New Zealand 2009 - Tales of the Camera Sherpa - Part 3

We both got a good night's sleep last night. But having gone to bed at a little after 9 PM, I was up at 4:30. The weather is not cooperating so far. Our B & B hosts told us that they have had beautiful weather the last three weeks but for us it is rain and drizzle.

We are planning a hike in the regional park nearby. With the rain looking like it will hold off we decide to give it a try. Although this in no major attraction, it was still a neat place to go.

It starts off going through up a stream valley. This section is almost like a rain forest with unique trees and giant ferns. There are birds all over. There songs are different and they look different. We caught a pair of native pigeons (about 1.5 times the size of a city pigeon with very different colors) just a few feet from us.

Then you break out into an area that is farmed with sheep herding. This means very low cropped grass with plenty of sheep turds to be avoided. Finally you arrive at a look out point where you can get a 360 degree view. Wife is doing plenty of photographing while we do this as is the point of it all.

As a surreal touch to all this, right next to this park is a military firing range. A group of helicopters were making firing runs during the whole hike. We could see the smoke coming from the guns as they fired while we were hiking. And there was a competition of local schools doing orienteering so all these kids in track uniforms kept running past us.

We cut the hike off early because it was close to lunch time and it looked like some rain was approaching and we were getting cold. We drove to a nearby town to pick up some supplies - some lunch stuff, a cooler so we don't have to eat out all the time and a good road atlas.

Tomorrow we'll be off and get the real touring started.

Eating Notes:

Ha, you really didn't think I would write about a trip and just ignore food did you? Our first dinner was with our B & B hosts. They are avid fishermen and had caught a large snapper just the day before. It was excellent. For our lunch today we were just going to grab a bit at the food court of the mall we were shopping in. But we saw this shop advertising "Roast". Going in we found they specialize in roasted meat including pork, beef and lamb. It's fast food only without any overly processed food...just roasts and few veggies including roasted potatoes. They were even offering pork cracklings. Dinner tonight was more seafood with Wife having a brochette of seafood and I a salad. It was well prepared and enjoyable.

Les Photos:

Scenes from the Forest
Some big ass way old looking tree

Really Big Ass Ferns.
These are ferns the size of what grew in the Permian Era

Not so great picture of very large local pigeon

The Look Out Point

Looking up at the Lookout. One has to cross minefield of sheep poop to get there

The Views

The Roast place

Look at all that great meat. Those are cracklings to the left - Ya got a love it.

Fast Food Roast style - a meat sandwich with roasted potatoes

I just loved this sign. More things like this are neede.