Friday, May 27, 2011

Hokitika and the West Coast of the South Island

The west coast is, I think, one of the most beautiful coastlines I've ever seen and I come from the west coast of northern California. It was a spectacular vista. The best I've ever seen.
After Queenstown we drove north and over to the coast to continue our travels back up to Picton where we catch the ferry to the North Island. We took our time doing this fantastic coastline.You can see the layers of the coastal landscape.This is the Franz Josef Glacier. It is on the central mountains that run up the South Island. We stayed the night near here.Notice the turquoise color of the river water. This is typical of glacial melt. I saw this in Alaska when I was there in 1985.
Hokitika was one of the small towns along the west coast that we liked the best. It seemed to be an artist community and they were having artist sell their crafts on the street. We bought some New Zealand Jade and a blown glass sculpture for our neighbor here in Tucson that was watching our dogs and chickens. There were other towns along the drive but Hokitika was by far the most fun!Midway up the coast we spotted this landslide. It has a plaque that tells of the earthquake that caused it. It happened years before we got there so again, I'm not taking credit for this one either. hehe

Monday, May 23, 2011

More of Dave

Our Zip Line experience in New Zealand was lead by these guys. I do not remember the names of the two on the right but the one on the left is Dave, yum Dave! And that is my husband Steve behind the three. I remember Dave not only because he was so witty and cute and beefy, but because he had mentioned that he was working to replant some native trees that were burned out by Maori centuries ago. We could donate 10 NZ dollars to the cause per tree and have the trees we support be named in honor of who ever we'd like. Sure, there will be no plaque but it makes us feel good to do this for New Zealand and in our heads to have trees named after our two beloved dogs that are no longer with us, Rocko and Sophia.
Dave digging the hole.
Dave planting the tree named for Rocko.
Planting the tree named for Sophia.
Our trees dedicated to Rocko and Sophia will be growing next to each other. This makes me so happy! They were brother and sister. Our Beloved dogs live on! Thank you Dave!

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Queenstown

Queenstown was my favorite town in New Zealand. We stayed there for three nights. We rented a very nice apartment right on the lake and loved it! The plan was to have a place to do our laundry midway through the trip. The kitchen was similar to our kitchen here at home so I decided to make dinner on two nights and of course made lamb. One night we discovered a fantastic Chinese Restaurant.
Queenstown is a sportsman's paradise. There is so much to do especially extreme sports. In this picture you can see (just barely) at the top of the mountain behind the town is a building up there and a clearing going down to town. This is a tram that takes you to the top and to all the adventures to explore. We did that. We signed up to do a zip line. I have seen it on TV and have been wanting to do one. Steve says that he will do it too, even though he is afraid of heights. I am surprised he is even willing to do the tram ride up.

My husband getting ready to zip line. He is so nervous! Look at that Stoic expression on his face.Before we got started, Steve said that he needed to go use the restroom back at the main lodge. He took off up the path and it seemed he was gone for a long time. I was convinced he skipped out on me. I asked another guy there to help me search for him. As we looked up the path, there comes Steve walking back down towards us. He Didn't flake out and was going through with it!Here he goes! He is holding on for dear life!I took more chances and went without holding on. I even went upside down on some of them.Here is our sexy guide Dave. Woof! More pictures of him on the next post.
On the top of the mountain we also did a luge ride. Five times each. And I took no pictures of that, not sure why. It was a blast too! We could have Bungee Jumped or even do a Para glide too but that seemed too much. We were exhausted!

Monday, May 16, 2011

The Pool, 5th in the series

This is how the back yard looked when we bought the place. The people we bought it from put this pool in. That left side of the house was the carport originally. And before the pool you'd drive up into it from where the pool is now, they closed it off and made it the Arizona Room. The right side of the yard (notice the short little wall) was just dirt and the carport that they used is on the right, you can see the back of their car. Where the fire place is is where I added the new front room.
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The first spring that we were here. We redid the pool. It was an older pool with chipped plaster and forty years of calcium buildup. We drained it, jackhammered the old decking and had pool guys replaster and strip off the tiles. I removed part of that short little wall to open up the yard some.
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They dug new lines for the vacuum and skimmer after I tore down part of the little wall. Just beyond that wall you see is where the new garage is. I tore down that wall too after I built the garage. This was not the fun part for sure! My jackhammer was the best investment!
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These are our former two dogs, Rocko and Sophia. They are brother and sister (rotten labs, hehe, Rottweiler Labrador mixes). They're gone now and my heart is broken from their absence. They were the best and they loved the pool! We called it Sophia's Pool and Rocko was the lifegaurd. If I'd go to the deep end Rocko would get all nervous and come after me cause of my prosthetic shoulder. Rocko is in the water going after a frisbee and Sophia is egging him on. That Arizona room is right there on the left, you can see the screens that I will remove and put in new windows and a solid door. I put down that patio with pavers, built the shade structure and the table. It's the Orion Patio, done in the shape of the constellation Orion in the night sky. It's pretty cool but I need to weld some angle braces to shore up the posts. I built it after a major accident that I was in and had a head injury, my work suffered from it but you couldn't stop me from keeping on. This winter I plan to redo the whole patio and fix my mess ups!
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Here's our newest dog Aleah sitting on the steps. She's a rescue and hates the pool, she is only doing this cause I told her to. She'll let me hold her and carry her around in the water but she holds on for dear life! She is waiting for this picture and then she is out of there! I did the tiles here in the steps when they were plastering. And that is all I did on the pool besides the boulders.
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Kody, our other dog is jumping in after his beloved ball. We took out the old dilapidated diving board and put in these boulders for jumping off of into the deep end. After the boulders they came back and put in the new decking

Friday, May 13, 2011

More of Milford Sound


The cruise was scheduled well in advance and we had no way of knowing what the weather would be like, but we seemed to have lucked out! We brought something for every type of weather.

Being on a smaller boat let us go right up to the incredible waterfalls and even up to sea lions we spotted along the way.



Sea lions

Here is a spot that you can go inside this tube that has glass sides and you can see what is just under the water.


My hubby showing off Mitre Peak, the dominate feature at the little village.

Monday, May 09, 2011

Te Anau and Milford Sound

Leaving Dunedin we hopped on New Zealand's highway one (the Clinton Gore Highway, called this because along it there are two towns named Clinton and Gore. Gore being the larger of the two), we headed west to Te Anau where we spent the night and explored the Worm Cave. The town of Te Anau is on Lake Te Anau and you can catch a boat that takes you across the lake to the Worm Cave. After a short walk, you enter a cave that has great lighting to show the water falls below the raised walkway that you walk on back deeper into the cave to catch a small boat that takes you into the grotto that is loaded with these tiny worms. They are suspended from the ceiling and they glow. It was pretty! No pictures were allowed so as to protect the worms. It was a nice boat ride that we did at dusk.

In the morning we drove northwest up to the West coast of the South Island to the Eighth Wonder of the World, as we were told, to Milford Sound. Milford Sound was missed named many years back because, as it was pointed out to us, it is actually a fjord. The day was a rainy one but that only added to the beauty because as it rains the water pours from the steep walls of the severe landscape.

Here we had to cross a one lane bridge (one of so many in NZ), one that goes over this tiny stream. On this day it was not a tiny stream! It was a torrent! I'm standing on the bridge(taking my life in my hands) to get this picture of the falls just before it goes under, and partially over the tiny bridge.

We decide to get a room at the only hotel there, for the sand flies scared Steve very much. He is a bug magnet and didn't want to be eaten up alive. I was so glad we did because the view from the room was nice!

We spent the rest of the day walking around the tiny village there. Exploring the sites. The rain gave up to a simple drizzle. The next day we had scheduled a cruise out into the Sound, or Fjord. In the morning we walked over to the harbor to catch our boat and found out that we are on one of the smaller boats. Steve had planned this because he had heard that the smaller ones go closer to the water falls and right up to the vertical rock walls. The day couldn't have been better. The drive in had all the rain and the next day was a beautiful one. It was prefect! My next post will have pictures on the Fjord. And even, under the Fjord!

Friday, May 06, 2011

Panning the Room, 4th in the series

OK, I'm standing in between the kitchen and the dinning room. I'm rotating around to the right, taking pictures of the whole place. There were once walls separating these rooms and now it is all open. Funny thing about opening it all up, you see how small it really is.

Those paintings on the wall are some of my paintings. Next project is to knock out that wall and reclaim the space behind it. Right now it is the Arizona room (screened in room) and laundry, it goes out to the pool. It only has screen on the windows, I'll have to install windows and that will cost some bucks so it is on hold for now. We replaced all the windows in the whole house and bought expensive ones when we had lots of money. I want to use the same type of windows. That door was the front door originally and the Arizona room was the carport. It took us awhile to figure it out. But once we did it made sense. Why is there a doorbell button in the Arizona room we thought? The previous family that lived here did the switch and put in the original pool where the old driveway was when that was the front of the house.

Look up at the bottom of this picture at the center ^ and the right side, you see little light color spots in a jagged line. Those are the nail holes that held the old walls to the floor. I had to put in this post and a big beam above it when I knocked out the supporting walls here. This is the only part that made me nervous. It is the center spine of the house and holds up the roof. I beefed up the header over the door there and put in a post behind me too. It's an Eichler Ranch house, all the cross walls you can pull out, but the two exterior side walls and the center wall hold everything up.

That door (former front door) is the one I bought to replace the one they had had. It was not solid and was very cheesy. And that is my dog Kody laying on the rug.

Kody, the Wonder Dog, he's Boxer and Greyhound mix, makes a funny little guy. Boxer head with a Greyhound body.

The Geisha painting is also one of mine. The purple wall is in the room that I added on, it's not staying purple though, I'm over it! That's now the front door (trim and finish work still to be done). I have a problem finishing things, which drives my husband nuts. I always seem to feel like starting the next project before finishing the last one. When the previous family reoriented the house, making the front the back and visa versa, they left the sliding Glass doors on and used them as their front doors. ICK! There was a pair of them. Also, you can see, we're not afraid of using COLOR! Just not purple!

Notice the maps of New Zealand on the table, can't seem to put them away yet. Although we've been back for more then a month now. The TV show The Biggest Loser did two episodes in New Zealand. It's fun to see the places that we were just at. They first showed Auckland and then the second week they showed Queenstown. Queenstown was my favorite! We stayed three nights right on the lake and did a zip line and luge while there. It was so much fun!

Thursday, May 05, 2011

A Fellow Blogger and New Friend

In Dunedin lives is a man who's blog I enjoy very much. Our politics are similar and he also posts pictures of HOT men! So I check out his blog as often as I can. I contacted him before our travels to New Zealand so as that we might meet. After our train ride he met us at the train station and we went off to a local brewery for a beer and to meet his partner. Then off to dinner we went. They knew of a place near their home that they liked so we followed them and had a nice dinner together. As we did, they invited us to stay in their guest room for the night. We enjoyed our visit very much! We drank wine until the wee hours and watched 'Priscilla, Queen of the Desert'. I haven't seen this movie in many years, and we laughed and laughed, we had a great time! His blog is; Life is a Sexually Transmitted Disease... You can find it here, http://apteryx05.blogspot.com/

This is the beautiful view from their house. They're really great 'blokes'. And I have a new 'Mate'! NZ speak.

Monday, May 02, 2011

President Barack Obama


I will be the first to say, I was losing faith in our President. I could not understand his lack of action on the issues he promised us during his presidential campaign.
(I have read both his books and thought them both highly thought out, and well written).
I had so much to be hopeful for!

Lately, he looked so comfortable, happy to be our new, "staid leader". Like so many before him.

Yes, he did succeed in giving us a 'lacking health care reform bill', got "Don't ask, Don't tell" repealed and other perceived lack luster reforms, yet highly needed. Reforms that corrected bills that were pushed forward by the previous criminally greedy, profit driven republican'ts.

With this news, Obama's, bringing to justice, the notorious killer, Osama Bin Laden. I finally see it. I see an amazing, brilliant man able to hold his own, without giving way, during all that media criticism, his drive to do what needed to be done, and what America needed to feel; also a heart felt campaign pledge.

Despite enduring personal attacks by his opponent hopefuls in the 2012 elections (Trump, Palin, Bachman and Gringrich) . He got it done! During all the mass media deluge of negative "carnival barkers", he, our now proven Great Leader, showed to be focused on a mission. A mission, long awaited, to prove to those that hope to replace him in 2012 that he will be one of our Greatest Men to Lead Us. Bless You Barack Obama! I hold you in High Esteem!

Democrats can be and are, Fierce!
Now let's see, the setting back of the right wing social agenda of hate and persecution of those that use their brains and reason, instead of following doctrine dictated by bigots and hate mongers!