New Zealand Posting No. 3

There's so much to report that I don't know where to start. I guess I'll begin with what I did yesterday. I left Dunedin by train north along the west coast to a place called Palmerston. Although the journey would only take about 45 minutes by car, the train meanders and climbs and takes double that time - 90 minutes. We started off with views of the Dunedin Port followed by views of the Pacific Ocean, with beautiful mountains thrown in for good measure.

At Palmerston, there was a bus waiting for us and we were driven to the gold mines that are inland and still operating. Actually, some of the 'mines' look like wrecked mountains. They extract the rock and then 'melt' it down so that they can syphon off the gold dust and eventually make gold bars. I find it hard to conceive of rock being melted! But that's what they do.

Lunch was served in an old mining town hotel - a hot dinner that was followed by a delicious dessert.

Eventually, we were driven to a small town where our train was waiting to take us back to Dunedin, via the Taieri Gorge. More spectacularity!!! The little train chugged up steep mountains and ran along a most impressive gorge.

I left at 9:30 a.m. and arrived back at the Dunedin Station at 6:30 in the evening. What a wonderful adventure!!

New Zealand Posting No. 2

Probably like you, I'm busy trying to get Christmas greetings into the mail by the end of this week. I'll still be too late for the deadline but at least my friends will know I was thinking of them at this time. Here is a photo of me taken in Los Angeles. If you look closely, you'll see the famous Hollywood sign in the background. I stayed in Los Angeles for four days enroute from Heathrow to Auckland. The little hiatus helped work off some of the jetlag caused by an eleven-hour non-stop flight ... in preparation for the twelve-hour flight to New Zealand from Los Angeles.

The second photo is of Kate and Sean's house. Almost all of the windows face out toward the inlet and the hills. The views are superb - I feel as though I'm living in a resort! The house is spacious and very comfortable. They love living here but will be moving soon as this was a sabbatical rental and the owners will be returning after Christmas. However, they've already got another home lined up, with comparable views I'm told. We'll see ....

The third photo is one of Kate taken recently. Instead of deer-crossing warnings, they have Kiwi-crossing warnings. Cute!

Kia Ora from New Zealand

This is a long-overdue posting that will be brief as there's too much to catch up on. I'm on a two-month visit to New Zealand to spend Christmas with Kate and Sean who moved here in August of this year. Quite predictably, I'm loving New Zealand. It's spectacular!
Here are a couple of photos to tantalize you.

The first picture is of the view from the mountainside near Company Bay, where Kate and Sean live for the moment. The second picture is of their temporary quarters. The window you see is their living-room window and it overlooks the inlet and hills across the way ... scenery that you want to freeze and carry around. It's truly beautiful.
It's spring here ... lucky me. Nightfall is at around 10 p.m. and the days are getting warmer and warmer. I think I'm lucky to be here at this time of year. However, my friends Sandra and Rodney said that they were in Dunedin (where Kate and Sean live) in January a few years ago. It should have been hot but instead they had hail of a size they had never before experienced. So, we'll see ....