Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Our holidays were nice, but strange, here on the other side of the world. We celebrated with lots of sun and warm weather this year, which was just so incredibly odd for a couple of people who have always had a "white Christmas." We chose to stay in Dunedin for so long because we wanted some place to lay out our stuff, relax, and enjoy the holidays, without worrying about setting up campsites or booking hostels along the way. We certainly chose a good spot to relax for awhile - there was enough to keep us busy when we wanted something to do (site-seeing, tours, movies, etc), but not so much that we had to feel bad when we wanted a lazy day in to practice guitar and spend some time in the Sauna.

We suffered some pretty nasty sunburns over Christmas - the worst both of us had ever had, as we were extraordinarily stupid and spent many hours baking outside at the beach in the sun on the 23rd. A few hours after returning to the hostel, we found ourselves burnt to a level somewhat beyond a crisp due to the lack of ozone layer here (and of course mostly our own stupidity). We brought sunscreen. We did. And we know about the ozone layer thing. And we still lay out there reading and enjoying the day, Brent trying to erase his farmer's tan (mission accomplished) and I trying to reach a nice golden brown colour (red is close, right?), until we accomplished a cross between a raccoon head (with the white eyes from sunglasses) and a lobster body. We demolished an entire squeeze bottle of "after sun" and put a rather large dent in a new bottle of moisturizer, but nearly 2 weeks later and lots of peeled skin, we are pretty much back to normal. It was a very painful few days, however.

 

 

the beautiful, but pain inducing, St. Clair beach

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve with some of the people staying at the hostel. There was a group of us that sat around a table in the lounge and participated in the German tradition of Feuerzangenbowle - roughly translated as "fire tongs and punch," the tongs portion of the word referring to the tongs you would use to move logs in a fireplace. The drink consists of mulled red wine with spices including cinnamon, anise, cloves, and orange pieces / peel, all mixed together in a large metal pot, heated up and placed on the table on a wood chopping board. They then fashioned a metal spatula type contraption to stay in place on top of the pot, and they made a large pyramid of sugar cubes on this spatula (in Germany you can buy a special sugar lump shaped like a pyramid for this purpose). They then poured Bacardi 151 (75% rum) over the sugar to fully saturate it, after which they lit it all on fire. As the fire started dieing down, they would re-saturate it all with more rum, until all of the sugar was fully caramelized and had fallen into the drink. When all of this was complete, we filled our mugs and toasted to Christmas in New Zealand.

some of the Christmas Eve group

The fiery and delicious German drink

after the drink had taken its effects, when a popular Christmas song came on the radio

Christmas

We had bought groceries with some of our favorite meals planned out for Christmas Day,  but didn't realize until Christmas Eve that the hostel was actually organizing a potluck for the day. So, we took stock of what we had and made a new plan for a couple of slightly larger dishes. The intention was for everyone to make a dish typical of their home country for an international Christmas day feast. Having not planned for this, we made homemade bread and chili. Not entirely Canadian, but still quite tasty. There was lots of good food on the table when it came time for the potluck, along with lots of sparkling wine and a sunny afternoon. It was certainly a unique Christmas experience. After everyone had their fill, Brent and Steve (another hostel guest from the States) took down the model race track that was on top of the book case and set it up, pretending they had opened it for Christmas. Turns out it was actually the hostel owner's son's set (he was at the potluck and no older than 2 years), and he reclaimed one of the cars for the duration of the party. After he left Brent and Steve got our their screwdrivers and fixed said car, after which they spent hours racing on the living room floor.

filling up at the potluck

Christmas Lunch

playing with the race track

Dunedin Botanic Gardens

On boxing day we walked past the craziness of the mall sales and down to the botanic gardens to soak in the flora and read underneath some trees. The walk took us past where the majority of the University students live, which is a ghost town during the holidays. What we saw was pretty impressive, but after comparing our experience to Steve and Margot's, who also went to the botanic gardens that day, we realized we hadn't even scratched the surface of how big the gardens are. We also never found the aviary, so perhaps we will have to go back at some point.

the botanic gardens

Surfing

As a sort of Christmas present to ourselves and each other, Brent and I booked ourselves in for some surfing lessons - after our sunburns had mostly peeled off and our skin hurt much less, of course. Our instructor was a gregarious man named Glen, and he taught us how to put on our wetsuits and carry the board, in addition to how to "ride the waves." We took the lesson with two other guys from England, and, thankfully, it was everyone's first time attempting surfing. After practicing how to lay on the board, paddle, and when and how to get up on to the board, we went out into the waves. The guys all managed to catch a few waves, but I was pretty terrible at surfing. I did manage to get up on a few waves before immediately face planting into the water and inhaling salt water, but it was still pretty amazing. Towards the end, Glen had me use his shoulders to get up on to the board, and then when a wave came he let me go so that I could at least experience what riding a wave felt like. It felt awesome. Now that we have the basics down (we still need a lot of practice to maybe some day graduate to semi almost sort of proper surfing) I think we will try to rent the gear and practice as we move along the islands.

wet suits, learner shirts, and boards

Peninsula / Hikes

A few days ago we took a drive along the peninsula - taking the long way, for the beautiful scenery along the way, and went for a few hikes along the way. Our drive first took us about as far as we could go to where there is a Royal Albatross sanctuary, and Brent really wanted to see the birds from the viewing area. Once we got there, however, we found the entire place to be ridiculously overpriced and a little underwhelming. Slightly dejected we went back to the car, where a seagull waited patiently for us to return.

Leonardo, Brent, and the seagull

So, we backtracked along the peninsula and took some dirt roads to make it to our first hiking location, which brought us through some farmer's fields, past some hills called "the pyramids," and onto a beach where sea lions and penguins can often be spotted. We did not, unfortunately, see any cool wild life, but we did spot some sea lion tracks in the sand.

perhaps better that we didn't see any...

Our next hike was a loop through some more farmland (New Zealand has a lot of farmland) that took us past "the chasm" (a large cleft in the cliffs with a huge drop off) and "lovers leap" (an interesting rock formation near the cliffs) and then through a forested area, up some sandy hills, and back down through some rocks to the car park. Neither of these hikes were particularly challenging and each seemed to have a ridiculous number of other people doing the same route, but there was still some very nice scenery...

hills and water

sheep meeting

hanging out in the trees

panorama shot from the car park area

New Years Eve

For New Years Eve, we started off at the hostel with a bunch of other people, listening to music and drinking whiskey. We then moved down to "the Octagon," which is sort of the downtown hub area, and where a live band was playing a free show. We hung out here for awhile: especially entertaining was a guy, dressed all in white and black, who did some very practiced Michael Jackson - esque moves to everything played, including the slower tunes. I tried to get a video but was not successful as he was a bit of a flitter, moving around to another area to show off his moves part way into each song. All of the pubs around the area were hopping and many had live bands as well, so we moved around some, seeing what was out there and meeting some of the locals / other travelers. At midnight there were some fireworks - New Zealand is the first country in the world to ring in the new year - after which we partied for a little while longer, before returning to the hostel. 

the band that played in the Octagon

some New Year's characters dancing in the bar

the first fireworks of 2011

some of the New Year's crew from the hostel

Tomorrow we take off from Elm Lodge and start our travels towards Arrowtown, where we will be working at a hostel for two weeks. We've given ourselves 10 days to drive the 3 1/2 hours it takes to make it there, so we will be doing lots of camping, hiking, and sight seeing in between. This time, we will be wearing sunscreen.