The Parental Units in the Southern Hemisphere

As soon as I landed in Christchurch, on my way back from Melbourne, I drove to a hotel to meet my parents!  It was very exciting.  Not only did I get a free place to stay that night, my parentals brought me all sorts of stuff - it was like Christmas!  Mostly it was stuff I already owned that I asked them to bring me, but it was still like Christmas - and it was great to see them again!  They had arrived while we were watching cars go round and round in Melbourne and had driven/taken trains through the North Island and down the coast of the South Island and were in Christchurch for a couple days so I could meet up with them.  The following morning, they left on a day long train trip from Christchurch to Greymouth (on the west coast) and back.  I drove back to Dunedin to go back to work, but we had heaps of things planned with mum and dad.  Well, Laura and mum had planned heaps of things, I just tagged along.  :)  The night Mum and Dad got to Dunedin, they came to visit me at work to have some dessert and coffee.  They were pleasantly surprised at the FABULOUS service they received from me, especially since at home I would conveniently "forget" they had asked me to do the dishes or whatnot.  Weird that they noticed the difference. 

Anyways...I got a day off work and got up bright and early (read: 8am) to have breakfast and drive out to the Moeraki Boulders.  On the way to my parents' rented apartment, I stopped to take this picture of the stunning cloud cover over the bay.  Everyone had noticed how thick and low the cloud cover was.  A truly beautiful sight!  After a quick breakfast, we all piled into Hedwig and drove out to Moeraki.  We decided to see the boulders the Kiwi way (read: free) so we parked at the end of a trail and walked along the beach to the boulders.  The weather was perfect and the walk was a good way to wake up.

During our walk back up the beach, I saw something strange in the dune grass, and on closer inspection noticed it was a penguin!  There was a lone Blue penguin playing "invisible" on the beach during the day.  He didn't move and we tried hard not to scare it while trying to get as close as possible for good pictures.  I reckon this picture is heaps better than the pictures I took of them a few months ago.  

After the excitement of seeing a penguin during daylight hours, we made our way up to Fleur's for lunch.  Fleur's is a very famous seafood restaurant that EVERYONE talks about.  We were seated upstairs looking out on a balcony where a group of men was drinking and eating.  We noticed a constant stream of waitresses bringing food out to them.  We reckon we saw the whole menu walk by.  Fleur was working and decided we looked the types to confide in.  She told us one of the men on the balcony was Gorbachev's second in command.  Suddenly the copious bottles of vodka and wine made sense.  Our conversation took on a Russian theme, but mostly we laughed at the fact that Fleur thought her girls weren't moving fast enough to keep the men on the balcony happy and fully fed.

We did the normal scenic Dunedin things; Baldwin Street, shopping on George Street, brunch at No. 7, Taieri Gorge Railroad (well, they did those last two things, some of us still had to work for a living). We also went down to St. Clair one morning to take the standard pictures by the old pier posts?  I'm actually not sure what they are, but every apartment or house in Dunedin has a picture of these.  We couldn't miss them.  Sadly, the parentals couldn't stay as long as Laura and Todd and I, so they did finally fly back after their two weeks, but not before I could give dad his (very late) Christmas present.  His very own reversible hat with a kiwi on it!  Made by yours truly, designed by yours truly as well (inspired by another hat pattern).  I think it's swell!

 

my dad, the Nicaraguan hat model

Formule Un

I’m officially a racing fan - I have the t-shirt(s) to prove it.  At the end of March, I flew to Melbourne for the first race of the 2011 Formula 1 season.  SO AWESOME!!!  And uber loud, but let us start from the beginning…

Ms. Cherry Chocolate and me

Friday morning I drove up to Christchurch, only just catching my flight because I got stuck behind a house being moved on the highway.  Seriously… a house.  Took up both lanes so no passing!  And yes, a highway in NZ is 2 lanes.  Fortunately, I called ahead and they expected me and I was flying carry on so it was all good.  3 ½ hours later, I was on my 5th continent (only Africa and Antarctica left!).  A short ride from the airport and then a wee tram ride later and I met up with my friend “Ms. Cherry Chocolate” (from my knitting group here in Dunedin).  She’s studying in Melbourne now and so kindly allowed me to sleep on her floor for free.  Yay friends in other countries!

Friday night we went exploring the lanes where all the fun stuff and good food happens.  We ended up just grabbing a quick sushi bite in Desgraves Lane, but I fully intend to go back and explore all the laneways further cuz they are the coolest part of the CBD.  Lots of little restaurants whose tables fill the lane and cute stores that fortunately weren’t open at night or else I would be broke! 

Saturday morning we met my sister and Todd at the Victoria Market.  It took us a while to find them amidst the hubbub of all the people and the vendors trying to sell us goats (shockingly more than one stall was proffering freshly slaughtered goat).  We finally ran into them outside listening to street musicians playing some awesome flamenco music.  I would have been happy staying there to listen and dance all day but food and F1 cars were calling.

Inside Vic Market

We headed back to the food court, had some breakfast and properly introduced L and T to MCC.  It was a lovely Saturday morning and I could definitely get into a routine going to the Vic market every week!  MCC had a lot of studying to do for her Monday exam :( and sadly she couldn't continue to hang out with us so we parted ways and got on a tram to Albert Park!  I bought general admission tickets (I still can't afford $400 seated tickets!) so I had to enter at a different gate from L&T.  We met up on a hill just after turns 1 & 2.  Being on a hill was ideal because you could see cars come around turn 1 and be ready to snap a picture once they exited turn 2.  It also gave you time to figure out which car and therefore which driver was coming.  I got the debrief from L&T about how to recognize which car is which and had plenty of time to practice identifying cars and drivers since there was a practice session and qualifying on Saturday.

Todd & me playin w/ the radio

Todd had also gotten the radio/TV thing so he could tune into the team communications as they happened.  Pretty freaking cool.  He and I were quite happy to be alive and Laura just smiled and nodded while we talked car - but she also bought a race shirt for Lewis Hamilton so I think she had a good time too.  Plus this is some serious fodder for making fun of us later.

Formula 1 cars are Loud As!!!  Fortunately I'd brought my sound cancelling headphones which I wore religiously all weekend.  I did take them out a couple times just for the comparison and Holy Poopbuckets! Seriously loud they are.  TV doesn't do the sound anywhere near justice.  Sunday before the race they had a couple pre-races: one with V8 Supercars and one with a new Lexus that they let celebrities drive.  The V8s were loud but not loud enough to necessitate headphones.  The Lexus horde just sounded like a swarm of friendly bees in comparison to the F1 cars.  Ridiculous amounts of noise, but I digress.

some hard-core fans

L&T had seats in the stadium for the qualifying sessions.  Seeing as I had GA tickets I wandered around scouting out the best location for race day.  There was a long time gap between practice and qualifying so Todd and I wandered together while Laura pulled the "I'm just here because my husband loves F1 and I love him" card and started reading in the stands.  Todd and I scouted out the best hills with views of several turns and the best straightaways to take pictures.  We visited the merchandise booths where I became a dueling personality after buying a shirt to support Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel.  We queued (like my Australian-ism???) for coffee since it wasn't exactly balmy weather.  Coffee lines are great.  You get up to the front, order and pay for your coffee, then step to the side and tell the barista that you actually want a flat white or a cappuccino.  Todd astutely noticed that if you're sneaky enough you can just bypass the paying line and walk up to the barista side and tell them what you "ordered" and never pay a cent.  But we were good tourists and paid in full.  Post qualifying we had dinner in the CBD and then I went back to MCC's house where we just chilled and talked and went to bed relatively early.

A Fuzzy Ewok

Sunday morning we went to the Finders Keepers market out on the wharf.  L&T had gotten there earlier but we got stuck on the trams since they were all being redirected due to the race.  We got lost and walked around for a good hour or 2 before finally finding signs to the market.  Super frustrating, but we made it there eventually!!  L&T left just as we finally got there but we swapped information on the good places to visit.  This market was all arts and crafts and really cute stuff.  It was a good thing I didn't have too much cash left or I would have left it all there!  I did buy some cute things and found some artists that I intend to visit when I go back to Oz and buy more of their stuff.  There was one guy selling vegan cupcakes ( <3 ) so I obvs bought one - more for the name than the actual cupcake!  After spending all the money I would let myself spend, we headed out since I wanted to claim my seat on a hill at the race and MCC had more studying to do.  I got to the race about 3 hours early which was good because it was already packed!!  Fortunately being only one relatively small person it was easy to deposit myself on the grass without upsetting anyone and I'd brought food so I didn't have to leave for any reason whatsoever (thank you bladder of steel!).  I pulled the grandma card and knit for those 3 hours and then tried to get as many cool pictures of the race as possible.  The race was SO AMAZING!!  But my photography skills were not, case in point:

hits!

misses :(

And for all the car junkies who missed their weekly weekend car shows to be at the race, there were areas corded off with collections of Mercedes or Mazdas or Ferraris or whathaveyou.  My personal favorite was the Jaguar section:

evolution of the Jaguar

L&T had plane tickets for early Monday morning but I wasn't leaving until 3pm so I had the whole morning to explore the CBD some more.  Nikky had just spent a month in Australia and had come into Melbourne Sunday night so we met up for brunch!  I told her all about the race and she filled me in on the sight-seeing she'd done for the past month and then we went to explore some of the graffiti in the lanes.  The graffiti is amazing and everywhere and it's not just tags but actual art.  I can see why photographers take as many pictures of it as they do and sell it at the markets.  Here's some of my favorites:

actual cards included!

Sadly, I did have to leave Oz but I flew through Sydney and I saw the Opera House!!!!  It was very small and I had to zoom in a lot on the camera to actually see it, but I'll let you take try to spot it!

Sydney Opera House - uh, from a distance :)

Hiking Dunedin

Shortly after I moved out of 229E Highgate, my friend Nikky came down to Dunedin to visit.  We decided to do a few hikes around Dunedin and one afternoon we packed a couple sandwiches and drove Hedwig up to Signal Hill.  There was a short hike there through some sheep and cow pastures.  Nikky had just watched Black Sheep, a kiwi horror cult classic about zombie sheep that kill people, and she was rather nervous walking through the sheep pastures.  Fortunately for me, it was easy to allay that fear since the sheep ran away from us as soon as they noticed us walking in their direction.  We stopped for lunch on a wee hill with a lovely view of the harbor and then walked back to the car since it started to rain: an easy hike for day 1. However, we decided to visit Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world, because Nikky hadn't been there yet.

me at the top of the world (kinda) - Nikky and I making friends with the local cat - a real sense of how steep baldwin is!

The next day we decided to up the ante and went for a hike up Mount Cargill.  After a drive up a questionable road, we finally found the entrance to Bethunes Gully, the starting point of our hike.  It reminded me a bit of the entrance to Pan's Labyrinth...however, despite my brief fear of meeting an over-sized talking faun, we parked and started hiking. 

It was early in the morning (for me anyway...like, 10am) so there wasn't anyone else on the path with us - which was great!  So we chatted the whole way up, and stopped at our leisure to take pictures.  I'm sure the actual hike doesn't take more than 2 hours, but it did for us because we like to take pictures... lots of them.  I found some pretty spectacular mushrooms at the beginning of the hike.  And the trees were really pretty and reminded me (as so much of New Zealand does, go figure) of the Lord of the Rings.

At the top we took photos of  the gorgeous view, and then had some lunch. Fortunately for us we took pictures first because the clouds literally enveloped us and all we could see was each other and the rocks and bushes we were sitting amongst.  I love that the clouds are SO close and stunning.

the views from the top - the cloud moving closer - and our view from within the cloud :)

the scree field

On our way back down, we decided to detour to the organ pipes.  It was a 30 minute side-trip to the neighboring hill and the whole time were walking under a canopy of trees and branches that curved over our heads as though landscaped that way.  When we got there, we were joined by several older hikers (some definitely over 70, I was thoroughly impressed) who had been there several years earlier.  Apparently there were more upright organ pipes but due to recent earthquakes and age in general, many of the pipes had fallen and created a scree field.  There were some that were still upright further up.  Nikky and I took a brief respite at the top of the scree field and then tried to get closer to the still standing organ pipes, but that just ended with some precariously balanced picture taking. :(  Stay tuned for pictures of the Milford Track - our next hiking adventure!

a close up organ pipe - the view - me - the upright organ pipes - Nikky!