Auckland
Here is some sad news- more than 50 pilot whales died not far from here in the Coromandel area when they were beached for unknown reasons. A whole pod senselessly destroyed! Very, very sad. Here is the full story.

Otherwise, it's going alright here. It is strange to be approaching summer and Christmas at the same time- there are Christmas displays everywhere and they seem so out of place. NO snow! How can it be Christmas? There is a giant Santa just up the street towering over Queen Street. He is menacingly curling his pointer finger for some reason. Kind of creepy actually.

Well, we're in Wellington and all is well. I wish there were a wishing well where I could wish my sandals had fell.

Motueka
This internet cafe's terminals are all named after Simpsons characters- I'm at Abe, next to me is Santa's Little Helper and Monty Burns. They all have little bios, as well, possibly printed off the internet. Fun. Also there's a poster of kiwi birds, which is a little more common around here than back home. Kiwis themselves, however, are quite endangered, so I was quite happy to give a kiwi to save a kiwi at a bank.
Really close by is Abel Tasman National Park, so I hitched a ride over to Kaiteriteri, hoping to rent a sea kayak. instead I wound up on a sea shuttle, with the intent of being dropped off for a short hike, when we encountered a pod of orcas! So I stayed in the boat and we watched these incredible predators for a while. I tried getting pictures but all I got was a bunch of dorsal fins, they are tricky to catch when they just grab a quick breath and dive again.
Some interesting articles in the paper today- dolphins protect swimmers from shark, not far from where we swam with them, and (though I can't find a link for it) there was a big earthquake off the southwest coast yestedray morning- I didn't feel it but it was quite big. Luckily it didn't do any damage, but if its epicenter had been on land it could have been quite severe. Te Anau, where we were just a few days ago, reported some shaking.
Anyways, Grampa Simpson is shaking his cane at me so I guess that means I have to go.

Greymouth
I like glaciers. They are cool. You could probably even say I love glaciers. There are two on the west coast of the South Island of note, the Fox and the Franz Joseph. To be honest, they are not all that impressive compared to the glaciers of the Rockies or Alaska, but what makes them kind of unique to my experience is you drive through a coastal rainforest to get to them- with giant ferns looking just like palm trees. Since it was raining and muddy, gabrielle left me to my own devices to explore Fox, but gamely came with to see the bigger Franz Joseph. This is a big deal since gabrielle is mortally opposed to anything icy and cold. Whereas I am completely in my element, what with polar bear sensibilities and all. "Peter Jackson didn't use any glaciers in LOTR," she grumbled good-naturedly, illustrating yet another reason why she shouldn't be expected to explore these magnificent relics of a departed Age of Ice. "Yes he did," I replied. "Didn't he use these for the Shire? No? Well, I think he used time-lapse photography to record the flow of the glacier, and then digitally turned it red and used it for Mt Doom's lava." But she didn't buy it.

Dunedin
I guess life is not so bad when your biggest source of aggravation is not being able to see the new Star Wars trailer. Because I've tried. Some internet cafes have pretty ancient machines, and some, like this one here, seems thoroughly up-to-date and yet they don't have quicktime. Oh well. Luckily there is plenty to occupy my attention in the meantime. Since last I spoke to you I have seen penguins and orcs! And been sick. And survived a deluge- well, to be fair, it was more our intrepid campervan Wedge that survived the deluge . . . without much in the way of permanent damage. Wedge verily needs some sort of award, or reward, for putting up with a bear and a vampire for so long. Seriously.
Since we arbitrarily decided, with no proof whatsoever, that we saw a Narnian film crew the other day, I started reading The Silver Chair. I would like to share a quote from it with you, but don't think I am sending some sort of secret message about our morale. We're fine. This just made me laugh. Puddleglum is talking about adventures:

That's the spirit, Scrubb. That's the way to talk. Put a good face on it. But we all need to be very careful about our tempers, seeing all the hard times we shall have to go through together. Won't do to quarrel, you know. At any rate, don't begin it too soon. I know these expeditions usually end that way: knifing one another, I shouldn't wonder, before all's done. But the longer we can keep off it . . .

Christchurch
When you're having this much fun it's hard to blog! It's kind of the opposite problem of writer's block- there's so much to say where do you start? How about this: I saw whales! Yay! Not just any whales, sperm whales! Fourth biggest animal in the world. Largest of the toothed whales, deepest diver (that we know of- the elusive beaked whales may turn up some surprises if we ever see a living specimen)- just an impressive sight in general. Normally these whales live too far out from shore to be seen by commercial tours, but near Kaikoura there happens to be a 3000 foot deep trench which is an ideal habitat for the sperm whales' needs. To put that in perspective, I am certified to dive to 60 feet. So that was cool.
I learned a lot about whales and other things at Te Papa Tongarewa, Museum of New Zealand in Wellington. As far as museums go, Te Papa can stand alongside any that I've ever been to, including New York's American Museum of Natural History. As a bonus, it's free to get in! And for a different type of museum altogether, you can check out the National Tattoo Museum of New Zealand. Tattoos are a big part of Maori culture, with the beautiful moko facial tattoos recognizable the world over. You can stop in to see the art, and if you like, you can even get a tattoo to commemorate your trip to New Zealand. I did! And I made a handy little interactive description of it over at my flickr page.
Right now as you can see we're in Christchurch, which is a pretty nice city, though we can't stay for very long. Too much to do!


*Lest We Forget*

It's been a week in Wellington, and the only bad thing I have to say about the city is that it ate my sandals! I want my sandals back!!!!!!!!! I will have more to say on Wellington in a while. But now it is time to hit the road once more, or, in this case, the sea, and in the wee hours of the morning we will take Wedge aboard the Inter-Islander ferry and make our way to the South Island. An interesting thing about the South Island is it rides directly on the boundary between two tectonic plates, the Australian and the Pacific, and the Southern Alps (model for the Misty Mountains and a range that extends the whole of the Island) are the physical evidence of this. There is a huge fault system running the entire length as well, and geologists are awaiting the overdue earthquake that will occur when the fault slips. Here is a cheery article with more details.
Geologists are such a doom and gloom bunch, eh? "Don't live in Vancouver, there's going to be an earthquake, don't live in San Francisco there's going to be an earthquake, don't drive a campervan on the South Island, there's going to be an earthquake . . . " Luckily I am trained in the fine art of geology, so I declare us to be safe.

So it's a little bit windy in Wellington. Last night in my tent I felt sorry for my trusty little hobbit (that's actually what it's called, a Eureka Hobbit) as its fabric strained in the wind, and its valiant little spikes bravely kept me anchored to the ground. But today I came back to find that my tent was no longer there. With the resigned sigh of a seasoned traveller, I thought to myself, "Damn. My tent's gone." But then I saw it off to the side- the caretaker had kindly rescued it when the wind ripped it up. Perhaps indelicately it was weighed down by two massive rocks, but at least it wasn't going anywhere. The same could not be said, unfortunately, for my trusty Merrell sandals. They are gone. This marks three pairs of Merrell footwear that have met untimely dooms under my care- well, my hiking boots lasted nine years so that is hardly untimely, though I still get weepy thinking of the heartless way in which my girlfriend and gabrielle just threw them in a dumpster.
Sigh. I made much fun of gabrielle and Rae for the 38 and a half pairs of shoes they somehow each managed to stuff into their backpacks, but now that I only have my boots left I guess I feel a little envious and repentant.

Wellington
A funny thing about time travel is the timezone factor. So even though my blog is still set to good ole Mountain Standard Time, the fact is I am actually somethig like 20 hours ahead of that. Which means here in New Zealand, it is my inestimable travelling companion's birthday! So happy birthday to gabrielle! You may send her birthday love here in the droppings or at her own blog which she actually has started updating again from time to time.
Anyways, there will be much celebrating of this event (in fact there already has been) and tonight we are going to Coppelia, my first ever classical ballet. I once went to a modern ballet with a friend- he was only going to impress an ex-girlfriend (ex!!! I mean come on!) and it was . . . a little underwhelming. But I am looking forward to the experience tonight, even if my limited travel wardrobe means I will be going as a scruffy backpacker rather than a debonair patron of the arts, but oh well.