New Zealand Part 3

On Sunday, our final "non-travel" day, we spent some time on the boat again. We started at Furneaux Lodge, a beautiful old lodge. The pictures below are taken there.

 This is where we had some tea at the lodge. Notice Dan and I in our silly hats and boatware. We had to ride in a little small boat to get there after getting out of Dave's boat and it had water in the bottom, so my jeans are rolled up.

 The water is so clear there - look at these rocks.

 We left the lodge and stopped to have a picnic in this cove. Look how beautiful the water is!

 This duck and his friends were our entertainment. They had a hard time eating crackers. They had to let them soak in the water and eat off tiny bits. It made for great entertainment!

 The morning before we left, we looked out the window to see the 2 black swans that swam by every day and Dan got a picture of them. Very majestic!

If you have the chance to go to New Zealand, you definitely should! We loved it!

New Zealand Part 2

After our boat ride on Day Friday, we went back to Chris and Dave's house. Here is the view from their driveway. Breathtaking!

 This is one of many pukekoes who visit their back garden. They feed them bread a couple of times a day. They are funny little birds, a little like chickens, very skittish. Look at how they eat with their funny "hands."

 Then, we went for a walk on Queen Charlotte trail, just down the road from their house. Dave chose to run it - we just hiked.

 View from one spot on the trail.

On the second day, we spent the day in the wine country of Marlborough. We went to several different wineries and had a lovely lunch in one of them. We went to the winery where Dave keeps the barrels for his wine and also went to Dave's vineyard. As you'll see from the pictures, it was beautiful.

 This is Dave and Dan looking at Dave's grapes.

 On the way home, we stopped to see an amazing view of the Sounds!

 This tree is filled with Shags, black and white birds that are very pretty, but destroy trees. Look at their nests below.

Looks like this will need to be a 3 part post. I'll post some more maybe even later today.

New Zealand Trip Part 1

We were lucky enough to have the opportunity to visit our friends, Dave and Chris, at their home in the Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand. They are near Havelock (where you get the green mussels - yum) and Blenheim, where the airport is. We traveled on New Zealand Air from Sydney to Christchurch and then on to Blenheim. We were on such a small plane and small airport that we could see Dave and Chris in the window of the airport as we were landing! We spent 5 days there (2 really being travel days) and are eager to go back again, and to see more of New Zealand. Chris and Dave were amazing hosts! They entertained us, kept us very well fed, and most importantly, shared great wine under Dave's label. Consider this our tripadvisor recommendation - we give them 5+ stars! Thanks Dave and Chris!

For family and friends who know me well, this is technically my second trip to New Zealand, having just had a business meeting in Queenstown for 1 day (!) the same week. It is also beautiful and I'd like to go back and take Dan there. I've had the chance now to see bits of Queenstown, the cities near Marlborough, Auckland, and Christchurch. Each city looked very different and was beautiful in its own way.

So, what you've all been waiting for - pictures! And, Nate, thanks for pestering me to put up a new post!

This is the view from Chris and Dave's back garden! Beautiful!

On our second day, Dave drove us out to Lochmara Lodge by boat. It is beautiful and we had a wonderful breakfast of eggs with smoked salmon from New Zealand.

Dan and I outside the Lodge.

This is in Picton, where we also went by boat. It was a cloudy day to start, but sure turned into a gorgeous day.

Dan and I in Picton - me being good by wearing a hat to avoid the super-strong sun.

Dan and Dave on the boat.

 This must have been a regatta or some kind of sailboat race we saw on the way home.

 These are some boat docks and small boats near their house.

 The neighbors' sheep!

We'll post some more later. We really enjoyed this trip!

Chinese Festival

It's been awhile since we've posted. We've had a buys couple of months. In January, we participated in the Chinese New Year Festival in several ways. First, we went to Chinatown and ate yum cha several times. Then, we went with Tom and Ellen to see the Chinese Friendship Gardens. They are very beautiful and were a gift from China to Sydney. They are in Darling Harbour, which is kind of a tourist area, but very beautiful too.

This is called Dinosaur rock.

 This is Darling Harbour.

We are headed to visit some friends in New Zealand later this week and will be sure to post some pictures!

Happy New Year!

We've not posted in awhile. It's amazing how busy you can be doing a lot of nothing. We've both enjoyed a nice break from work and job-hunting. We have spent some nice time with friends here over the holidays, everything from Christmas breakfast with friends to nights at our local pub with friends.

From Christmas through end of January (Australia day), things are pretty quiet here. I have said to my American friends, think about if Christmas were in June, that's kind of what this is like. Kids are out of school, everyone is going on vacation. I go back to work on Jan 3 and Dan resumes the job hunt. We decided to explore our local, Rozelle and Balmain, shops and restaurants this week. We certainly enjoyed a few pubs, especially, The London Hotel. Most of the shops were closed. I guess this is the time that most people take their vacations.

We are having some friends over on New Year's Day for Mexican food and jalapeno margaritas. I couldn't find any fresh jalapenos, so we are trying something new with the kind in the jar.

We ate here last night with friends Universal Restaurant. We had these amazing desserts, but the pictures did not turn out very well. Dan had one called Queen Bee, which had a scoop of ice cream with fairy frost on it, that's what they call cotton candy here. I had one called, Snap, Crackle, Pop, that looked like a bowl of cocoa crispies in milk with a slice of "bacon" on it, which was chocolate. For the third dessert, I have to first explain what ice cream treats are called here. Traditional ice cream treats here are called very different things. One of these treats is called golden gaytime. Our friend ordered gaytime with nuts as her dessert, which was basically a deconstructed version of the traditional ice cream. Very yummy, nuts, chocolate, ice cream! I have had one of the paddle pops too. It's like a fruit pop filled with jelly in the centre...way too sweet for me!

Finally, we booked our vacations to New Zealand and back home to the US (in Feb and March respectively). Can't wait to see everyone!

We're going to see fireworks tonight. I'll try to post some pics! Happy New Year!

Jervis Bay Trip

It's been awhile since we've written. I have been sick, yes, again, and then working like a fiend. Dan's been busy networking and starting to look for jobs. He's even had a couple of interviews. With Christmas around the corner and rainy days seeming never ending in Sydney (yes, it is unusual apparently), we decided to take a family trip and head down the Great Pacific Drive for a trip south to Jervis Bay.

We took the doggies and headed about 140 km, or a little over 70 miles. It was a gorgeous drive! It was a slow drive too. The speed limit is 100 max, or about 50 miles per hour. Usually, you are going slower. I think our average GPS speed said 65 km, or less than 40 mph. Anyway, it took us several hours and we enjoyed the drive, but were very glad to see where we were staying. It was a house just down the road from Hyam's Beach, noted in a world record book to be the whitest sand in the world.

Here is the view from the living area.

This is a picture of the beach right in front of our house, the whitest sand in the world. It was a partly cloudy day, but the water was so clear and the dogs enjoyed walking on the rocks! It was too cold to swim, about 70 degrees, but we enjoyed the beach every day.

We also thoroughly enjoyed watching the cockatoos and lorikeets from the porch every day with a glass of wine. Here are some of our favourite pictures of them. There were even black cockatoos there, but our pictures didn't turn out as well.

We spent two days resting and exploring Booderee National Park. It is breathtaking. We stopped at multiple beaches and spots, including Murray's Beach, Green Patch, the Lighthouse, Cave Beach. We loved them all. We will definitely come back here. Here are a few pictures. We did actually see about 10 kangaroos by a campfire BBQ, including a red one, but didn't snap a picture.

Before we even got to Murray's Beach, we saw an echidna. He looks kind of like a porcupine, but has a bill like a duck (kind of). He is a little hard to see here.

 These are 2 black cockatoos, also right outside Murray's Beach, hard to see how cool they are.

This is our first view of Murray's Beach...aaahhh!

Just one example of the interesting little caves and things on the beach.

 Here I am near a big piece of dead wood.

The water was crystal clear on all the beaches except where it was so deep that it looked almost black.

We seen kookaburras a lot in Sydney, but this was an especially close up picture.

Something slimy and weird that washed up...maybe some kind of algae? Kind of pretty.

This is what all the rocks in the water looked like.

These are the little snails on parts of these rocks under water.

These are the little jellyfish on the shore.

This is me trying to get pictures of surfers and missing them all!

This is Dan near the lighthouse where the track ends.

The views from the lighthouse were breathtaking for 180 degrees.

And, on our way back from the lighthouse to our house on our last full day, we hit the motherload! A roo very close to us! We got one shot of it and the lighting was a bit funny, but here she/he is!

This was an amazing place and one of the most beautiful I've seen in the world. We will definitely be back here again!