Heavenly Kaikoura

 

Salvadore Dali?

 

Atlas holding up...um...an old chimney 

You would think we were just released from a penal colony in Siberia or something, the way everything seems so exquisite:

•  Lunch at Dimitri's Souvlaki with marinated steak cubes, garlic and cucumber yogurt sauce, fresh tomatoes and lettuce, all wrapped up in a garlic infused chewy bread wrap - YUM

•  Montheith's Original Amber Ale on draft at the Bard Pub

•  Low-growing white roses wafting perfume as we walked along the streets of Christchurch

• A massage with lavender infused oils (Scott also had one but he accidentally got a painful deep-tissue massage and ended up with a crick in his shoulder for 2 days though)

• The simple pleasure of perusing an Asian food warehouse where I spotted pale dusty pink oomaboshi plums and square seaweed sheets in the exact packaging I remember when my family ate macrobiotically in the late 60s and early 70s. (Scott also took a trip down memory lane and bought dried cuddlefish, like he used to get at an Asian market in San Mateo when he and Mark went fishing off Coyote Point. I tried a handful of the stringy, tentacly stuff. 1st taste - brown sugar sweet, 2nd taste - ramen noodlish, 3rd taste - SPICY, 4th taste - shrimp flavored bubblegum, 5th taste (3 hours later) - fish oil burps from the depths of my somewhat unsettled tummy :(

• Kitties! An aloof gray cat snuck into our car as we were unloading our suitcases and draped herself across the back window shelf. Finally, we were not restricted by any Antarctic Treaty, and we pet that kitty until she was swatted our hands away.

We are decompressing in a town called Kaikoura, meaning crayfish-food (what they call lobster here). Incidentally, lobster dinners start at $84 a plate! No way this former Mainer is having any of that...although I'm not above trying to look like a lobster...

 

My antennae are actually some sort of long pinecone

  

More beetle-like I suppose. Anyway, I'll stick to the cheap, huge local mussels, and $2 smoked mackerel.

 

Mmmm

  

Good!

  

Scott wanted the salad all to himself.

  

Ben, if I see another Xbox charge on my credit card, it's curtains for you ;-)

Cobweb on a wooden statue

Scott being a baby

Kissing the statue

His tongue is my pointer finger

Picking

  

The view near where we are staying. Behind these clouds are mountains as big as those in the Bitterroot.

Fur seals!

Looks like Zoe lazing on our deck

somebody needs a toothbrush

Embarrassed now

Cranky red-billed gull

Oh no you didn't!

Must have had some dried cuddlefish. Gack!

  

A seaweed portrait of Scott and me?

Kiwis are so relaxed and friendly! When we arrived at the house rental, it was locked and all I had for contact information was the landlord's name - Lloyd. So, we walked around chatting with the neighbors until we found out where Lloyd lives, then we walked to his house. That was the expected way to find him apparently. We have a lovely cottage on the beach for only $55/day! So much better than last year when we drove to a new place every day and I had a nasty cold. Home-cooked meals, hikes along the coast, my first bath in a half a year, a mint cookie ice cream cone, an afternoon of reading, Scott tinkering with his pics on the computer...perfect.

Speaking of Scott's pics, here are some more:

 

 Such a great traveling companion - I love this man :)

 

Enjoying GREEEEN things and flowers!

  

Serenity, warmth, and humidity in Kaikoura

Maori statue. Kaikoura was a moa-hunting settlement 1,000 years ago. Here they found the largest intact moa egg ever in the arms of a skeleton.

Mallards swim in the ocean and sleep in the seaweed here.

Fluffy cormorant

Hiking on the bluffs with the ocean behind us