Here we are at day 9 of my visit to New Zealand and I can’t believe all that I have seen and done in the time that I have been here. I couldn’t ask for better guides and traveling companions than BJ and Lisa. Of course, I am a little prejudice –‘cause BJ is my son.

Today is a “layover day” which means that we are actually spending more than one night at one location. As I write this update, I am sitting in the upper level of a holiday home, looking out over the tree canopy at the Tasman Sea on the west coast of the south island of New Zealand. BJ and Lisa have gone for a walk and looking out at the rain falling, I expect that they will be coming back soaking wet.

The nonchalant attitude of the native New Zealanders and the pristine environment – seemingly unaffected by humans – is extremely addictive. From my first night in Christchurch where we were greeted by two giant Schnauzers and two Clydesdale horses, to the Albatrosses on the Otago Peninsula when we were staying in Dunedin, to the playful seal who raced to our cruise ship in Milford Sound so he could surf in the wake of the boat, to the friendly cats who hung out at the cottage in Arrowtown, to the Samoyed, Mike, in Wanaka , and finally here, Milly, the small black Labrador who earns her keep as a ski resort rescue dog – we have found “pets a plenty” during our travels. Even where we have been eating seems to have taken on an “animal” theme. Starting with the Three Cows in Christchurch, to the Fat Duck in Te Anau, to the Blue Duck at Milford Sound, and thought about eating at the Cow in Queenstown.

I have seen sheep, sheep, and more sheep, as well many deer farms. Just across the lake from where BJ and Lisa live is Deer Park Heights – an animal preserve of sorts and also the place where several scenes of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy were filmed. BJ and I enjoyed watching Lisa get mauled by the goats, thars, donkeys, and miniature horses as she was trying to feed them pellets out of her “little tin bucket”. As the goats were knocking her down, she was hollering, “BJ, did you get that” so expect some interesting animal interaction photos to be posted!

I have been fortunate to see in my brief time here, the Cathedral at Christchurch, Craft Market on the Square at Christchurch, the Moeraki Boulders along the east coast, the University at Dunedin (where BJ spent part of his junior year in college), the Otago Peninsula, the Farmer’s Market and Happy Hens in Portabella, the Larnach Castle, the bird wildlife park in Te Anau, watched the Milford Sound Movie, cruised the Milford Sound, and then a long layover of two days in Arrowtown.

BJ and Lisa had to catch up on work, so I browsed Arrowtown on my own during the days and we got together at night. I visited the local Museum, checked out the shops, and toured the Chinese Settlement. I did get to see where the kids live and met their flat mates. Their house was filled with flat mates’ mother and a new baby, thus the reason that I stayed in a great place in Arrowtown.

Then on to Wanaka where we went to the “chick flick” He’s Just Not That In to You with most of the teenage female population of the town. The movie theater was great. It was platform seating, but on each platform was a couch, a love seat or a recliner. Other seating options included regular turn of the century theater seats and a complete Volkswagen Buss Convertible. Apparently we didn’t’ think that I had spent enough time in airplane seats so we settled into our row of three airplane seats and watched the movie – complete with a twenty minute intermission. Time enough to have a pizza, ice cream, cookies or other meal items from the adjoining restaurant. I went from flying in an airplane watching movies on my trip over to NZ to watching a movie in an airplane seat while here.

I woke up in Wanaka with a fever, so the trip from Wanaka to Franz Joseph was filled with my sneezing, coughing, and blowing my nose. We did stop at Fox Glacier to see ice floating in the river and to get up close and personal to a glacier, then spent the night at Franz Joseph. I was feeling a little better this morning and had high hopes of taking a small airplane ride to the top of one of the Glaciers for a snow landing”, but the weather didn’t’ cooperate with us. So no airplane ride. I will have to keep that one on my bucket list for a little while longer.

I have eaten some new and interesting meals. But the most fun I had was Sex on the Beach in Dunedin. I thought about having it with a Nutty Italian, but I thought that the one drink was enough for the night.

So, here we all sit watching the waves and enjoying the slight drizzle and planning our adventures for tomorrow. Might try to get in a little whale watching and/or penguin viewing before flying out in just 5 days!!

As I cleaned up the house and prepared a room for my mom and stepdad to arrive on Friday afternoon, my roommate Ali gave me a nervous smile and said “I may be in labor.” She had somewhat expected to be early (she was originally due March 17th on BJ’s birthday) but we couldn’t help but laugh about the timing with my parents showing up in just a few hours time. I was so excited for my mom and stepdad to come to town but realized I hadn’t warned them that there would possibly be 6 ½ in the house instead of just us 6.  When they arrived I could quickly see the excitement in my mom’s eyes and the slight look of terror in my stepdad’s. We quickly moved them into their room and I suggested that we head downtown for a beer and dinner to welcome them into town and to get out of Steve and Ali’s hair as they timed her contractions. During dinner at Fishbone, we got a text from Steve that they were heading to the hospital and just 4 “easy” hours later we got a second text that said they had given birth to a baby boy, Tyler Robert Thomas Hanrahan. We met Tyler two days later in the hospital . . . welcome to the world Tyler!

While BJ worked on Saturday, my mom, stepdad, and I explored Queenstown, the Saturday craft fair and my favorite coffee shop, Vudu. We returned home to pick him up for a little afternoon wine tasting at Peregrine and Gibbston Valley wineries, a quick visit to watch a few people bungee jump, followed by a film in the Arrowtown Cinema where we watched Man on Wire, a documentary on a French street performer who illegally rigs and walks across a wire spanning between the two towers of the World Trade Center. We returned home to what would become the norm for the week . . . a little more wine and a lot of conversation until way past my bedtime.

We triple checked the forecast before agreeing on a general plan for the week. Unfortunately it called for rain, cold temps and even snow! There is really only one place to look forward to in the rain . . . Milford Sound. We packed our rain jackets and warmth, made a quick visit to the hospital to see Ali, Steve and Tyler on the way out of town, and drove straight to Milford where we had reservations on a Mitre Peak Boat Cruise, one of the smallest boats that cruises the fiord. We checked in and found out that so far we were the only 4 that would be on the boat and that the company actually required at least 6 people to book in order to sail.  So we quickly got to work attempting to recruit two more people for our boat and luckily just 5 minutes before departure time we got the thumbs up and hopped aboard. It had been raining most of the day so far causing thousands of waterfalls to pour into the fiord, but just as we set out the rain stopped almost completely. It was just about perfect. Although we couldn’t see the tops of the mountains the clouds, mist and waterfalls were spectacular and easily made up for it. We ventured out into the opens waters of the Tasman Sea and had to hang on tightly as the boat bounced and crashed over waves, making for a very exciting few minutes laughing about the morbid thought of the captain falling overboard and being stuck out at sea. Just as we turned around to head back in the rain started up again and we spent the remainder of the trip, including a dunk under a massive waterfall, under a covered area on the boat. We experienced the best weather possible in Milford Sound and celebrated with a mandatory beer at the one and only bar in Milford.

We drove back to Te Anau from Milford, my mom shooting photos around every bend, where we had reserved a room and a campsite for the night at a Holiday Park. As my mom and stepdad have toured the South Island, my mom found herself constantly rolling the window down and sticking her head and camera out to snap a quick shot of something beautiful. She took so many photos from the passenger seat of the car that she unintentionally began a collection called “Photos from the Road.” Each photo usually contains at least a portion of the car, window, pavement, or fence line along the road somewhat encroaching on, yet another, beautiful New Zealand scene. We checked in to the Holiday Park in Te Anau and while BJ and I set up out tent, my stepdad decided to turn on the small space heater in their very cold, very tiny cabin. We could smell the burning as we walked back over to meet them and come to find that the heater was burning a few small markings in the carpet. We put on our Good Samaritan hats and, instead of covering up the burn with a small carpet runner, we took the fried heater to the front office to tell them what happened. The front desk staff gave us a very disappointed look and told us they would assess the damages in the morning. Apparently they thought we burned the carpet on purpose and they were going to do their best to make us pay! We went to dinner, dismissed our frustration with the Holiday Park, and spent the rest of the evening in the communal kitchen playing many hands of Gin Rummy and keeping watch for the “Carpet Burner Killer,” aka the front desk staff.

We woke up in Te Anau to a cold bite in the air and snow capped peaks in all directions. We planned to dedicate much of the day to seeking out a few good fishing holes for my stepdad. First stop was on the river side of the Control Gates at Lake Te Anau. While he fished, my mom and I went on a short hike through the rainforest along the Kepler Track and BJ read his book in the sun. My stepdad had a couple bites but was quickly learning just how difficult fishing is in New Zealand. I suppose the country is world renowned as a fishing destination because of the challenge it poses . . . they don’t call it “catching” for a reason. We continued on down the road back to Queenstown, stopping in the town of Athol at Stu’s Orgasmic Fly Shop for a little advice, and hit up a number of different well known holes along the Mataura River. We could see the huge trout just hanging out below the surface and watched as my stepdad’s perfect cast floated a fly directly over the trout. But no bites . . . not even a little nibble. It’s as if they were laughing at us for even attempting to trick them. While my stepdad continued to test the trout, my mom, BJ and I kept ourselves thoroughly entertained by taking close up photos of flowers and bees, reading and building small cairns along the water’s edge.

We had contemplated spending a night in the Aspiring Hut up the Matukituki Valley the following night but the combination of the rainy forecast, lack of time, and a snoring habit helped us change our plans to just a day hike up to the Rob Roy Glacier. The first section of the walk is out in the open, along pasture land, and the sideways blowing rain had us drenched in no time. BJ and I were pretty willing to turn back to the car but my mom encouraged all of us to keep going. Once we crossed the river we thankfully found tree shelter along the track and continued up to the glacier. Since my mom and stepdad had only seen Franz Joseph Glacier from distance on the west coast, they were really excited when the trail ended just below the calving Rob Roy Glacier. It was completely worth the initial dousing of rain! Of course as we returned to the car the rain softened and the clouds lifted so that my mom and stepdad could get a feel for why the Matukituki Valley is one of BJs favorite places in New Zealand. That evening we dined at a small Thai restaurant in Wanaka where we happened to run into our friend Smiley, who we hadn’t seen since Brad and Gretchen were in town. He joined us while we ate and, being an avid fisherman himself, reassured my stepdad that the New Zealand trout are very smart fish. As we drove back over the Crown Range to Queenstown we encountered the worst of the forecast . . . It was actually snowing on top of the pass. There was barely a dusting of snow on the road and normally, like all winters in Jackson, we would have cruised on through at high speed, but I felt out of my element as if I had never even seen snow before. I quickly threw it into 1st gear, white-knuckled the steering wheel, and clenched my teeth as we inched over the pass in our two wheel drive family wagon. It’s funny to think about now.

We woke up the following morning to dark clouds, a little rain, and snowcapped mountains around Lake Wakatipu. I cooked Breakfast Pie (bacon, mushrooms, onions, eggs, and cheese, all under puff pastry), we drank lots of coffee and even got in a group video Skype call in to my little sister Anni who was hard at work, like always, at UCSB. But this only delayed us until about noon when we finally decided to face the weather and get out of the house. We drove the winding lake road up to Glenorchy to fish the Caples, Diamond Creek, and Rees River. We, of course, started out the afternoon with a very necessary cappuccino at the Glenorchy Café and then made our way to the Caples Trailhead. We had assured my stepdad that it was just a 5 minute stroll to the bridge, but after 15 minutes, realized we had quite a ways to go yet. He backtracked towards the car to fish an area that had caught his eye while my mom, BJ and I ventured on a bit further to the bridge we had remembered. Thankfully we did not see as many fish as we had expected . . . my stepdad made a wise choice but still encountered the same smart trout of New Zealand. After a cold day (I was hiking in long johns, my puffy jacket, and a rain jacket), we returned to Queenstown for my parents last night in town and went straight to the Cow for a yummy warm pizza dinner. It was hard to believe our time together was coming to an end and we prolonged saying goodbye by spending another late night catching up on life, work, my stepdad’s partial retirement, and looking at photos from Fiji. As my mom and stepdad departed yesterday morning, I felt like they had just arrived but looking back over photos and remembering funny moments all over the southland it is clear that we really packed a lot in to their limited time in the country. We decided that if we aren’t back home in a year, they would come visit us again wherever we are. I plan to hold them to it!

We started out our tour of Milford Sound with a day in Te Anau. We checked in to another Holiday Park, went on a self guided tour of a small bird sanctuary, and then spent a few hours reading and writing on the grassy lawn in front of the holiday park. While I was writing this blog on paper, BJ took a sip of beer and then sprayed it all over me and my paper. I thought it was a joke at first until he said that a bee had slipped into his beer and stung him on his lip. It had started to puff up pretty quickly. Later in the day we went to the local cinema to watch a film on the area called “Shadowland.” BJ noticed that one of the local beers that they were selling was called Wasp. He thought it was very fitting. Unlike the horrible film we saw in Franz Joseph, this film was beautifully done. Some of the scenery and accompanying music even gave me goosebumps.

It’s hard to describe the insignificance and smallness one feels in Milford and the photos will never do the area justice. But I can say that it is one of, if not “the” most beautiful places in New Zealand. We toured Milford on a small “nature cruise” boat which was able to get closer to the shoreline than some of the larger cruises. They taught us a few things as well . . . Milford Sound is actually a fjord and not a sound at all. It was incorrectly named by Captain Cook and the name stuck. A fjord is an area that has been carved out by glaciers and filled in with sea water and usually has very steep and dramatic mountains that jut up from the ocean. A sound is a flooded river valley . . . think of Puget Sound in the Northwest. We also learned that Milford Sound has many “treevalanches.” There is so little topsoil on the massive rock mountains that the trees either cling on to cracks within the rock or they grow on top of one another. If one tree comes loose from the rock, an entire string of trees below it will come crashing down with it, grabbing on to more and more trees as it slides down to sea level.

Probably the highlight of our boat cruise in the Milford was our experience under the Lady Bowen Waterfall. After the captain advised everyone who didn’t want to get wet to go inside, the boat slowly inched toward the base of the falls, which plunge into the fjord from over 500 feet above. The boat dipped its nose directly into the waterfall and BJ and I, although somewhat hiding below the bow, were instantly soaked.

On the return back to the boat dock, we had the option of stopping at an observatory called Milford Deep. Milford receives about 8 meters of rain a year which creates a fresh water layer over the salt water. Unlike the muddy rain water that you would see during a typical rain storm, there is no mud for the rain water to pick up. The rain water turns a little bit darker in color from tannins but is not murky. The fresh water layer that ends up above the salt water shields enough of the sunlight that fish and sea creatures like black coral, eleven-armed starfish, sea urchins and sea cucumbers that would normally live much deeper in the ocean can live closer to the surface of the ocean. Obviously, this was a beautiful and yet very informational tour of Milford Sound.