THE BEGINNING --- New Zealand

I have uploaded 151 photos of my New Zealand adventures to Facebook and have no idea where to begin whittling them down. For the time being I shall make a few short points and photos and more elaboration shall follow at a later date:

We visited Christchurch, Queenstown and Te Anau.

We backpacked 3 days through Isengard (I mean, Routeburn Track) and saw a hobbit, Gollum and the hat of Gandalf.

We sea-kayaked 3 days through Doubtful Sound Fiord.

New Zealand's national bird is the Kiwi. Kiwi's are endangered. Sandflys are abundant. Perhaps New Zealand wants to change their national bird to the Sandfly ?

I saw many birds, sandflies, sandflies and more sandflies. Oh, and 10+ bottle-nose dolphins, a fur seal, bats, cicadas and an inch-worm.









There are no native mammals to New Zealand. If its furry and four-legged it was introduced.

The Maori around 800 years ago introduced the Polynesian dog and rat.

Possum fur is apparently the third best fur in the world. Possums run rampant and I heard you get paid $50 a pop for collecting them. So, why is it, then, that a throw pillow cost over $200?


Jade and bone carvings are very popular depicting either the fern, eternal life or fishhook symbols.

Egg yolks are as orange as oranges.
Bacon comes in "streaky" "medium" and "canadian" varieties.
Iced mochas always come blended.
Fergburger and Vudu Larder in Queenstown are my favorite restaurants.

I'm highly allergic to Birch trees, which are currently pollinating.

and

Gas in the US is $4/gallon and in New Zealand is ~$7/gallon

Some quick stories from the very first day:

It was a long journey to get to Christchurch, New Zealand. I flew Alaska Airlines from Seattle to Los Angeles (2.5hours) then Los Angeles to Sydney (15 hours) then Sydney to Christchurch (2.5 hours). In just over 20 hours it went from being Saturday, February 19^th to Monday, February 21^st. Transport to the future! International flights provide meals and complimentary wine and we had a plethora of movies to watch.

After my 20 hours of flight time I filled out the customs card for entering New Zealand. I was so proud of myself for declaring that I had chocolate bars. Proud for being so honest, until I grabbed my bags and went through immigration. There they saw I had hiking boots, with dirt on them. And I hadn't declared that I was carrying them. You can't bring dirty boots onto islands. As a Biologist, I understand and respect this precaution but my slip up was completely unintentional! Luckily for me they gave me a very official threatening letter warning me that I could have been fined $400 but they decided to be "nice" and pass me by (one of the scientists ended up getting fined $400 for an apple that had fallen to the bottom of his bag!). I then got my cleaned boots and walked into the lobby of the airport a bit dazed, hungry, and very very tired from travel. A moment later a woman came out to me and said, "Are you Allison? How do you plan to leave the country?" I said, "uhmmm I'm not leaving until February?" She again repeated the question. I again looked at her completely confused, “I just arrived here.” What the hell was she talking about?! "I'm leaving by plane?" By boat? By camel!? What does she want from me?! A fourth time she says, "How do you plan to leave?" at which point I said, "I have no idea what you mean." "You left the scene of incrimination without your passport. You were told to wait there. We could have fined you and you carelessly walked away." I was so irritated at this point! She could have just said, “Hey Blondie, you forgot your passport.” #passiveaggressiveexistsinNewZealandtoo!

Seasonally & Celestially disoriented--

Seattle was experiencing mid-winter, temperatures around 25F, frost on the grass and sunsets at 5pm. Christchurch was experiencing mid-summer, temperatures around 90F, dehydration on the mouth and sunsets at 9:30pm. Switching from one hemisphere to the complete opposite in less than 48 hours has gotten me all sorts of confused! I thought I might find comfort in the night sky with some familiar constellations. I was shocked to realize, from my perspective, Orion was standing on his head! What is going on?! The full moon rose up over the mountains and crossed the northern part of the sky, not the southern part, like I was used to! My mind kept short-circuiting! I would lay on my back upside down just to orient myself. It took my brain probably a good 2 weeks of camping out under this disorientating hemisphere to realize everything was going to be ok and I could accept that things are just different, and yet normal, down here in the south hemisphere.