Dad

Just a week after Tony's visit, Dad came to New Zealand. I met him in Wellington, New Zealand's capital city. After we met up at the luggage carousel, we hopped into a Prius taxi that drove us to the backpackers (hostel) where we stayed. (I had never been in a Prius before - it sure was quiet!) Despite the rain, we ventured out to the Te Papa museum and saw exhibits about NZ culture and geology. There was a room where you could stand and feel what it would be like to feel an earthquake. Little did we know that a 7.1 earthquake would rattle the area only days later...

On Sunday morning, we did a walking tour of Wellington in the rain. It was well worth it, though, as we learned a lot about the history of the city and the current uses of some of the historic buildings. At the end of the tour, Dad and I took the cable car up the hill to walk through a botanical garden. We really enjoyed hearing the Tui, a native bird, calling through the trees. The sound is unlike any bird I've heard before.

We woke up early on Monday morning to take a ferry across the Cook Strait. Unfortunately, the ferry we had booked originally was cancelled and we took a later one. Lots of waiting around. We did run into another Arcadia study abroad student who is studying in Christchurch. He was making his way around by hitchiking. We had interesting conversations about his adventures. Once we arrived on the south island in a town called Picton, we hopped onto a train and travelled south along to coast to Kaikoura. Of course, it rained almost the entire time. We had to force ourselves to leave the backpackers and venture out for dinner, but ended up having a good time. We played a couple rounds of foosball and I lost both times. :)

While we were in Kaikoura, our three plans were to do a night sky thing, swim with a huge pod of dolphins, and go sea kayaking. Unfortunately, only one of our plans ended up happening. It rained too much to see the sky, and the ocean swells were too large to go out swimming with the dolphins. We did go kayaking, though, and saw both some NZ fur seals and a rare blue penguin, the smallest species of penguins. He just happened to be swimming around at the right spot for us to watch him for about 5 minutes. And on Wednesday, before we caught the train to Christchurch, we went whale watching. They had a good system - another, earlier boat would track the location of the whales and would send the information to the boats behind it. A couple of times, we stopped and the captain of our boat stuck a listening device into the water to try and hear the whale. Pretty amazing. We ended up seeing a couple of Hectors Dolphins, a rare species, and a Sperm Whale. He was huge!

We only spent one night in Christchurch, but our hotel was pretty wacky. It was called Hotel So and it reminded me of Japan. It was pretty modern, with lots of neon colors and a curved, sliding glass door that lead to the bathroom. Two days after we left was the devastating earth quake. (No one has lost a life yet, though.)

On Thursday morning, we flew to Queenstown. While we were there, we mostly just bummed around, walking downtown through the shops, going to a craft fair on Saturday, using free internet at the McDonald's cafe. We also took a hike on Sunday that led to a sculpture called Basket of Dreams and a neat view. It was nice to have a laid back few days before taking the bus back to Dunedin and reality.

I showed Dad some of the places I go here in Dunedin - New World for groceries, the post office, where I can cut flax for weaving, and, of course, campus. We also went to Baldwin Street where we met an old man who typically runs up and down the street around 30 times a day. He's kind of famous. http://www.odt.co.nz/your-town/dunedin/3290/baldwin-st-30-times-day

Also while Dad was in Dunedin, we went on a penguin tour and saw some yellow-eyed penguins, hooker sea lions, and NZ fur seals. I was the only one to spot a penguin making its way onto the beach. All of the others we saw had already come ashore and were camping out in their nests. We also saw tons of sheep. The penguin beach was on the outskirts of a farm, and the tour company is the only one that has permission to visit the beach. So, naturally, we walked among the sheep on our way down the hill. We saw 2 sheep that had just been born, and 2 others who were looking for their mom and were bleating at us to help them find her. When she appeared around the corner, they ran over to her. So cute. We also saw a pitch black lamb.

Dad left yesterday, the only day of the 2 week trip that we didn't have rain. We took a tour of the Olveston house in Dunedin and enjoyed the last few hours of each others company. I'm so glad he came to visit. We had a terrific time.