Thursday, December 24, 2009

I'm watching the 4th season of Friday Night Lights.

It's a good one. So much TV to catch up on!

Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

Bob Dylan

It ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
It don't matter, anyhow
An' it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
If you don't know by now
When your rooster crows at the break of dawn
Look out your window and I'll be gone
You're the reason I'm trav'lin' on
Don't think twice, it's all right

It ain't no use in turnin' on your light, babe
That light I never knowed
An' it ain't no use in turnin' on your light, babe
I'm on the dark side of the road
Still I wish there was somethin' you would do or say
To try and make me change my mind and stay
We never did too much talkin' anyway
So don't think twice, it's all right

It ain't no use in callin' out my name, gal
Like you never did before
It ain't no use in callin' out my name, gal
I can't hear you any more
I'm a-thinkin' and a-wond'rin' all the way down the road
I once loved a woman, a child I'm told
I give her my heart but she wanted my soul
But don't think twice, it's all right

I'm walkin' down that long, lonesome road, babe
Where I'm bound, I can't tell
But goodbye's too good a word, gal
So I'll just say fare thee well
I ain't sayin' you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don't mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don't think twice, it's all right

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Auckland afternoon.

Today I took a ten hour long bus ride almost all the way across the North Island. Generally, it wouldn't take 10 hours to drive this distance, but we stopped in every single small town in the countryside. And there are a whole lot of small towns in this part of the world.

Only two more nights until I catch the long flight home. Feeling a little anxious. I knew I would, so I left all of my Christmas shopping to the very last minute. Hopefully I'll be able to distract myself for the day. I get a little grumpy trying to find my way around places like LAX, one of the busiest airports in the world, after being squished into an airplane seat for 14 hours and missing a night's worth of sleep. Even after 3 hours on a plane I can be pretty out of it. I'll try to take a before and after picture for you, but not promises I'm posting it.

O! And I found a fantastic souvenier for myself! One of the local clothing chains made a series of locally-designed made-in-NZ organic cotton t-shirts with proceeds going to the Make a Wish NZ Foundation. And one of the designs just happens to be based on the work of Ernst Haeckel, the biologist and artist who drew the prints I used in the header of this blog. Luckily, I found one in my size in the Wellington store because there isn't a store here in Auckland. I almost waited too. Pictures to come, soon!

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Wandering around Napier.

My dear blog readers,

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about you at all. I just haven't had a chance or the energy to upload pictures over the past few days. I've been keeping a list of all the posts I need and want to make, so you won't miss anything. This blog will be a complete account of my time down here, it just might not happen until a few days after I return home.

Right now I'm in a little town called Napier. The hostel I'm stayiing at is right on the ocean. I can see it out the window as I type. The town was destroyed in a 1931 earthquake and rebuilt in the Art Deco style. i love it and I've been snapping pictures all around town. My cousin, Jonathan, lives in the next town over (Hastings...which is right beside Havelock North...and now I wonder how those two names go together). He's coming up to Napier with Liz and little Oliver to meet me for dinner tonight.

Tomorrow morning I catch the bus to Auckland at 8:00 am. The bus takes the whole day to go to Auckland. Then I have two nights in Auckland, hopefully meeting friends from Australia on Friday to celebrate my last night in town, then catch the plane on Saturday evening.

I'll be back in Ontario so soon! You might hear from me before then, but can't make any promises....see you soon, Cass

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Lake Wakatipu poems.

In Queenstown, the adventure capital of New Zealand, there is a harbour with an old stone wall built around the edge. In the wall, a poem is engraved. I read the poem one day and it goes like this:

WAIPOUNAMU
by David Eggleton

Hoisting history on his back like a sugar – sack,
The swagger strides along greenstone trails.
All night the crib creeks are humming home,
And drowned towns float in their canvas shrouds.
They are just the ghosts of their original selves,
An emotional investment looted by snow-melt for,
Schemes to answer the question of illumination.
To tap this yearning for a golden age,
Singing shepherds held wisps of tussock
Which curled like lighted Chinese joss-sticks
On the fan – tan tables of sly-grog dens,
Frozen in that glacier known as the past.
In the forgotten graveyards, hair grows into grass
While wind sifts the sweet vernal over ands over,
Like diggers letting gold dust pour through their fingers.
The Kingston flyer is chuffing
On the great Northern Railway to Wakatipu,
John Turnbull Thompson cut the run holders loose
With a panoramic survey and the confidence of a faith healer
In the middle of Queen Victorias royal century,
When the boom-time harvest of celtic place names
Seeded central like a nouveau-Hiberian dialect
From Balclutha to Glimmerburn to Glendhu bay.
Winter arrives on time in a glitz blitz of powdery snow.
The hoar frost in a Quartztpoils of ice crystals
Turning weeping willows into frozen chandeliers.
Some strung the coils of number eight into fences
As trail bikes took to the state highway with a roar
And the rain shower passed a plume
Over small towns that are hardly seen for hills.
Tarns prickle with bubbles from upland soakage
at the start of Wakatipu on mounts Humboldt and Forbes.
Pasture stands four- square
To the intersection of lakes Hawea and Wanaka, from where
Nat Chalmers shot the gorge in a flax raft with his guides
After descending Mount difficulty in flax sandals,
The first Pakeha to see Lake Wakatipu, for which he paid
Reko and Kaikora a three legged pot – Te Kohoa!
Viper’s bugloss is the honeyed heart of the hive and veranda shadows are dark as delphiniums.
The four-fold path of the farmer leads to hot and cold taps, the meat-safes a Muslim bag, but the kerosene lamp’s gone
The way of aunt Daisy’s and uncle scrim’s voices on the wireless
Or goals from the boot and pine-tree when rugby took a capital.
Braids of rivers run dreadlock plaits from a taniwha’s
Stone head, so his blind eyes spurt waterfalls
and his chest is the sucking valley of a mudslide,
when swollen rivers heave against mountain flanks
and sinkholes laden with silt roar old man floods here!
He’d ride the whaleboat molyneaux from its tributaries
To the sea, or disgorge the matau of its spears and hooks,
If they hadn’t drained the hydro-electricity, way back.
Rivers rule our lives, gurgling, puddling, dripping,
Working the lake country round like a greenstone,
Turning out a tiki of interlocking curves flowing
Into Waipounamu, which breathes its green glow,
Of purple grape froth trickling a ripe roses scent
And beetroot palate into our salad day memories.
Views of the lake in its many moods: sometimes quiescent,
Like a windowpane stippled with rain, behind which
Cucumber leafage and swollen twigs revolve, and you
Can imagine fridge-fulls of rare home brews,
Or spiced-plum brandy, tots doled out to travellers;
Sometimes waves snapping fierce enough to whip out
All the tent pegs in canvas-town, with a wind able to upturn a wedding marquess’s trestle tables tomorrow.
Days of wooden coach wheels bumping out of Ida valley on the old Dunstan road in journeys of the pioneers.
Days realising meteorological balloons into a delicate apricot sky
In this landscape we invent, as it invents us –
From rock flake and spring water, from a skiff of froth
Tumbling over a weir into the after glow of the Aurora

Friday, December 11, 2009

Morning tea.

I flew into Wellington airport this morning. It was the most horrible flight I have ever been on. The plane was really tiny so all of the turbulence felt much worse than it actually was, I think. A lot of the airports in New Zealand are difficult to land at because of the crazy weather patterns and constantly changing winds, but Wellington is known to be the worst. The airport's slogan is Wild at Heart. It doesn't even say Welcome to Wellington when you land it just has a huge Wild at Heart sign. Also, the runway is out on a peninsula into the ocean, which passengers can't see out the side windows. This makes it feel like you are going to land on the water. And when the plane is jerking all around and blowing sideways you actually think you are going to crash into the water.

The pilot apologized about 5 times for the flight attendants not being able to come through the cabin and serve hot drinks. That was the least of my concerns. O, but Mom, don't be worried about me flying around on airplanes.

Lemon & Paeroa.

The thing about New Zealand is you can be just about anywhere doing just about anything, driving, hiking, strolling along, and you end up looking down into these valleys of rolling green hills. The fields are generally designed by sheep, so they aren't really square patchwork pieces on the landscape, they are tiers of ancient footpaths carefully balanced along ridges between dark green forests and golden yellow broome and gore (it's called something like that, at least). The clouds are bright white and thick and they sit at the tops of the hills. The sheep are absolutely everywhere like little cotton fluffs. You can see so far away that the sheep are very very small sometimes. The rivers are either so clear you can barely tell they're there, or opaque and turquoise, you'd never find the bottom. The family here laughed when one of the other girls asked why the water was so blue. But, I knew exactly what she meant. I've never seen anything like it either. And, if you're luckly, wheverer you are you'll be able to see the top of Mt. Cook, always with snow, or the ocean in the distance, grey, blue, doesn't matter, still so beautiful. It can be a perfect spring day, a rainy, foggy morning, or the water can be coming down in buckets, it doesn't even matter.

O, and I know I mentioned that I purchased three hanks of wool from the lovely farm I've been staying at. We all know I sort of don't tell the entire story, sometimes, maybe, when it comes to wool shopping. And at that time I had already planned on buying 2 more hanks, so really I had 5 from this place. And then I bought 5 more (I couldn't have done it without your encouragement, Chris....just kidding, nothing really has an effect on my consistent, constant, yarn-buying habits).

Tomorrow I fly back to windy Wellington and the North Island for a bit.

See you soon! Cass

p.s. L&P is my favourite Kiwi pop. It's delicious and Kiwi As. And "world famous in New Zealand since ages ago!"

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Raes Junction.

Right now I am way out in the country in the southern part of the South Island.

The internet here is dial-up and I have a cold so I can't tolerate the lack of speed to put up posts here.

I have learned how to spin on a wheel and have already made a toque out of the wool I spun. They have huge industrial wool carders here and make all sorts of rovings for spinners. The past few days have been black merino and silk. It is so beautiful and I wish I could have a huge bag of it, but it would take a year to spin it all on a drop spindle at home. The grandfather has been running this place for years and he does all the dying too. This week he dyed a bunch of hanks of spun merino pink, purple, and blue. Not really my colour combination, but I did find some I liked. He sold me 3 HUGE hanks of light heather grey, dark heather drey, and light heather purple for $10 each. There is enough to make a giant sweater. I'm going to make a normal sized striped raglan sweater and still have a ton left over. I haven't figured out how I'm going to get it all home yet. I'll probably leave some other things behind.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Queenstown to Raes Junction

Today I'm on my way out of town to a tiny little spot in the countryside. About a week wwoofing on a sheep farm and hopefully learning how to spin on a wheel, then I'm back to the North Island and homeward bound.

Just wanted to let you all know I'm still here....just very busy!

I've got to post about my trip to Milford Sound and my time here in Queenstown.

Talk to you soon!

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Fox Glacier.

So, as you all know, I went hiking on Fox Glacier yesterday. The whole experience was incredible. Another one on the ever-growing list of coolest things I've ever done. I took enough physical geography courses at school and had a basic idea of how glacial processes work, but I realized yesterday that I didn't really understand at all. First off, the main part of Fox Glacier is the size of Christchurch City. I couldn't see it, but you can take a helicopter ride up there and see it then hike on the top. I will have to come back some day and do that when I'm very rich. The part we hiked on was basically a little drip of ice that comes down out of the mountains where the melting occurs. Also, the glacier is not smooth at all (I thought it would be...). It's all giant chopped up pieces. The surface of these huge chunks of ice melts in a speckled pattern, like a giant golfball. It's really quite difficult to walk around on. We had to wear crampons and the guide was constantly chopping steps into the ice for us.

We all met at the guiding building at 9:00 am. There are only about 4 places to stay in town so several of the people were at the same hostel as I was. Everyone in the group was really nice. We all had to listen to the introduction and put boots and gear on. The company supplied wool socks and mitts and rain gear, if you needed it. The bus left Fox at 9:30 am. It was only about a 10 minute drive to the base of the glacier where the river came out. We then had to hike into the glacier through the spillway, up 800 (ugh) steps and over a narrow trail along the bluff wall beside the glacier. This area is a rainforest and it was SO hot and humid in there (and we were all dressed quite warmly). I found a lot of cool orchids, but wasn't allowed to take pictures because your hands had to be empty to hold onto the chain so you wouldn't fall off the cliff. You can't go near the face of the glacier because ice is constantly melting off and it's very dangerous. That is why we had to climb up and around and onto the ice. At the edge of the ice the guide gave us all alpinestocks (walking sticks with points on the end to dig into the ice) and crampons for our boots. There were 11 people in my group including 4 other Canadians and one that had graduated from Guelph the year after me. They were all really cool. Also, one of them was celebrating her 25th birthday, so that was fun too.

The rainforest we walked through. This area gets 10 m of rain a year. That's 3 more metres
than the Daintree Rainforest gets! It rains 200 days out of the year. It sprinkled on us, but just a little. There was a strange warm breeze coming off the glacier and the guide said it was probably an indication of a strange weather event about to occur. Then, all of a sudden, the clouds were so thick. We heard the the heli-hike people might be stuck at the top of the glacier because the helicopters couldn't get in to pick them up. They were rescued though when the sun broke through for a few minutes.

On ice. A fitting way to spend December 1.


Our group walking up the glacier. Sort of like Gordon Street in February.



While we were up there, Malisa told us that we had actually crossed over a major fault line where two tectonic plates meet. There is generally a huge earthquake there every 200 years. Right now they are 260 years overdue for a 'big one'. When it happens, the westcoast will most likely be seperated from the rest of NZ for 7 months. No one will be able to get through on land. They have had a lot of meetings regarding this and there are some big hospital ships that will come from Australia to rescue the survivors. I'm sort of glad I'm not over there anymore. Though if the big one happened, all of NZ would shake.

Grade A glacial mud. They collect this for expensive spas. It is very smooth, but I don't really see the appeal.

Climbing up out of the moulon we took turns exploring.

Trying out the ice axe. I don't know how the girls do this all day long.


The ice looks very blue because over time the oxygen moves to the top layer and goes into the atmostphere. The dense ice reflects the blue light and that's what we see.



The rock fall at the side of the glacier. The ice is carving away the mountains and whenever it rains a lot the mud holding the rocks in will let go and the rocks will slide down the side.


The ice features are constantly changing as the glacier flows. The rocks that get mixed into the ice cause all sorts of crevasses and moulans (holes) to form.



Our guide, Malisa, a local girl who grew up on a farm in Fox, and the view out over the front of the glacier down the valley.




We returned to town at 6:00 pm and we were all so exhausted. I went out for dinner with the Canadians and had green mussels and chips and Monteith's Apply Cider. yum. We then went over to the cornerstore and picked up a case of beer and ice cream cake then went back to the hostel to hang out in the room and fall asleep talking about how cool Canada is and how many weird things the Aussies and Kiwis do. I think I convinced them all to come down to Guelph for Hillside Inside and I'll definitely be attending a Toronto Football Club game next summer.










o

Monday, November 30, 2009

Little Fox and glacial hiking!

Tonight I'm in the town of Fox. It's tiny, but bigger than Warsaw. The Fox Glacier is nearby, but I can't see it yet. Tomorrow I'm getting up early and going on a guided hike for the day. I'm pretty excited! This is one of the activities I've looked forward to while planning my trip. I'll let you all know how it goes tomorrow.

And, check me out, way more than 30 posts this post-worthy November!

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Grey Hoki.

I stopped in a little seaside town on the west coast for one night just to break up the 10 hour busride from Nelson to the glaciers. It was called Hokitika and it was grey. I actually really liked the beach and I had it mostly to myself. Around 6:00 pm the sun was out so I ate dinner down there and just sat and knit and listened to my ipod until I was too cold. Then I went back to my hostel, which was practically empty and more like a hotel. I had my own room with sink and huge window and everything.

Empty beach. Grey. Sand, not stone, nice change from the east. Much easier to walk on.


Me on the empty beach. A little more sun. Pretty blue skies.


Once back at the hostel, I sat in the lounge and watched TV for a bit. Meet the Robinsons was on, a computer animated film about an inventor kid. Cute, but nowhere near as good as Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. Mara and Chris and I had went to see that on Friday night and I Really Loved It. I laughed throughout the entire thing. So good. Go see it. You'll love it too (probably).

And, while I was there I remembered to take a few pictures of my new wool purchases for you. This is a bubblegum pink merino with which I will be making myself mittens. Bright pink mittens to go with my dark blue winter jacket.


This is a bright blue merino with pink and peach silk slubs. Will be a headband (Calorimetry, for those in the know). I'm into the bright colours right now.

That being said, I also picked up awhole bunch of little naturals in all sorts of different shades and sheep species to make myself yet another pair of mittens and a stripey scarf. Should be cool. And mindless. I'll have it done in the next few weeks, I think.


I know, I know, this is a lot. AND there's even more, but it's all surprises so you can't see it yet ;)





Pancake rocks.

I took the bus from Nelson, bright and early on Sunday morning, at 7:30 am. The drive down along the west coast of the South Island to Hokitika was incredible. I had only gotten about 5 hours of sleep the night before, but I was wide awake for the entire journey. There was just so much to look at. The coast and the mountains and the hills and valleys and twisting-winding roads were just so interesting.

Buses in NZ make several stops throughout the day. Seriously. There's morning tea, noon break, afternoon tea, dinner tea, more tea. They always pick really interesting rest stops too. On this trip the bus stopped at a place called Pancake Rocks. There was a short walk along the coast to look out over the Tasman and see these interesting rock formations.



There were also two cafes at this little roadside stop and both of them had pancakes as the special for the day. Who wants to bet that the special each and every day is pancakes? I'd put money on it. And I only gamble in Brisbanee

Nelson.

I spent the last Saturday in Nelson at the Farmer's Market then hanging out with Chris and Mara. Chris found the last half of the last season of Battlestar Galactica at the second video store we visited. We watched two episodes. I love BSG so much that it deserves a mention here. Then we went for a bit of a drive up through a beautiful valley to the big water dam where the city stores the water for Nelson.


We came across the Manuka tree from which the Kiwi bees make delicious honey. The flowers and seed pods are quite beautiful and I realized I hadn't taken many flower pictures for awhile, so here they are.


That night Mara made us a big Swiss dinner. It was delicious. She made fresh cheese pasta, stuffed sparrows (which aren't actually birds! - they are schnitzel rolled and stuffed with crusty bread, onions, and bacon, then fried and cooked in gravy, and broccoli and peas from her garden. She also sent Chris and I downtown to buy a rigger (2L) of berry cider from one of the local brewery pubs called teh Spring and Fern. It was delicious as well. O, and we had strawberries from the market for dessert. Yum. Third strawberry season of my year. After dinner we watched a movie, which was good, I can't remember what it was called, but Gerard Butler was in it and he was Scottish. Then we watched another episode of BSG before bed.




Saturday, November 28, 2009

Lady O'felia Smudge.

I had to upload a couple pictures of Mara's cat. I was incredibly allergic to her (the cat, not Mara), but she was a sweet little thing and she really just loves people. The cat is deaf, so she has a funny little meow and, obviously, has no idea what's going on around her unless it's in front of her. One night she managed to open and climb in my window by herself. I wasn't letting her in my room (due to the allergies) and I guess she wanted to hang out.


She liked my knitting a lot and I really like the way our colours matched.












Thursday, November 26, 2009

Big things on the South Island.

A giant chessboard in the main square of Christchurch.

And a huge rose marking the entrance to the rose gardens at the Christchurch Botanical Gardens. Feels like Alice in Wonderland there.






Centre of New Zealand!

Right up the hill behind Chris and Mara's house is the geographical centre of New Zealand. We hiked up there. The views out over Nelson were very nice. This is me balanced on the Centre of NZ.


This is what the Centre of NZ looks like from the trail. On May 14 1870, NZ's first-ever rugby match was played at the foot of this hill. Nelson Rugby Club beat Nelson College 2-0 and nobody ever looked back.
The hills over Nelson and the ocean. There are some sheep in this picture, of course.


Nelson's harbour.


I've got SO much more for you, but no time. Stay-tuned though because I'm going to crush 30 posts in November.

Roadtrip!

I've been staying with my friends, Chris and Mara, in Nelson for the past couple nights. I met Chris at the first research station I volunteered at. He's a Brit, but he's lived and worked and volunteered in New Zealand for the past couple years or so. Mara is his girlfriend. She lives and works in Nelson. Chris just came back to the country from Australia the other day. I met Mara in Christchurch and then we picked Chris up at the airport. We spent the next two days driving back up to Nelson.

We made several stops along the way. This is me infront of a braided river wearing a merino wool sweater and eating a toffee pop. Kiwi as. The weather was perfect.


This is actually a rushing river with snow-capped mountains in the background and huge hills on either side with a natural hotspring pool right at the edge of the river. This place was so incredible. It was warm enough out to splash around in the cold river then hop into the hot pools, but cool enough to enjoy the heat of the water. There were two big pools, one warm, one warmer. You could dig your hands and feet into the hot sand at the bottom. We spent time in both of them. What a cool place to stop. I love hanging out with the locals who know all the interesting places!

Mara and I in the big hotpool. The river is actually at the same water level of the pool, but the pool is deeper for some reason.

Driving over the mountains from the east side of the South Island where Christchurch is located, to the northwest side where Nelson is located is just incredible. The views are amazing and there are so many places to stop and see interesting things. This is one waterfall we hiked up to. It's very tall, hard to tell from this picture, unfortunately.



Chris and Mara on the bridge over the sluice near Springs Falls. We stopped and stayed at the Department of Conservation house for the night.


Another waterfall we stopped at the next day. I think this one is called Mariua Falls, something like that.


This morning I left Nelson bright and early at 7:30 am. I'm in Hokitika now. It's a cool little town on the Tasman Sea. The hostel I'm staying in is very nice. More of a hotel than a hostel. I'll write more later!




Fibre Spectrum.

Nelson is known for being an artsy little city. Long before I visited I had a feeling I would find good wools and things there. And, well, I was right. I made a list of all the local yarn stores I had heard about and then set off to find them. When I came across Fibre Spectrum I knew my search was complete. This little storefront was pretty nondescript, but it houses the products of a local cooperative. They handspin and handdye and handweave and knit every item in the store from fibre to finished product. The store is long and narrow and is completely lit by skylights. The natural light makes everything even more beautiful. I spent a long time chatting with the woman running the store the first day. Then I bought a lot of things from her. Then I met a girl who graduated from the University of Guelph the same year I finished my undergrad. She recognized me and we talked for a few minutes. She wasn't a knitter though, and I has some serious shopping to do. I had to limit my purchases for financial and backpack space reasons. Mara and Chris think I am crazy. Then, I spent the entire night thinking about one skein I had really liked, but didn't buy, and had to go back the next day to pick it up and take pictures of the place so I will never forget it. O, and then I visited several of the women in the co-op at the Nelson Farmer's Market on the weekend. Yep.

When I wrote out the list of pictures for this post I had about 40, but I narrowed them down to just these few.



Baby Surprise Jackets!
Wall of handspun, handdyed merinos and corrydales and silks and everything you can think of. I pulled out every single one of them and inspected them all.

Did I mention all of the handmade felt in this place? So cool. I bought a little heart christmas ornament (well, it's bright blue and beaded) for Mara and Chris to thank them for their hospitality.
Handknit sweaters.




The weaving was pretty incredible too.



Yeah. Good day for wool shopping.
"We tend to get addicted to our activities so you better make sure you love what you do." Wilt Chamberlin.




.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

And I can't forget...

The All Whites are going to the World Cup! I WISH I had been at this game. Why do I miss so much by one day? The entire city was plastered with these signs, so I couldn't forget about it either. Thanks, Nike.


There, I think I'm pretty much caught up! I added words to the Taupo post, so check that out. Coming soon: more big things in NZ, Christchurch, and roadtrip with Chris and Mara! yay!

Cass St.

So, I wasn't able to post every day in November. That was pretty unreasonable, anyway. I should pass 30 posts in one month though, and that's a record for me. Just to get my post count up, I'm adding this.

I saw this street name on the map and thought I'd have to go way out of my way to take a picture. And into a not-so-scenic part of town. Luckily, it turns out the Knitter's Warehouse, a not-so-scenic woolshop is just past this street, so I was actually heading in that direction.


Let's just say it took a few tries to line this up. And I did it just for you. This is a blog special edition photo. And you don't just come across one of these every day. I might not post as often as the challenge said I should, but I have great content.

Picton Village.

Picton was a nice little town on the north coast of the South Island. The entire place is pretty much under construction right now. I think it's the place to buy realestate and a lot of beautiful houses are being built on the surrounding hills. I stayed at a little hostel called the Villa and it was really nice. I had Canadian roommates both nights. Most people only come for one night after arriving on the ferry, but I wanted to stay and hike out to the point.

I went to visit the Edwin Fox Museum. It houses the world's 9th oldest wooden ship, the Edwin Fox. I'm not sure if that means the 9th ship ever built out of wood, or the 9th oldest existing. It is the only surviving ship that took convicts to Australia, the only ship that took troops to the Crimean War, and the oldest merchant ship still afloat. Though it is barely floatable. At the museum they are attempting to preserve the ship, not restore it. That would cost too much money and not be as effective and eerie.

It was neat because you could go down in the ship and walk around. The sunshine looked much more beautiful and creepy in reallife.


I took a lot of pictures of the crafty things, like knotwork, as is to be expected.





The next day I hiked out to the Snout, or the point of this part of the Marlborough Sound.


On the way back, I walked along the beach because the tide was low and took pictures of all sorts of interesting things.



O, and next door to the hostel there was a Fabulous Dutch Bakery. The slice on the right is a Ginger Crunch. It was candied ginger baked into shortbread with ginger cream icing. Seriously, I think it was one of the best things I have ever bought from a bakery. Seriously. And that's saying a lot.