island time has good food with a splash of Monteith’s

in the pics: NZ had very LARGE hedges. it would be quite a job to cut them; the food..mmmm..we had steak and potatos, with lots of onions and garlic (and I put left over pasta sauce on mine), and juicy, thick hamburgers. Mike says I mix all my food. I say it tastes better that way.

Ending…
I’m now on the flight back to Samoa. “We are five minutes early, which is unusual for island time.” Says one flight attendant. The announcer is Samoan, so this should be an interesting flight. ..about halfway through the flight he announced they were doing face painting. Back to the land of vailima and taro…

As I look down (from the plane) at the landscape I see the twisted road and remember closing my eyes when Mike drove around the corners in our campervan. I think one thing I want to do if I return is take on the corners in a smaller car—like a mini cooper or one of the corvettes I saw in NZ. That is, when I know how to drive a stick shift. A motorcycle would be fun too.

Three things I did not use at all: my Frisbee, yoga mat, and the lonely planet guide book. Don’t worry, when you get to NZ, and go the information office, you will be overwhelmed with information. I wish we had more time to be in a place for more than one night. Two weeks for the south island felt rushed. I didn’t get to listen to any live music; we seemed to be too early, the concert series started the end of jan and February. This sounds down and dreary, but I had a good and I’m glad I went. Now I know exactly what I want to do if I go back to visit NZ again.

It seems like such a short time in NZ but we managed to snap about 1100 pictures—ah the ease of a digital camera. Now time to delete the so-so, the bad, and the ugly pictures. Mike would probably say that would include all the pictures with my tongue sticking out...no no no. that’s what made the trip interesting...and I do that when I’m having a good time.

One of my goals in NZ was food related. I wanted to try some kumara fritters. I was told they’re not in season right now, so I settled for fish and chips—but they were good fish and chips, and I learned that in NZ the fish in F&C is usually shark meat. Not cod or halibut as I’m used to in the states. Cod bites come on the side. And the family we stayed with at the beginning and end of our trip though I was weird for putting old fries (the chips) and much cheese in the microwave. Oh, but melted cheese is so yummy!!
The strawberries and peaches I wanted to eat turned into peaches and cherries. The cherries were yummy; the peaches were bland. No wine cellar tasting, but we drank lots of good wine. Our last night in NZ we took our hosts out to a Mexican restaurant—I had no ulterior motive—really! The chicken enchilada was yummy yummy yummy. It could have used more cheese though. I had my tall glass of Guinness, but thought it was bland compared to the local black beer (Monteith’s) which was smooth with a kick.

I have to give three thumbs up to the web site called couchsurfing.com. I really liked our hosts in Christchurch. I want to use CS again for another trip. CS is a web site that allows you to find people willing to offer a couch (or bed) when you travel. A nice way to meet interesting people.

I rented a mountain bike for the whole trip. I wish mike was more of a biker. I thought it was a pretty good deal. And they customized it for me by switching the brakes, and adding bar ends and toe clips. I thought that was nice. I think they were the only place in CC that had bikes for rent and were open.


A bit of techtalk…
I bought a 500GB external harddrive in NZ. I thought it was pretty cool. I forgot that my laptop only has one USB port (and it’s not a faster 2.0 USB version—an older laptop, but it was given to me, so what can I say?). the external harddrive has two cables: one for data and power and one for power. I don’t’ know if both cables have to be plugged in, but when I plugged the data/power cable into my laptop I got a message saying “power surge on USB bus.” Then my computer shut down. I restarted and after booting and doing a disk check, a message appears on the desktop “system has recovered from a serious error.” Indeed. I have not tried plugging it in again.