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