This must be what heaven is like.....

The moment I opened the drapes to our little "chalet" in the mountains north west of Christchurch,
saw the sky,

heard the sheep bah just across the field:

I thought: " this must be what heaven is like...."
At least my version of heaven....  We are only spending 2 night here in Grasmere lodge, but I could easily spend 2 weeks, 2 months...   eternity?

We spent a very lazy day- having "breakfast with a view":
And then took a ride with the owner to tour the farm that surrounds the lodge. 

Along the way, we drove through the "town" of Cass (year long residents: 1)  with it's famous train station.
There is one train a day from Christchurch on the East coast to Greymouth on the West (it's supposed to be really nice ride).  Until recently, you could actually flag down the train, but now, you have to make a reservation for it to stop at Cass.....

We drove to the top of the hill above Gramere lake just to see the view.  
And then we just spend the rest of the day taking easy hikes in the hills, admiring the views, enjoying the peace and communing with cows and sheep.....                                                

 Here are just a few images of what we saw along the way -brooks and ponds,

                                    

Grand vista's:











 Sheep and cows: these are the happiest and luckiest

 farm animals on earth: they live is this magnificent place  - they may not appreciate the beauty of it (then again, maybe they do), but they do certainly appreciate the freedom to roam around the lush fields.  The sheep are particularly lucky, because these are merino sheep, raised exclusively for their wool, so they will never become someone's dinner.  But I think that even the one that do end up as dinner still get to enjoy themselves a great deal till then.....

there are also just lovely little places to stop and go "ahhhh" - like this bench by the entrance:

or the pretty toad stool mushrooms, scattered all around.... they are poisonous, but they do give the impression that fairies (or maybe hobbits?) will show up any minute.....

If all of this is not enough to convince you that this is heaven, it  even has gates, to keep "bad things" away ....  these clouds were there all day - stuck on the other side of Arthur's pass, and probably drenching the east coast, but we enjoyed bright sun all day.....  heaven!

 And then again, there is the food (and wine) - which includes predinner drinks and capanes, and a 4 courses meal:

 We met lovely people from Australia  who taught me the acronym for what Joe and I are doing:  we are "SKIing"  it stands for "Spending the Kid's Inheritance"  I'm hoping this blog will convince them we are spending it well.....

 Corn and confit chicken soup.

 Berry sorbet

 Rack of lamb (local one  really good!), with onion puree and potato crisps.

Chocolat pot de creme











And then  at night (not tonight because the clouds eventually did make it, but last night) - the stars are just unbelievable  I've never seen anything that bright and beautiful and truly  TRULY - awesome!
Now, we are sitting by the fire in our chalet - life is very good!

from turquoise waters to golden hills and snowy peaks.

We bid goodbye to our friendly (and very talkative) hosts in Nelson early - and were on the road by 8:30am.  it is a long drive from Nelson to Grasmere lodge, about 1  1/2 hour from Christchurch, in the mountains.  There is basically no way to "here from there" - so we started by driving from the north east coast, where Nelson is, to the West coast, through the mountains, and back to the east coast again (or at least close to it).  But on the way, we had the opportunity to stop and see some new sights:
First, with stopped at Buller Gorge, which has a long swing bridge (the longest one in NZ I believe).  These are quite scary ....  but we did it!

And got rewarded with the views of the beautiful gorge, carved in pink rock by the Buller river.

Then we drove through a very long set of steep zig-zags all the way to the west coast, where we stopped to see the truly amazing pancake rocks (I know I use the word amazing a lot in this blog - but these, really, are amazing!):

They are these structures of layered limestone, carved by the ocean into complex shapes.  No one knows why they are layered like this - but the result is magnificent.  The ocean has created holes underneath them, and at high tide (which we were lucky enough to show up for), the waves create these odd blowhole effects (this is NOT geothermal activity, just waves):

In the parking lot of the park, we met this flightless bird:  I thought it was a kiwi (which would have been very unusual during the day), but it is a weka,  more common - still I like him.

we continued down the coast for a while - it is very grand and rocky, with beautiful cliffs (the driving would be scary even on the right side of the road, but - obviously - we survived).
Then we turned east toward the mountains - though Arthur's pass - were we saw our first snow in the the southern hemisphere:

We are now at Grasmere lodge - where we had too nice a dinner for me to remain vertical for much longer.  I'll talk about the lodge, the surrounding and the sky - the sky!!!! tomorrow.

"penguins are very vulnerable to disturbance and harassment"

A spectacular sunrise this morning, at 7:24am, turned out to be a great omen of the day to come.  On the way to our boat ride around Abel Tasman bay, I just had to get out of the car to take a picture of one of the numerous messages written  in stones in the low tidal marches (we did not see anyone actually do it, but there are a lot of these)- this one  inspired us to keep moving:

As we parked by the little cove where the boat was moored, this sign implied that there would be a lot of wild life today (also, it made me laugh and feel a kinship to my brethren the penguins - I too feel quite vulnerable to disturbance and harassment - although I have to say that dogs have rarely been the culprit.....).
If you can't read it - the sign says:
"Blue penguins live and nest in this area.  Penguins are very vulnerable to disturbance and harassment, especially by dogs. Make this beach a safe place for penguins by traveling below the hide tide line and keeping your dog under control and in sight at all times."

We did see 2 blue penguins today - which was lucky, because they go to sea during the day to feed, but a couple of them floated by the boat - but dove to catch fish too quickly for us to take pictures.  They are the smallest penguins, and I was very happy to catch this too brief sight of them.
The boat took us all around the coast of the Abel Tasman National park, named after the Dutch explorer who gave new Zealand its name in 1642 - although he never landed there.  He came close to shore, but was  attacked  by Maoris, lost 4 men and left.  Thomas Cook is the first European to actually make landing - in the North island    A French explorer (Derville) is the first European to land in the south island, around Nelson (although Tasman had drawn relatively accurate  maps of the shore, without ever landing), but not until the 17th century.  For a while it looked like the South island might become French, but Cook had already claimed it for England.

The park is famous for it's coves filled with gold sand, it's granite rocks and cliffs, it's turquoise water, it's forests filled with native birds, and it's marine sanctuary, which houses not only the already mentioned blue penguins, but also 12 types of cormorants, seals (with pups this time of the year), and all types of interesting birds.  Joe took over 200 pictures, and even with all these, it is not possible to capture the beauty, the sounds of the birds, the magnificence of it all.  Here are just a few samples of the day.
This is the boat that took us around:

This spectacular rock formation, called "the split apple" but European and "Split egg" by the Mauri poeple, is believe (by the Mauris) to have resulted from the god of the water and the god of the land arguing about who it belonged to- since it is in the water at high tide, and on land at low tide.  In a Solomon-like result, the rock ended up split in two....

The color of the water is the most brilliant turquoise, and the beaches are truly golden, making each little cove, and each hill that surrounds it it's own small paradise.

I simply could not resist the temptation, and had to go for a swim.  The locals seem to think that the water is too cold by now, but at 20 degrees (68 farenheit) and on a perfect warm day, it was blissful!.  besides, I just cannot resist jumping into a new body of water - and my next change to get into the Tasman sea may not be soon - and - could you resist water that looks like this?

Along the shore, we also stopped to admire the wildlife and listen to all the birds (I don't have a picture of that....).  This is another area where they are trying to re-introduce naive birds and trees - because there are a lot of islands in the bay, the population of imported pests like rats, weasels and possums can be tightly controlled (they catch and kill them....) which had made it possible for the local birds to recover.
We really liked all the different types of cormorants, and this pretty oyster catcher:

The seal population, which had been disseminated even before the Europeans arrived (the Maoris ate a lot of them!) is recovering well too - in fact they have been protected by the NZ government since 1840 - I don't know for sure, but this has to be one of the first species protected by any government (Side note:  the NZ government is progressive in a lot of ways - did you know for instance that it is the first country to give women the right of vote - in 1873- a full 50 years before the US?).
There are still a lot of little seal pups playing around the island, they are adorable, but hard to catch on picture..... (look at the rock in the middle - the black blobs in the middle are seal pups playing....)

During all of this, we found time for a stroll in the forest where we admired the native flora:

and of course, had a nice lunch on the deck of the boat:

As if all of this were not magical enough, this full rainbow welcomed us back to port:

Tomorrow, we will zig-zag our way to the "high country" (the alpine meadows north-west of Christchurch).  We are first going from here to the west coast and following it for a bit, before going over the mountain and Arthur's pass to near Christchurch.  It's good that Joe has by now had some time to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road, because Fodor's guide uses a lot of words like "narrow, steep, twisty and challenging" to describe the road - but it also says it is spectacular....  when i'm not busy closing my eyes and praying, I'll try to take pictures......

"red sky in the morning, sailors take warning"

This is what the sky looked like at sunrise this morning, from the deck of our place in Nelson:

so we heeded the advise of the captain of the boat we were supposed to take to explore the Abel Tasman national park, and switched our plans to tomorrow (which has fabulous forecast).  Today, we went to visit the charming town of Nelson, and its Saturday farmer's/craft market,

where I finally succumbed to the temptation, and bought a cardigan made out of this amazing fiber they have here (and as far as I can tell, no where else), made of 50% merino wool and 50% possum fur.  It is the softest, warmest, lightest fiber I've ever seen - and the cardigan was an irresistible shade of green, and....  it was raining - so I just had to go for it!   I may have to buy more of the stuff.... (Joe is lusting after possum slippers....).
We wandered around the market, and the town, stopping for coffee and just taking it easy.   On the way, we found a pottery place where Joe just had to buy some kick-knacks (he also had to get a Kauri bowl - Kauri is a tree that only grows here and the old wood is now very hard to find, so, as I said - he just had to....).
Around town, we came across this store front, which made me laugh:

"Cruella" and "natural fiber" does raise some disturbing questions....... (it fact, it was mostly merino wool......).
There is a short street on the side of town -completely unadvertised, we found it completely by random walk- which has preserved all the little houses of the original town, around 1860 (which is old by new Zealand standards).  It was a delightful surprise, full of little Victorian cottages:

We stopped by another winery for a nice lunch of local cheeses - and - duh- wine, and then drove down the coast - which was pretty even in the rainy weather:

 We then ended at Kaiteritiri's gold sand beaches - even with grey sky, the sand is truly golden.

We very much look forward to seeing it under the sun tomorrow!

A day of flying...

This is going to be a short blog, because most of the day was spent flying from Napier to Nelson, at the top of the south Island.  But before getting to the airport, we had some time for a nice walk on the walkway by the ocean in Napier:

It's not very far, but it took 2 flights, first from Napier to Wellington (about 45 mins), and then Wellington to Nelson (about 25minutes).  So we should have been able to do the entire thing in 2 hours, however, true to form, we were early in Napier - unfortunately, not quite early enough to catch the previous plane (missed it by about 10 minutes), which was too bad because, as luck would have it, ours was late....  So we spent about 2 1/2 hour in Napier airport (which at least has free internet....).  Once reason we were so early (other than my pathological need to get to airports much too early) is that internal flights in NZ require absolutely nothing - no picture ID, not lines to x-ray your luggage, no security whatsoever .... oddly enough, this made me feel safer.....
But of course, since we were early,  our flight was late....  of well...  We arrived in Nelson on time for drinks and dinner on the deck of our accommodations which have very nice views of the Tasman bay and surrounding mountains (pictures tomorrow) .
tomorrow - we are exploring the Abel Tasman national park by boat.  Let's hope for calm waters (and more sunshine!)

art deco, birds, and SUNSHINE!

We only have one day in Napier, so we made the most of it!  after (as always) a lovely breakfast overlooking the pacific ocean....

(note the blue sky - YEH!!!!), we went for an architectural tour of the town of Napier.  Napier was completely destroyed in a 7.8 earthquake in 1931 (note the theme here:  this is a VERY unstable part of the world.....).  One unexpected positive aspect of the earthquake was that the ground rose by about 8 feet, giving the city a lot more buildable land - it used to be an island surrounded by swamps - and suddenly, the swamps were gone, and the town was connected to the land.  The town decided to rebuild as fast a possible and, this being the 30's, went with the fashion of the times:  in 2 years, an entire new city was built, mostly in art deco style, with some Spanish Mission interspersed here and there.  The architectural importance of the town was not realized until the 80's, so some buildings were lost in between, but the town remains a very unique place:  an entire town built in a style that only reigned for a few years,  It is now considered the "art deco capital" of the word.

I am not in general a great fan of the art deco style, but in this case it really works, and makes the town very special.
On our way to Cape Kidnapper (so named because one of Captain cook's translator was kidnapped by Mauri's in this area), we stopped at one of the numerous wineries that dot the region- Elephant hill.

We tasted and bought some wine, and admired a country-side very reminiscent of northern California.  (the rain and wind of the last few days have done something to my hair.... even my curls have curls....).

We then took the "gannet safari" tour, not quite knowing what it was about - we are very happy we did!  this ended up being a magnificent ride through a private bird reserve, leading to these fabulous cliffs:

... on which thousands of gannet gulls nest.  But, even without the nesting grounds, this would have been a great trip.  The reserve is trying to re-establish the original bird population of NZ, which has been disseminated by predators brought when Maoris and white people arrived.  Cats (regular house cats that turned feral) and Australian possum have been particularly deadly to a bird ecosystem that evolved without any mammal predators.  For instance, the emblematic kiwi is very well protected against eagles:  it only moves at night (when eagles don't fly), and is is brown and hard to see.  however, it does not fly and does not move fast, and has no way to run away from hungry cats. Also, it nests on the ground, where possums can easily eat the eggs.  Australian possum are these adorable creatures:

 that were imported to start a fur trade but, having no natural predators, have turned into a real problem in NZ, where there are now 70 millions of them.  So the reserve has built a complex system of fences, as well as traps, to get rid of possums, cats, rabbits, etc..  and has re-introduced a lot of the almost extinguished birds, including kiwis.  It is a magnificent countryside - full of - it goes without saying-  sheep and cows.... (which are also imported, but not destructive, so that's OK).
Once we got to the very tip of cape Kidnappers, we got up close and personal with the huge gannet colony:  this one has about 3500 nesting birds.  The chicks are just about to take their first flight- quite a first flight it is:  they jump off the cliff and have to fly - without stopping once- to Australia (check it on a map -- it's impressive!)- because they are too fat to take off -so they have to fly long enough to loose their "baby fat" before they land, or they wont take off again...
Here you see once of the adult, coming back from fishing, feeding one of the chick - which is by now bigger than it is:

I wish my i-phone could capture the smell too - because the smell of that many birds, sitting on top of a rock for several month is quite amazing too......
We came back to town, got some take out chinese, had a few drinks on the veranda overlooking the ocean, and now it's not quite 9pm, and I'm ready for bed.  Vacations are exhausting....
Tomorrow - we fly to the south island!