Round two. . .

On the road, again, and making a second lap of the South Island. Drove from Murchison to Blenheim on Wednesday to visit Emilene (friend from NZKS kayaking class). I stayed with her until Friday morning. We chatted, ate, and I did laundry - very nice. I then drove to Kaikoura to "whale watch" from a boat. We saw three sperm whales, which was fantastic, but I discovered that I get sea sick, not so fantastic.

Stayed the weekend in Christchurch with some folks that I met on the Waiatoto trip. Three of them share a house in Sumner, which is a little surfing community right outside of Christchurch, beautiful place. Explored the area a little on Saturday. Went down to a rocky beach where some penguins roost - got to see a few of them. Further down, there were rocks just covered in mussels. We harvested a few of them, and had them with our dinner. I haven't been a huge fan of mussels in the past, but we cooked them on the BBQ and they were awesome. Very tasty. On Sunday, a large group of Christchurch paddlers (and I) went up to the Hurinui (sp?) River and paddled a couple of laps on the "Gully" section. Fun, so fun. I successfully surfed myself out of a hole. That was something new for me. I probably shouldn't have been in it in the first place, dropped into it a little sideways, whoops, but I was able to ride it out without too much drama. After that, (and a nap), a group of us went to see the NZ band, Rhombus. I hadn't seen any live music for awhile, so it was great to do a little groovin'.

I'm heading back towards Invercargill to help Sr. Robinson with a few projects on her farm, so I'm working my way back down the East Coast and checking out a few places along the way. Tonight I'm camped in Moeraki Village. First thing tomorrow morning I'm going to walk down to the Moeraki Boulders - huge round rocks that are scattered along a certain stretch of beach. Looking forward to it.

Here's an interesting tidbit that I've forgotten to add to my previous posts - the "mullet" is alive and well in NZ! I know that won't mean much to some of you, but others of you would much appreciate the variety of subtle mullets that pepper the landscape here. There are so, so many! I haven't had the opportunity to take any pictures, yet, (haven't wanted to draw that kind of attention to myself), but I've been making mental notes of some of the different types. At first, I wasn't quite sure that they were considered mullets b/c they are quite creative mullets, but then one of the guys at the raft training was complaining that he needed "to trim his mullet because the business in the front was joining the party in the back". I almost fell over! For those of you not so familiar with mullets. . . think Billy Ray Cyrus during the Achy, Breaky Heart phase. The mullets here are much more subtle than that, but you get the idea.

Anyway, hope things are going well with all of you. Take Care!