Thursday, February 22, 2007

late summer

The evenings are getting cool, which is great for sleeping. Also makes the cicadas quiet down at night.

It took one and a half hours for me to walk to the beach from the house on Sunday. Longer than I thought - but I stopped twice to sit down and drink water. It was a very hot day. (For those of you back in Va freezing - soon it will be July, and I'll be bundled up.) Near the beach I passed the road to another house we looked at buying instead, a stone's throw from the water, but it's very flat down there, and I'd miss being set up on the hill. Anyway, I could use the walk, and it's a short trip in the car. I actually got D down to the water the other afternoon in swimming trunks (!!) but it was a bit overcast and the surf was a lot colder.

The sparrows have finally found the feeders T sent us! I know it doesn't snow here, and there's plenty around for them, but we still like to see them up close. Hopefully some other birds will show up too...

I'm off to the acupuncturist now for my fix. I haven't been in weeks, but I seem to have pulled something in my shoulder again while pruning shrubs.

We bought cheap tickets and are planning a trip to Brisbane, Australia this fall. That's all the news I can think of for now...

Posted by Jessica at 11:47 AM

1 comments

Monday, February 12, 2007

from Mantua

You know this had to be a good story.

Just in time for Valentine's Day :)

Labels: darryl

Posted by Darryl at 2:06 AM

2 comments

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

On Kapiti Island

You know all those pics of Kapiti Island I kept posting because every time we glance out the window the light or clouds or rain give it another amazing look, and I'm obsessed? Well now I have pics from the other shore. We visited Kapiti Island at the end of our week off. That shot on the left is a view back to the mainland - Kapiti Coast around Paraparaumu, Waikanae and Peka Peka.

I utterly failed to record anything that shows how strange/nice it is to be surrounded by over 100 species of birds that aren't afraid of you. They have no predators; the island has been cleared of possums and rats and though there are no cages there - it's all wild birds - there's nothing to be afraid of. Every day 50 tourists come walking around, and if you're a Weka who can jump up or a Kaka (like the one on Darryl's head at Nga Manu) who can swoop down, you might steal a meal. (No intentional feeding of birds allowed.) Big blue flightless Takahes wander by with their chick the size of my (admittedly teeny) dog. Territorial little robins appear at the edge of the path and, if you stand still long enough, decide it's ok to hop up to your shoes and check you out. Wekas stake out the picnic table at the summit, hoping you'll get careless and look away from your sandwhich for a sec, as one little boy did.

The path 500+ meters up to the highest point on the island was my undoing. Besides how out of shape it made me feel, there was the hurry to get up to the peak and back down before the boat returned for us. So I didn't make any recordings deep in the trail where you could hear the most amazing bird calls. On the other hand I did make it all the way up and back, a feat I was feeling good about until a 40-something mom appeared on top with her three kids, and she was carrying all 3 of their backpacks. One on her front, one on her back, and one in hand. Suddenly my accomplishment felt a lot less glorious. Moms are amazing.

Videos:

Here are the links to some videos I did get. And a link to my footage of Darryl's skydiving adventure as well.

Kapiti hillside - have the volume up to hear a small sample of birdsong in the distance.
Kapiti Island Weka

D falling from the sky in Taupo!

Kapiti Island Pics:

Posted by Jessica at 12:08 PM

2 comments

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Why Gonzo is the coolest muppet or I wonder what it's like to plummet.

Well J and I finally took some time to really explore. It is an embarrassing fact that we have almost been here a year and have not seen much of this country. So in the interest of being intrepid we went for a drive to Taupo for the day. This is about a four hour journey from here up to the center of the North Island. Most people that we told we were going to do it in a day thought we were nuts. They were right, but it is do-able. Taupo is a very large lake (you could fit the city of Singapore in it) created thousands of years ago by one of the largest volcanic eruptions in the world. The surrounding area is what they call “geologically active” which is science speak for “things come up from the ground” (steam, mud, sometimes lava). For a country made up of beaches a lot of people flock inward to vacation. (Read no sharks).

The amazing thing about New Zealand is you can really see all the scenery in the world on these two islands. Leaving before sunrise from here you take the main highway SH1 (which is a two lane street). You first pass through farmland which looks like anywhere in the Midwest of the States. Then the fields of Kansas become the hills of Virginia which strangely enough starts to resemble Tuscany. A little further and the scenery is a dead ringer for the Southwest before finally changing to the Gobi desert and then you’re at Taupo. I might suggest that they turn the entire country into one large theme park and make the areas of the country that resemble other places in the world into the theme park version of that country (think Busch Gardens but BIGGER)

Taupo is a lovely laid back little town. It has the feeling of many tourist beach towns where the locals are just looking to make some money and party until the winter comes rolling back. The town itself has had a population boom from the 1950’s and a population of 750 to a current population of 200,000 in the summer. The lakeside is studded with expensive holiday homes and the occasional bach. A bach is usually a cabinet constructed as a holiday home. The occasional bach at Taupo has a property value of well over a million dollars now.

We booked passage on the Barbary. The boat which once belonged to the late great Errol Flynn is a small sailing yacht that has a long and slightly naughty history from drug running to whatever Errol Flynn did in it. Flynn won it in a poker game. It was a fairly windy day. The captain let Jessica sail it for a little bit. Several passengers looked rather nervous as the boat leaned quite a bit to one side during a turn, but she did a bang up job. It just reinforced my desire to live on a house boat when I retire.

I decided to tick one of the marks on my life’s to do list and go skydiving. I now know what it feels like to plummet from 12,000 feet. Jessica and I slathered ourselves with her extra large bottle of sunscreen SPF 4 million or something. I know that it is the one made specifically for the Skin type known as “honky”. Regardless, we still got roasted. The U.V. levels here will cut through sunscreen like butter (which we may as well have been using). I have a strange archipelago of sunburn on my legs. After being nocturnal for over ten years I had forgotten what sunburn felt like. Oh yeah it hurts. We had to wait over three hours for my turn at skydiving. The waiting just exacerbated any nervousness that I had. I was convinced that the guy they teamed me up with would come out stinking of booze, exclaim that his girlfriend just dumped him, and that he had no reason to live. Fortunately for my continued survival I had a very nice Slavic guy who was all too willing to showing me how spinning during the descent would increase the G-forces on one’s nether regions to junior high wedgie levels. Skydiving is great fun although my eardrum popped on the way down. I couldn’t hear anything after landing and when I swallowed, my ear went, “squeench”. The girl sitting beside me looked over and said that she heard it. I think it freaked her out a little. You could not beat the view on the way down. All in all so worth it, but they wouldn't let me keep the cool jumpsuit. Next up The Killer Island stay tuned.

Labels: darryl

Posted by Darryl at 10:49 PM

3 comments

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Lake Taupo, Huka Falls, & the Desert Rd.

Headed up to Lake Taupo for the day at 5 am yesterday, and managed to cruise the lake, visit Huka Falls, find a pub that served veggie burgers, and go skydiving (D, not me) all before it was time to come home again. I'll leave the skydiving description to him, but for now here are some photos of the rest of the trip. We had a terrific time, and for a few minutes I got to skipper a racing yacht that once belonged to Errol Flynn and later to Greenpeace.

Huka Falls: