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.

Kia ora, Kaikoura.

In Maori, that means: Hello, good day, town of crayfish food.

Kiakoura is actually named after a Maori story. The entire name is Te ahi Kaikoura Tama ki te Raki. It means "the fire that cooked the crayfish of Tame ki te Raki". He was on a journey from the North Island around the South Island to find his three runaway wives and he stopped here for dinner. Kai means food and koura means crayfish. And this town fishes for crayfish (which are lobster sized and cost $50 here).

In Kaikoura, I spent a lot of time just sitting on the beach. The hostel was right on the beach. It was very nice and there were some really cool people there. I shared my room with a Swiss girl and an American guy who had met a few days prior to arriving in town. The guy had the same pack as me, only in the boy version. His was 5 L larger, but mine was (slightly) heavier. I don't know how I do it. We had a lot of fun, cooked dinner together in the amazing kitchen (some hostels don't have amazing kitchens, this one did). They actually invited me to come to Nelson with them, but I already have the rest of my trip pretty much planned out! I also met a German guy who had traveled through Canada, Australia, now NZ, and was heading to Thailand. He said Canada was his favourite country (I'm biased, but I can understand what he's saying :)

This was the gravel beach. O yeah, Kiakoura is at the base of a beautiful mountain range. There is snow at the top of the mountains all year round. When I saw the snow, I felt SO happy, like happy homesickness. I'm sure I'll take that back next March.


My NZ wool on the NZ beach. Fits right in.


On my second day in Kaikoura, I walked down to the Saturday market. I bought some honey and I had a whitebait sandwich. Whitebait is a local delicacy, it's at the end of the season right now, and apparently it's worth a lot of money. I had no idea what it was, but I thought I'd try. It's tiny little fish fried in a pancake. Yep. Eyeballs and everything. O, and they serve it on a piece of Wonderbread with margarine. HOW is that a delicacy? It tasted pretty good, but I couldn't look at the little worm-fish while I was eating it. Here is a horrible picture of my mostly-eaten whitebait pattie.


And, there's a big thing in Kaikoura. A big crayfish, of course. Since this I've found two more big things in NZ, so watch out for them.


More perfect knitting on the beach, this is going with this and it looks lovely. It'll be nice and warm for the winter back home.


And then I hiked out around the lovely coastline. The seabreezes here were just so refreshing.


I walked out to the end of town to see Fyffe house, the only remaining house from the whaling days in Kaikoura. And this house belonged to the man who brought the whaling industry to this region. I don't know if it's always been pink, but now it's very, very pink. And it's built on whale bones as a foundation. They also used the bones as fences.


A cool cookie cutter in the kitchen cupboard :)


Whale vertebrate on the front porch.


I went down to a wool farm to see a sheep shearing show. That was interesting. This is a picture of Ramman, one of the rams at the farm. I fed him. I can't show any pictures of the sheep being sheared because it was too traumatizing. It took three minutes with electric clippers to shear one sheep, but the farmer can actually do it in 37.2 seconds. In the background you can sort of see the little sheepdog pup that's learning how to work on the farm. His name is Sam! There's also a little bit of a black sheep too. They're both eating the ram's food.


These are some of the lambs at the wool farm. I got shocked by the electric fence for this photo (and it's not even that good...I wanted more lily and spotted lamb face). I'm sure I'm not the first since people come here to see the lambs and I didn't notice any signs indicating the fence was electric. The farmer even told one guy he could go in with the lambs and didn't mention the fence. Anyway, it was just like a flick to the muscle of my left arm and I was totally fine.


On my last day in Kaikoura, I borrowed a bike from the hostel (for free, that was nice) and rode out to see one of the seal colonies and hike around the end of the peninsula.

Baby sealface! Can you see him?


Landseal, right beside the boardwalk. You're supposed to keep at least 10 m between you and the seals. Usually, that's no problem because they stay out on the rocks. This guy was right beside the boardwalk. I wasn't that close, but other people were.


The hike was really neat. There were all kinds of old Maori sites along the way. The ridges you can see in the first hill were actually a Maori fort, or Pa. The town of Kaikoura is around the other side of the point. It was so foggy I couldn't really see the mountains in the background.


I sat up over the ocean and knitted for awhile.

Promised pictures!

Tonight I'm updating my resume and applying to that job I mentioned in the Yukon next spring. Well, actually it's more like next winter because the earliest position starts in January. I'm going to apply for one of five that start at the end of February or later in the season. I really need to spend some time at home and write the article from my Masters before I head out again. It justs seems so strange that they work in the Yukon during January. I thought everyone up there just hibernated.

Since I'll be on the computer for awhile, I thought I'd set it to upload some of my favourite pictures from the last month (I haven't added any since I went to the Daintree on October 3.

Assisting Helena at PK's pool tables. Her injured finger makes this sort of thing very difficult. Trust me, our game wasn't even affected, we're always horrible.


Myself, Courtney, and Laure putting up the wall of the new building. Helena couldn't help so she took pictures.


Lizard eggs are everywhere. So are lizards.


Feeding a little blossom bat some reward honey after we captured him and ID'd his species.


Our beloved swimming hole at Myall Creek.


Cape Trib in the far distance.


Native hibiscus.


A swamp wallaby joey.


Helena in the canopy crane!


The inside of a mangosteen, the queen of the fruit, and one of the most delicious things in the world.


Laure with her magic floating baby coconut. We were just being very silly one night at the station.

My little cabin in the rainforest.

A picture of a picture, these little bats were orphaned and handfed by volunteers at the Bat House. They need to be wrapped in little blankets because they can't thermoregulate until they are about 6 months old. That's why little bats sleep in their mother's wings.


The bowl of fruit we tried at fruit tasting. The yellow lumpy one is the rollina, and the round purple ones are the mangosteens. The giant green prickly one is the jakfruit.


A member of the persimmon family, the name means child fruit, but I can't remember how to spell it. Tastes just like caramel. I loved this one. It's the little brown one tucked in between the rollinia and the green persimmon.

Black persimmon, or chocolate pudding fruit. It looks just like pudding, but doesn't taste so chocolately. It's sweet and nice and I really liked the texture. They do mix it with vanilla and cocoa to make a really tasty frozen pudding that's all natural. I had some after the fruit testing.


The inside of rollinia! Yum! Just like lemon meringue pie.

The little red one is miracle fruit, the green one is tahitian lime. You chew on the miracle fruit for a minute, it's really all pit, just a bit of fruit with very little flavour. Then you eat the lime. The miracle fruit shuts off your sour tastebuds and the lime is so delicious. We even had little shots of vinegar after eating the miracle fruit and it tastes sweet. You have to plug your nose so you can't smell it, but it's so weird. The effect lasts for about an hour.


Jakfruit growing on the tree in the orchard next to the research station. It's the largest tree fruit in the world and can grow up to about a metre long. It's got these dark yellow pieces inside that are so delicious.


Courtney and I running the show at the Bat House. A nice German tourist took this picture for us.
Pushkin the sleeping bat hanging out at the Bat House.


Sand crab homes. They take bits of sand into their mouths, roll them around and eat the organic matter, then spit out the perfect little ball of leaftover sand. These completely cover the beach at lowtide.

Laure, Courtney, Helena on Myall Beach drying off from an afternoon of snorkling.

Courtney at the top of the peak where we stopped for lunch.

Courtney walking along the ridge leaving the final lookout. There is a huge drop on either side of the narrow path and we're about 700 m straight above sealevel. This picture doesn't really capture the ridge very well.

View from the top of Mt. Sorrow. Out over the cycads, down to the town clearings and out over the ocean.

Under the umbrella trees at the bottom of Mt. Sorrow. We really needed to stop for a break and this was one of the most scenic spots for it.


Me on Cape Trib beach. I had to leave that shirt behind. It was just so worn out. I really liked it though.


Courtney and I on the Rum Runner, the diving boat we took to the reef. I wore the wetsuit all day and it's a good thing because even though it was overcast the back of my calves were burnt.


Helena has an underwater camera. She took these the day she was at the reef. I borrowed them from her so that I could have some underwater pictures and show them to you. This was the same reef I was at, and I probably swam past a lot of these things, so you'd never tell the difference. These pictures are pretty good, but the colours are actually much more vibrant when you're there.


This is one of the only areas in the Great Barrier Reef where the blue sea star grows so abundantly.


Helena swimming over the reef. This is at hightide. When the tide is out, you can't swim over some areas.


A giant clam! All of the blue things around the opening are small plants that grow in the cells of the clam's shell. This sort of thing, mutualism, happens frequently on the reef in all different manners.


On the way back in we could see that it had rained in Cape Trib for most of the afternoon. We didn't get any rain out at the reef (about 20 km from shore). And the rain that did fall was gentle and wasn't enough to help with the drought the rainforest has been experiencing for the past three months. People are starting to get very worried that the upcoming wet season won't bring enough rain at all.


Mangrove roots along the boardwalk to the beach. This is where the crocodiles like to live. They aren't around right now because the water is so low.


Rattlecat, the one year old kitty who lived with us at Cape Trib. I wasn't allergic to her because there weren't any walls on our house, so her dander didn't stay around.


Beautiful waterfalls at Kuranda. This picture was taken out the window of the train.


Historical Kuranda Railway. The trip back to Cairns took about 1.75 hours. The train has to pass through 15 tunnels along the side of the mountain. The view was incredible.


Holloway Beach, the place I stayed during my second trip to Cairns.