touring Canterbury

Hopefully the number of pictures in this email doesn't blow up your computer.

My father and I have been kicking around Canterbury for the last week, seeing the sights in this part of New Zealand.  The weather has been really nice, which has been great for touring but bad for the ski area.  Winter has apparently been delayed so far, which means the ski area can't open yet.  Which means that I don't have any work yet.  There have been frosty temperatures overnight which has allowed some artificial snowmaking to take place, but that only covers a very small percentage of the ski area and isn't enough to keep the whole crew busy.  Hopefully Mother nature kicks it into gear soon and gives us some snow.

We had some people take us up in gliders, which was really neat.  A little wind-up rubber band plane tows the glider up to about 4000 feet, then detaches you.  It was a calm day, so it took maybe half an hour per flight.  On a windy day there isn't a limit on how long one can stay up.  I had a great view of the ski mountain and the surrounding hills and also the ocean.  My pilot did some stalls and loops, which was exciting but made me slightly queasy.  Great fun and nice people, though.  

We also did some mountain biking around a lake up in the hills.  It was really pretty, but everything was brown because it is wintertime here.  This was where they filmed some of the Lord of the Rings scenes.  There weren't any power lines or people or anything at all, really.  Just a huge mountain range in the distance and the wind.  One thing that's cool about New Zealand is that there are never any airplanes or contrails overhead.  I guess it's just not on the way to anywhere.  In the US the skies are always full.  

I fell into a patch of thorns.  I've still got some in my hands and I don't know how I'll get them out of my clothes.

We also visited a lake up the way, Lake Coleridge.  There was nobody here.  There was a cold, stiff wind.  I guess in the summer people might fish or windsurf up here, but it was pretty menacing that day.  The water in the lakes and rivers are all a turquoise blue.  It's because of eroded glacial "rock flour" in the water that reflects blue.  I looked that up.

My little town of Methven has about 1000 residents on a crowded day, and for shopping I drive about half and hour to the town of Ashburton, population 15,000 or so.  My dad and I went down so I could get my cell phone set up and we could rent some DVDs and such.  No on-line streaming of media here since internet is outrageously expensive.  While we were there, we experienced a fairly strong earthquake.  I was in the phone shop and the floor and walls started shaking.  I was standing there slack-jawed when a lady grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the building.  Outside everyone was on the street dialing on their cell phones.  The pavement was still roiling for a length of time after.  Feels like you are sickly drunk and woozy, since everything is moving around imperceptibly.   It turns out that the epicenter of the quake was in Christchurch.  This didn't help matters there at all, as I will describe later.  It was Steve's first earthquake.  We also experienced another in Christchurch a few days later.

Something that I think my dad was impressed with is the state of chilliness everywhere, most of all in my little house.  It's a really quaint little cottage near the center of town, and it is one of the older houses on the street.  It doesn't have any insulation or central heating.  It had a fireplace but the chimney fell down in the September earthquake (onto my car), so the fireplace is out of commission.  Now to keep warm, one operates a combination of portable propane and electric heaters.  If you're going to be in a room for awhile, you turn the heater on there.  Then you turn it off when you leave to save electricity.  You can be as warm as you like, but you have to be willing to pay the electric bill.  At night you have to wear a hat to bed or your ears and nose will get frozen.  You also need to remember to pee before going to bed.  It saves a lot of heartache later when you have to get up in the middle of the night and go to the icy toilet.  Don't get me wrong, I love the place, it's got character.

The neighbors have some cats that are outside all the time and often hang out on the fence.  Everyone who walks by stops to pet them.  I guess it will suffice until I can be reunited with mine, who is on vacation at my parents' house for the summer.

I just now left Steve at an airport hotel.  An ash cloud from a Chilean volcano has been circumnavigating the southern hemisphere and disrupting NZ air travel.  Allegedly it has drifted offshore for a couple of days, so hopefully he gets out tomorrow.  

Much love,

Ray

Christchurch

We went to Christchurch today.  We had planned to go to a museum or two, but most of the things to see are downtown.  We decided to go down there to check it out.  I hadn't been there, and I had heard that some of the city center was closed off.  I figured there would still be shops and people outside the cordon, and that we could browse around a bit.  I had seen some chimneys down in the area around my town, and there is a church down the road that lost its steeple.  But that was really all I had seen of the damage and it didn't register that things were much worse.

I was really unprepared for the state of things in the city.  It seems like the earthquake went off directly underneath downtown.  The entire city center was closed off, empty, and eerie.  It was like the beating heart of the city had been surgically removed.

We parked on a side street near a fence that closed off a bridge over the river.  We walked around looking for the parking meter machine.  As we were about to put coins in, a lone lady from across the street yelled "don't bother, they haven't checked the meter since February."  

I figured there would be a place to get a coffee, but there wasn't anything open at all.  It seemed like every building had a red tag on it that meant that it was condemned.  I peeked in the window of a coffee shop and there were cups and plates on the tables, and a dusty newspaper dated Feb. 22, 2011 (the quake happened on Feb. 23).  It was like Pompeii.

We walked around the cordon, satisfying our morbid curiosity.  There is a big casino on the edge of the city center and it was open.  It was a bit of a shock to see some people milling about.  We asked if there was coffee inside, and indeed there was.  We went upstairs to the bar and ordered.  While standing there waiting for our order, there was a rumble and the ceiling shook.  Everyone looked up and halfheartedly moved toward the door.  Later I looked at the http://www.geonet.org.nz/ site (chock full of interesting geological info) which said that it was a 4.4 quake, 6km deep, and 10km from Christchurch.  That's really shallow, and really close.

I think we flatlanders have the impression that an earthquake is an isolated event.  But it's really a long process.  There's the initial shock, then as the force transmits down that fault and on to other faults, there are continuous aftershocks.  They decrease in intensity and frequency over time, but they've been going on nonstop in Christchurch since the February quake there (and since September along the fault in Darfield 30 miles away, which had the 7.2 quake last year).  There have been many thousands of aftershocks since those quakes.  

The twin shocks we felt in Ashburton were 5.5 and 6.2 magnitude.  The February quake was a 6.3.  What's troubling now is that the clock is reset for the aftershocks.  They will now decrease over time, but buildings that might have been saved before Monday are now beyond repair, and there's really no timeline on when the quakes will quit.  We saw some scaffolding that was mangled from falling walls.  It looked like crews had been trying to stabilize the structures when the big shock hit on Monday and stamped out any hope.

We walked the rest of the way around the city and I snapped some photos.  One striking sight was the Catholic church, which looks like it is barely standing.  Out in the large courtyard in front of the church, workers had carefully tagged and stacked stones that were recovered from the church.  I guess the intent was to restore the building and put the stones back into place. But looking at it, it seemed obvious to us that there was no hope at all.  Huge cracks ran up the facade, and the massive structure looked like it could come apart at any minute.  I imagine the Monday aftershock broke a lot of hearts.

Well, here are some grim pictures.

planet of the apes

The famous cathedral in the background.  Some of you have been there.

church organ

toilet and bathtub exposed to the street

the Catholic church

return to the s. pacific

My father and I arrived in Fiji a few days ago, and after a short visit of a few days, we're leaving for New Zealand tomorrow.  It's nice to get a little sunshine on this white body.  It's warm, as you would expect, but not brutally so.

We arrived in Nadi, a medium-sized town on the western part of the biggest island.  Upon disembarking, we learned that we had no baggage.  My father wasn't too worried about it and said we'd get along just fine with toothbrushes.  I was more concerned, since I was carrying four months worth of winter sporting equipment.  It showed up the following day to our relief.  

We bummed around for the day, battling jetlag.  There are some big resorts nearby with gates and manicured lawns and boutique shopping.  That seemed to be where all the white folks hung out.  We checked that out for a bit, then went on a bus tour of the area because that seemed like a low-impact way to kill the afternoon.  On the tour we stopped at a village where people led a pretty mean existence.  Later we returned to our airport hotel, which was really quite fancy.  At night there were swarms of toads hopping about the grounds outside.

The following morning we found our bags at the airport, and shortly afterwards, a fellow came to drive us to the village where we spent the last couple of days.  I only grabbed a couple things out of my bag before putting them in hotel storage (no skis needed in Fiji villages).  Among the things I wished I had grabbed was my pocket camera.  I'm pretty good at taking sly photos with it.  I brought my big camera, but there are times when it's awkward or inappropriate to use it.  So unfortunately, there were lots of things I wish I had pictures of.  One good rule in photography is that in order to get the shot, you have to have a camera.

Our guide Isso, a mid-twenties man with big tattooed biceps, drove us about an hour and a half to his village.  He had an odd tic and seemed to nod off fairly often while navigating at 100 miles per hour along roads clogged with horses, dogs, and people.  Making small talk, I asked him what he did for fun.  I asked if he surfed.  Surfed?  No, he said, shaking his head.  I got the feeling that he thought surfing was for sallies.  I asked if he fished, and he said he liked to spearfish.  It sounded pretty badass to me, the idea of this dude swimming down into the reef and spearing sharks.

We arrived at the village, which was honestly a village.  It was pretty jungle-y and there were lots of folks hanging around.  They were very happy to see us.  Some old ladies wanted to talk to us and ask us where we were from.  Small children giggled and pointed, saying "Bula!  Bula!".  Some guys were hanging around digging holes for some project and they said hello.  They were all pretty well-muscled.  Apparently this village is known for its champion rugby squad.

Our hostess, Tupau (Isso's sister-in-law) asked us if we'd like to see the elementary school. We said sure and she took us over. In the sweltering schoolroom we had about 60 schoolkids gather around and touch our hands and smiling.  They were all wearing sarongs.  Then they sang three or four songs enthusiastically and formed a big line and danced. They asked is if we'd like to say something. I gave a little speech about how we were
from the USA and I am 36 years old but once upon a time I was six years old, same as them. Then Steve gave a speech about bronze bushings and bearings. He also did a weird trick with his shoulder blade. Being six years old, I think the kids were more interested in that than listening about American precision manufacturing.  It was any amazing experience.  The Fijians have been, without exception, incredibly friendly.  Everyone says "Bula!" in the street and has a big smile.

We were invited to dinner at Tupau's house later, so we hung around in our beach cabin for a bit.  The kids came out to the beach later and played some spirited volleyball.  After a bit, the volleyball screaming and giggling changed into some deeper manly shouts and grunts.  We went out to see what was going on and were shocked to see that all of the village men were doing rugby drills on the beach.  Seriously, they looked like an NFL team running forwards and backwards and tackling and passing.  After working their butts off until the sun went down, they all got together and sang a song of praise in a beautiful acapella.

Tupau made us dinner later which was a big extravaganza of chicken and lamb stir frys, rice, bananas, papayas, and strawberry Fanta.  Her husband Sake joined us.  He's in his mid-forties and has big muscles and cauliflower ears from playing rugby on the Fijian club circuit.  He was a super nice guy who seemed like he was probably pretty wild in his youth but settled down for the married life.  After dinner, I pulled out some Fijian tobacco I purchased at the market the day previously.  Sake's eyes lit up and he pounced on it, rolling up some cigars for us.  We shared cigars and he seemed really impressed that I brought the goods.  

After a night of ants biting the hell out of my arms and legs while I slept, we awoke to breakfast of fried banana cakes and more papaya.  Tupau then took us to the market in the nearby town of Sigatoka.  It was very busy with commerce.  Lots of spiny fruits, freshwater mussels, more tobacco, and jewelry.  Also, there was lots of kava being sold.  Kava is a sort of bushy plant that is pounded into powder and then strained through water to make a drink also called kava.  It's apparently a mild narcotic, and Fijians drink quite a bit of it.  In the market, there was an old toothless crone straining the stuff through a rag into small bowls.  Tupau asked if I'd like to try some, and I couldn't resist.  To my father's horror, I chugged two bowls of the stuff.  First it made my tongue tingle, then go numb.  Then the lower part of my face went numb, and I felt it working its way down my throat.  It didn't last too long, however.  Interesting stuff.

Tomorrow we're off to NZ.  I think it will be a little different.

big pretty plane 

SCD is a natural with the sarong

me modeling the sarong.  not bad!  the backdrop helps.

kids digging for clams on our beach

the loo at our establishment

hostess/guide Tupau and myself at the market

tangiers, morocco - November 19, 2010

Yesterday we rode our bicycles in Morocco. We took a ferry from Algeciras in Spain across the Strait of Gibralter, and got dropped off at a huge port in the middle of nowhere, about 40 miles east of Tangiers. It was bad weather and I probably should have stayed on the boat, but we brought our bikes all the way over to the Mediterranean and I thought, well, might as well go ride.

The terrain was about like the Spanish coast. It was hilly and dry and brown. There were nice views of the sea from the coast road we were on. The road was in good shape and sparsely populated. The winds began to howl and rain pelted us intermittently. The wind was so strong that gusts would almost knock us down. It was tiring but not horrible. Maybe a 6.5 out of 10 on the "suck" scale. The big concern was the waning daylight. We got a really late start with customs and ferry difficulty and general confusion. I wasn't terribly interested in riding through Tangiers at night with no lights.

We passed a few nice houses with new cars parked in front of them. Also there were areas which were pretty trashy. Occasionally you'd pass a man walking down the road in a long robe. One guy was screaming to himself and making violent retching noises. There were some goats wandering about. We passed through some villages where there were groups of men standing around not doing much. Staring at us seemed to be the entertainment. Which wasn't too surprising since we looked like we came from outer space, with our $8000 bicycles and neon-yellow Lycra.

The woman in the couple I was with really wanted to stop at a roadside shanty where there were several men and teenage boys standing around. She wanted ice cream. Her husband was ambivalent, but I said no. It was getting dark and we were still miles away. Besides that, there seemed to be a lack of women walking around Morocco in tight spandex. I felt a little awkward about that, although she didn't seem to notice any problem.

Later, at another customs checkpoint, the same woman gave her passport to a scruffy-looking guy wearing a Lakers t-shirt who was randomly hanging around the checkpoint acting like an official. He pored over it and finally she got it back from him. Maybe he really was an official.

I did enjoy speaking some French to people we saw in Morocco. It's the official language there along with Arabic. My Spanish is piecemeal at best and I'm a lot more comfortable in French. I asked an old toothless man in a robe if he'd seen bicycles like this before. He looked at me like I'd stepped out of a flying saucer wearing a tutu, and said no.

We pedaled through town which was mostly deserted. There were some big abandoned hotels and wide plazas. It looked like someone thought there was going to be a big seaside tourist vacation boom, but it never happened. We rode our bikes over a canal which flowed a dark maroon color and smelled bad. I figured it was agricultural effluent but it turned out to be blood. Yes, blood.

It was the Feast of Abraham, which is a big holiday there. From what I heard, every family in the country kills a ram in honor of Abraham sacrificing a ram instead of his son Isaac. So the canal was filled with the blood of countless rams. The deal is, you kill the ram, then cut off its head which you toast in a fire before presenting it to your mother. I'm obviously no religious scholar but I think that was how it worked. The head is the only thing you're allowed to eat that day.

We got back in time for a late tour of the Casbah, the famous winding downtown area of Tangiers. There were no streetlights, only the lights from a few cafes. Also, there were several groups of men and boys burning ram heads over oil barrels. There were piles of horns and skins laying about. The cobbled street was vaguely sticky.

Our tour guide, "Magic", pointed out some buildings and sights and then led us to a rug shop, where we were trapped for an eternity while the proprietors showed us all the rugs with great flourish. I didn't feel at all like buying a rug, and wanted desperately to rest and wash the grime off my face. But it was difficult to leave because outside the rug shop was a true maze of tiny winding alleys and steps and dark corners. I didn't feel like wandering around lost in the dark. So we waited around until Magic could lead us out. Along the way back we passed a cafe where people smoked tobacco and hashish. I would have liked to have smoked some tobacco out of a hookah with some dudes in robes, but it was too late. Next time I will try to accomplish that.

coast road

customs by bicycle

sheep heads o'er an open fire

I should have mentioned -- another thing that makes our appearance more interesting is that the majority of folks are on tandem bicycles. Those are pretty eye-catching when you see one go by.

I, however, am on my recumbent bicycle, which nobody has ever seen before. I may as well be from another planet. Kids cheer when I go by, and traffic stops in the middle of the road. One lady tripped over a curb this morning when she was staring slack-jawed at me riding by.

the crazy race - Saturday, October 2, 2010

I've been really looking forward to the annual "Peak to Pub" race. As the name implies, it starts at the top of the mountain and ends in my town of Methven, which down on the plains. You have to run 100m in ski boots to get to your skis, ski down a race course to the bottom of the ski area, mountain bike 12K down the rest of the mountain, then run 10K along the road back to town. You have to swim across an irrigation canal before you get to town.

What amazed me is how dangerous this race was, and how there's no way it could be held in the USA. I didn't sign any release form or anything.

The ski:

The men were up first. We had a short speech, the gist of which was "To finish first, first you have to finish." Basically the race organizer told us to be safe and that luckily there were only a few broken bones last year, which was apparently better than the year before.

On cue a helicopter flew overhead with a film crew, a guy fired a shotgun into the air, and we were off.

I started a few rows back, since the race attracts professionals from all over the region (of which there are plenty). I figured those people were a lot more serious about it, and since I was only there to finish, I would let them go ahead.

It was a mistake. Once we got on the steep, icy racecourse, it was carnage. There were about 50 of us going down through the gates at once. I'm sure most of the competitors were amazing runners, but they were god-awful skiers. People were doing the snowplow, snowboarders were falling on their face, and fast skiers weaving through at mach speed. It was completely unpredictable and there were bodies flying everywhere with everybody trying to go as fast as they could. I negotiated my way through the chaos without getting taken out and arrived at the bottom for the transition.

The bike:

I stripped off my ski boots and my jacket, slipped on my running shoes, swallowed some water, and took off on my bike. It was a rented junky mountain bike that was too small for me. Before I left, I double-checked the front wheel spindle to make sure it was attached securely. I had heard a story earlier in the day about a guy whose front wheel came off at warp speed down the road. He suffered a brain injury and isn't quite right any more.

The road, as I've mentioned in past emails, is ridiculous. Steep, winding, potholed, rutted, and covered with an entire winter's worth of cinders. One one side there is a near-vertical drop to certain doom a thousand feet down. On the other side there is a drainage ditch filled with the large pointy rocks that fall incessantly from the mountain above. You wouldn't want to go either way, but I guess I'd choose the ditch.

I banged my way down the road trying to stay in control. I couldn't really steer very well because of the deep cinders. Over bumps and rocks and potholes the bike shuddered and my hands would bounce around on the grips. On straightaways everyone was in a tuck with clouds of dust and gravel spewing behind them.

A guy passed me on the inside of a corner just as I was taking the same line. It scared me and after that I was looking around a bit just to get some awareness of who was nearby. I heard a sound behind me and looked back. Because I was wearing a full-face helmet and ski goggles, my peripheral vision was impaired. Therefore, I had to turn my head almost all the way around in order to look behind me. I looked back, then I turned my head back around forward. In that moment the next corner had come up and I was still going way too fast to make the turn. I tried to lean and turn but it wasn't happening because I was in gravel. I slammed on the brakes but was barely on-balance because the bike was too small. I scrubbed off quite a bit of speed, but in the end there was a big rock that I couldn't avoid. I went over the handlebars and flew into the ditch, rolling over some (pointy) rocks on my way down.

I was OK and the bike was OK, so I got up, pedaled to the bottom, and transitioned into the running part.

The run:

I dropped my bike, shed another jacket, put on my sunglasses, and started running. It was much more relaxing. Everybody was spread out and I was running by myself, past cows and calves and sheep and lambs. It was a gorgeous day and everything is turning very green.

About two-thirds of the way through, you had to cross the canal. I ran up and dove in. It was only about 25 feet across but it was ice-cold and had a very strong current. I resurfaced and saw that one of my co-workers was floating on a kayak to rescue people if they got into trouble. He later told me that he saved three people, one of which desperately tried to climb into his kayak. He whacked her on the leg with his paddle to get her back into the water.

When I surfaced and saw him, I said hello and exchanged pleasantries. Before I knew it, I was being swept down the canal. I had to swim hard against the current to reach some cargo netting draped over the wall, where I climbed up and over.

My skin felt like a rubbery shell draping my soft innards. The sunlight was bright because I forgot to take my sunglasses off and they were now at the bottom of the canal. I started running again and my legs didn't want to move. The course then went into the woods. It was a winding rugged trail criss-crossed with tree roots. We had to cross two barbed-wire fences. They had thoughtfully smashed the fence down so you could hop over the wires, but you still needed to pay attention.

We ran into town and people lined the streets cheering. We ran around the block before the finish line and saw the final challenge. The organizers had stacked a mountain of straw bales about 20 feet high. You had to clamber over the bales and down the other side. From about six feet up, you jumped into a pool of icy, muddy water. Then after climbing out of the pool, it was a short distance to the finish. A woman clicked her stopwatch, and simultaneously with crossing the finish, a guy slapped a bottle of beer in your hand saying "Good on ya!"

Me running into the bike transition:

As my Kiwi co-worker says, I "took off a little bark".

Video clip of the race:

http://www.ashburtontv.co.nz/cms/index.php?option=com_hwdvideoshare&task=viewvideo&Itemid=1&video_id=214

goings on in nz- September 19, 2010

I just got home from work, and sat down to my usual dish of vegetables and rice with some Cholula and soy sauce. Trying to lay off the meat pies and do some jogging. I'm planning to suffer through this ski-bike-run race coming up. It's taking place in two weeks along with a big weekend of events, among which is ski-joring (!). I can't wait to see how that is going to work. Maybe there will be fast sheep pulling skiers. I will be entering the contest for sure, anyhow.

Work can be interesting at times. The other day we had a TV crew come up to film the mountain staff doing their activities. They got some video of our snowcats. After they were finished filming us they filmed the ski patrollers, who naturally had to blow some stuff up with avalanche bombs because... well, just because. There wasn't any avalanche danger that day but you couldn't just film the macho ski patrollers doing paperwork. They managed to put on quite a show.

The film crew was stationed down in the parking lot and weren't really able to travel up the mountain where most of the avalanche blasting normally takes place. So the patrollers decided to blow up a mound of snow in the parking lot for the cameras. Instead of the regular 4-5lb charge, they used something huge, maybe a 20lb charge. It was a massive kaboom that shook my clothes 1/2 mile away. After the dust settled they realized that the blast had blown out all the windows in a small hut nearby, and several large expensive windows in the base lodge. The management wasn't terribly happy about the situation.

Tonight at work was a standard windy night. By windy, I mean windy. The cab of my machine was shaking violently. In order to get out of the machine, I had to shove my shoulder hard against the door, propping my feet against the floor and pushing with my legs. Then I have to shield my eyes from the blowing ice and walk pretty close to the ground in case I get blown down. When a gust comes, I just have to crouch and not move.

This is really pretty standard many evenings:

Top of this graph is 120kph. Red is average, blue is the gusts. Notice that in the last hour, it started to get ridiculous. I think the company went through a few different wind gauge models and configurations before they got one that doesn't simply disintegrate.

I had my car up there because I went skiing today. On the way down, I tried to take a couple of pictures. For this one, I actually got on my belly and crawled out to the edge of the road. I set my camera on the edge and held it down with the heel of my hand with quite a bit of force. Dust was blowing into my eyes and I had it in my teeth. Probably took some life off of the lens. I was hoping it would be a better shot but I'll have to come back and try again when it's not windy. That's not a cloud, by the way. It's wind-driven snow blowing up that valley and over the back of the mountain.

Tomorrow I have the day off, and I'm going to investigate this birds' nest that seems to be in the tin gutter directly above my bed. At first it was just some flapping and thumping and I thought it was kind of cute. It's gotten considerably louder though. I think they are having chicks because there is an additional squawking voice about every day. It's a cacophony now, and the thumping is continuous. I don't want to be heartless, but it's pretty hard to sleep with avian flight training going on above my head. I will check out the situation and see if I can think of any non-invasive solutions.

A glider swooped around over the ski area today. I guess they get some real record flight times around here (and some thrills, I imagine). Wonder how much it would cost to go for a ride.

weekend - September 7, 2010

One thing I learned from the most recent earthquake is that there can be a whole lot of aftershocks. We've had maybe 100 sizeable ones (3.2+) since the initial shock. There was a 5.1 this morning at 8am. I took my mom's advice and set a glass bowl filled with water on the mantle so I could watch the action.

There is some talk about "The Big One", which would be an earthquake resulting from a rupture in the Alpine Fault. It's an enormous fault that runs unbroken through the entire South Island. Apparently it's slipped regularly with great force... and it is quite overdue for another one. If that happens, I suppose I'll probably have to buy a new glass bowl and a new mantle to put it on.

Another weird thing about this earthquake event:

I went to pour myself a bowl of cereal today and the cereal in every box had been compressed to the bottom of the bag. All the little tremors have taken the air and space out of the cereal. I guess if you give a cereal box lots and lots of little shakes over a few days, it will form a brick at the bottom.

Strange, huh?

I had a couple days off so I went to Dunedin and vicinity. It's a city of about 120,000 and has a couple of big universities. I saw "Piranha 3-D" on the big screen, which was worth the money. Near town there are beaches with seals and sea lions and penguins. There was also some wealthy colonial politician's mansion atop a hill where the public can walk around. It had some really nice gardens, and I took some pictures of some various plants. Some of them are even native to NZ, I think. That's kind of a sore subject around here since we have so many invasive species, both plants and animals. The early colonizers brought lots of plants and animals to the island to make the place more like home. This didn't work out very well when they started multiplying and wiping out the native species. This explains why most people I know actively swerve to try to hit an Australian possum on the road. I have a nice sweater made from one, so I'm doing my part.

Sandfly Beach -- not because of the awful flies, but because it's windy and the sand flies