'm guessing I'd know if that happened, but maybe I bruised the bone or something?? I don't know. We'll see. I should probably call the program office to get some advice about going to the doctor. I also think I got some gravel in my wheel of my car, so I have to figure out how to get that out. Hopefully I can find someone who will be willing to help me... The moral of this post is that if you find yourself eating a New Zealand Nashi or Pear in the near future, just think - it might have been hand picked by me!!!

Mapua Leisure Park

I was taking a nice little Sunday drive down along the coast, ostensibly looking for apple orchards who were hiring pickers, but, not having much luck with that, my mind had turned to other things such as the brilliant sunny day, the green moutains rising to my right and the ocean stretching out off to my left. In htis state of mind, I passed a little yellow sign, the very unhelpful kind that seem to be the main form of traffic signage here. The signs are small (the size of regular street signs) and you have probably a 70/30 chance of reading them as your whiz by at 100 kilometers an hour, the legal speed limit. This of course leaves you with exactly a 0% chance of actually making the turn, even if you manage to read the sign. I have become well praccticed at whipping Uies on the highway and pulling over to read the road signs after missing them (go figure!) the first time around. I often like to up my odds to a 50/50 chance of reading the signs by driving a bit under speed limit. That's my excuse anyway. The roads are narrow and so curvy. You'd have to be crazy to actually drive 100kms/hour like they say. Seriously, I'll be rounding a bend at 65km/h feeling like I'm taking it fast and just around the bend (and directly before the next!) there'll be a sign reminding you of the 100km/h speed limit, just to rub in what a grandmother I feel like already! That's aside from the times when I've approached curves where they actually do have signs posted for lower speed limits, like, say, 55, and I'll look down at my speedometer, which is at 50, and think how I should be speeding up for the turn! Crazy New Zealand drivers!! Back to my story though. The little yellow sign I saw, which sparked that whole outpouring of animosity toward New Zealand road conditions in general, was a sign for Pedestrian Beach Access. And, I'll have you know that I read it on my first pass! Although I didn't make the turnoff and had to pull a Uie... oh well. I pulled in to an area with all sorts of industrial-looking buildings and no visibly good place to park. So I pulled my car off to the side in some weeds up against a fence. Its Sunday, right? No one at this machine-shop, or whatever it is, will care, right? Or notice. I headed down a well-disguised little sandy track to Ruby Bay Beach. As I left the treeline and made it onto the beach proper, I was greeted by a strong blast of wind and a view of continuous whitecaps as far as I could see. The sea was so churned up by all the waves that it was grey and muddy for 100meters out, before it returned to its characteristic aquamarine, although even this was still punctuated by the endless lines of whitecaps. Good thing I wasn't planning to go swimming! In addition to my greetings by the wind and sea, there was also two maps posted for the Mapua Tidal Track and the Mapua/Ruby Bay Walkway. I decided to take the Mapua Tidal Track around the point, where they had the Mapua Leisure Park marked on the map, and into the Mapua Estuary. So with the wind whipping so strongly that my hair stood out horizontally from my head, parallel to the ground, I started out on my walk. I was having a nice little stroll, enjoying the sunshine and the solitude. I had almost reached the point where the estuary enters the ocean before I saw my first person, a man wading along the edge of the surf, wearing a hat, sunglasses and a towel... over his shoulders. Yes, the sign at the trail entrance to the beach had shown me approximate walking times to different points on the beach track, as well as labeled landmarks along the way. However, it had failed to mention that the Mapua Leisure Park is apparently a park for people who like to spend their leisure time in the nude, because as I continued around the corner of the headland where the the leisure park is located, I encountered another naked man walking up from the beach and a gaggle of unclad sunbathers. I felt kind of bad walking by fully clothed, but the view across the estuary to the pine forest-ringed beaches was not to be missed. They would just have to content themselves with my bare arms and the little chunk of my midsection where my top didn't quite reach my jeans...

Our Pesto-Making Extravaganza

A quick note about the following photos from our great pesto-making enterprise out at Stephen's farm on Thursday. The basil and garlic are fresh from his garden and those of his neighbors and the olive oil and lemon juice were straight from the kitchen of a neighbor (which she found out about later... hehehe :)). All organic and vegan and sooooo yummy! And if you're noticing how gorgeous his house is, it really IS that beautiful AND he designed and built it all himself using mostly found and reclaimed materials! Wow! I hope you enjoy these photos as much as I enjoyed our time while taking them!

Here I am peeling lots and lots of garlic! I lost count of how many bulbs it was - probably somewhere near 10. That's bulbs, not cloves! There were a lot more than 10 cloves by the time I was done with them!

Just take another look at ALL THAT GARLIC!! Possibly enough to satisfy the Schonfeld-Hicks family for, umm, a week? :) Especially if its followed by a bowl of icecream...

Matt workin' the grinder for the sesame seeds, which we used instead of pine nuts. Malindi and I took our turns on it as well, but that thing takes a lot of arm muscle! We eventually decided that teamwork might be our best option and we completed the sunflower seed grinding lumberjack-style. A little cross-cut saw action right there in the kitchen!

Malindi had the brilliant idea of washing our mass of basil leaves in the bathtub, cuz there was too much to fit in the sink!

So much basil!!! And just wait until you see the next photo...

What a place to dry the basil! Yes, that whole hammock WAS full!

Stephen and Matt blend up our fabulous pesto concoction.

The finished product - 6 (might have been more???) litres of yummy vegan pesto.

Marahau

A quick note before I tell you about my time in Marahau: the internet cafe where I am sitting has all of the computers named after Simpsons characters, with a little framed bio and picture of each character above the computer. How funny is that? Can you guess which one I chose? Krusty the Clown!!! So, back to Marahau. I just arrived in town this afternoon after spending a wonderful week with Stephen, one of Savage's friends, at his organic farm in Marahau, the little town at the entrance to Abel Tasman National Park on the North Coast of the South Island (I was thinking about telling you that it was at the far south down on Stewart Island, just to see who's on their toes about my geographical whereabouts, but figured that would probably just confuse you for no reason!). Okay, so really back to Marahau now... I showed up there in the rain and dark on Sunday night, which left me for a fantabulous surprise for Monday morning. Wow! He has a great house that he built out of all sorts of reclaimed timber. There is a veranda surrounding the entire upper floor, which looks out over the valley and up into the mountains. This morning, I woke up once again thinking how lucky I was to be in this perfect place, physically, mentally and spiritually. I was sleeping in a little bed out on the veranda behind the house. My bed was surrounded by a princess cascade of mosquito netting and lying cuddled up in my sleeping bag, I could hear the dawn chorus of birds singing in the native bush that came right up to brush the deck's wooden railings. A stream burbled through the trees below me and the chill of the morning air nipped at my face just enough to make me grateful for the contrast with my 0-degree down sleeping bag. Well, Meredith's 0-degree down sleeping bag, which she so graciously loaned to me for this trip and I have been very grateful to have! I have spent the past week working in the garden (weeding, mulching, fertilizing, harvesting) and the kitchen (canning 12 litres of our home made tomato sauce and whipping up LOTS of pesto to toss in the freezer for the rest of the year). It has been so good to relearn this stuff. These are skills that I have been wanting to build over the past few years, but I have such trouble finding the time to do it at home. Kind of like my vows to learn car maintenance... I still have the vision of running a Bed and Breakfast someday, where I can cook using my own food from the garden. And man, if I can churn out food like we ate this past week, I have no doubt of getting return customers. They are almost entirely self sufficient there on the farm, and we ate fresh fruits and veggies, organic breads, fresh milk and yogurt from the goats, and eggs from the hens (they are called chooks here - although I don't know how to spell that). Very much a wonderful experience. There were great people stopping by the house all the time to visit and help out in the garden. What a wonderful community! (Stephen's farm is part of a cooperative community farming deal). But I meant community in the wider sense, since not all the people stopping by live in the actual community. Did I mention that they also have a lovely little swimming hole in the creek there? Cool, clear water. It felt so nice after a long morning in the garden and an afternoon making litres of pesto. Was it 6 litres??? I have photos from our pesto-making party, which I will post when I find a computer with XP again. This place may have Krusty, Apu and the crew, but it doesn't have XP. On Thursday night, we went to an Open Mike Night down at the Park Cafe, where I got a wonderful slice of orange almond cake and listened to Matt and Malindi (two of our pesto crew - very cool people) play some Eastern European dance songs on their clarinet and flute. They were absolutely fabulous to listen to. It made me want to head off to Eastern Europe for some dancing! I think I'll stay here a bit longer first though. Right now, I am in Motueka, a bigger town nearby where I am staying and I think I may look for an apple picking/packing job to help my cashflow a bit. I'll let y'all know what happens. I'm trying to think if there's anything else I wanted to mention... I'm sure I'll think of a hundred things once I say my farewells to Krusty here, but those will just have to wait for another day, cuz I'm outta here for now!

Answers to your Questions

Well, some of them, anyway. I will check again to be sure, but I think that water goes down the drain clockwise here. And here's a fun little fact: they say anti-clockwise, instead of counter-clockwise. Also, a bunch of you guys have been asking about my address. Its easy, because you just send stuff to me to the program office and I let them know where I am and they send it along to me. I put the address up at the top of my blog (for easy access!), but here it is as well: Ilana Schonfeld-Hicks; c/o IEP - Work NZ; PO Box 1786; Shortland Street; Auckland; New Zealand. My mobile phone number, in case you should want to call (!) is 011-64-21-070-8816. That's all set up to call from the US, so if you're calling from elsewhere, you'll have to switch the 011 to whatever the country code to dial out of your country is. Also, its good, but not essential, to let me know if you're thinking about calling at a particular time, because I don't always leave my phone on, so if you tell me you're planning to call, I'll definitely have it on to catch you! It is free for me to receive calls, so call away!

The Marlborough Sounds

The Cook Straight divides the North and South islands of New Zealand. It is one of the roughest stretches of water in the world, due to the ocean, storm and wind currents all coming together in a way that apparently tends to lead to rough seas As in, enormous ferries have had to turn back halfway through the voyage because they can't make it the 3 hours across. Luckily for me and my tummy, the day I set out from Wellington to ferry across to Picton, on the South Island, was nice with smooth, flat seas. I pulled up to get my car in line for the ferry after checking out of my hostel. I went for a last wander around Wellington in the hour and a half before I had to be back to load up. My last wander consisted of looking for Lonely Planet's Tramping New Zealand guide at a bookstore where I'd seen all Lonely Planet books advertised for 20% off. Turns out, that's 20% off the cover price of $44.99. Ummm. Yeah. Even with exchange rate, that's RIDICULOUS, so needless to say, I passed up on that one, as much as I would love to have a copy of the book. Instead, I went across the street to a honey shop (The Honey Hive) where I got a cone of Kapiti Fig and Honey ice cream. It was a delicious manuka honey ice cream with fig pieces, which had won the "Supreme Champion New Zealand Ice Cream Awards in 2002." How cool is that?? They have Supreme Champion Ice Cream Awards here?! Do we have that in the States? Cuz if not, we should. I'll judge... ;) You all know I am VERY well qualified! ;) I strolled back to the ferry along the waterfront, and reached my car in time to receive a call from my dad and Dale! (Don't worry, my mom got on eventually as well). It was very fun to hear from all of them, and I officially proved my prowess as a New Zealand driver by driving my car up on the ferry while talking on the phone. Whoo hoo! The Crossing. Not much to say, but I thought I'd just throw that in to keep with the flow. It was windy up on deck. Thank goodness I had packed my hoodie and rain jacket/windbreaker. Other than that, uneventful, until... I reached the Marlborough Sounds. I am not entirely sure what I was expecting when I arrived, but certainly not what I saw. The Marlborough Sounds are old, gently worn down mountains whose valleys were flooded by the seas back when sea level rose at some point in the geological past. What that leaves is beautiful green, forested mountains that drop directly down into the sea. There are all sorts of little islands and penninsulas of these low mountains, and the ferry weaves in amongst them as it makes its way to Picton, the little town where the ferry eventually deposited me and left me to go in search of my hostel. Picton. I spent a couple days in Picton recovering from the rigors of the big city, because while I thoroughly enjoyed Wellington, it definitely took its toll being in the city again. I took a lovely hike out to "The Snout," a nice 4 hour return walk out to the tip of a penninsula in the Queen Charlotte Sound. At the tip of the penninsula, I watched the waves, the sailboats, the birds, and just sat and enjoyed the sunshine and blowing grasses. At the hostel that night, we played a fun Austrian game trying to hammer nails into a tree stump using the small side of the hammer. That is hard to do! Try it sometime! Definitely frustrating after a bit - you just want to pound that nail in! Camping in the Sounds. I stayed in Picton for 2 nights and then headed out with my car and my tent to spend the night out in a campground out on a Penninsula between the Kenepuru and Queen Charlotte Sounds. I had a beautiful spot up in the woods and could walk right down to the water, which was a beautiful little harbor beneath the little town of Portage (a good MN name if I ever heard one!). There was a family staying right down by the water. I got a kick out of the little girls, the oldest of whom was probably 7, and informed me that her little sister (probably 2), had already "pooed in her togs [swimsuit]" 3 times since they'd arrived. Ahhh, the things I learn! Another thing I learned from her was that she'd just been in swimming and almost gotten stung by a jellyfish. I crossed "go swimming" off my list of things to do.

Wellington, whatup!!

I told you all a bit about Wellington the other day, but I will tell you a bit more, just cuz I loved it so much. And really, it was all about the atmosphere. It was small, walkable, lots of parks, gardens and greenery, a beautiful waterfront, lots of sculptures and public art, an alternative/artsy atmosphere, good pedestrian areas, inviting little shops, restaurants and cafes, etc. A great place to be! The Fringe Festival was going on while I was down there and I attended two performances, one that was really impressive. It was a collection of sketches put on by students and graduates from a local university all having to do with grief, death and dying. I laughed AND cried in the performance. I went to the Planetarium show in the botanic gardens, where I learned all sorts of star lore and constellations of the southern sky. There are many constellations here that we never see in the northern hemisphere! The botanic gardens themselves were beautiful to walk through as well. I already told you a bit about those from when Anne and I visited. I also had quite a nice wander through some beautiful neighborhoods on my way to the planetarium, since I decided to go the not-through-downtown route. A good choice! It is very hilly and its quite intersting, because the housing and layout reminds me quite a bit of San Francisco up close, but Bergen (in Norway) from far away. I'm not quite sure how that works. Maybe its because the basic shape of the houses is the tall, rectangular with basic V rooflines (like in Norway), but up close you see all the laticework and fancy windows and porches that are reminiscent of San Francisco. I went for a tour of Parliament as well. That was fun, seeing where the government people do their work and learning about the whole government set-up. Its always fascinating to see how other countries set up their governments. Maybe if our own country could get out of its "we were the first democracy (we weren't) so therefore we're the best" rut, we could actually set up a better functioning government. Well, I can always hope, anyway! I also spent some time in Te Papa, New Zealand's National Museum. I checked out several exhibits. One of the coolest was an exhibit up on the top floor of Maori pottery. The Maori have no tradition of clay work, so this is a new medium, culturally, and these artists have been pioneering the art of clay using traditional Maori concepts and principles. Some very neat work! Sorry this is so scattered. I guess I just enjoyed the experience overall. It is hard to describe in any cohesive fashion, so I'll just stop there and let you imagine that it is 10 times cooler than what I've just told you (cuz it was!).