Mangawhai Lodge North Island

Today we went into Wellington, catching the local bus just outside the camp site, which took us to Upper Hutt train station. There we caught a train (similar to the sprinters back in Wales) directly to Wellington; the whole journey took around an hour. We got off the train and immediately felt the effect of the wind; it was blowing a gale and really cool – not very pleasant. Had a good wander around ...

... of the city without any hitches. The sun decided to make an appearance so we did go to Willowbank, Em bought some animal food so she could feed the VERY tame deer!! Who don’t seem to understand the concept of a fence! And crawl out onto the path to surround people!! One was particularly greedy and bit the bottom out of the bag!!
As we walked through the Kea enclosure one was on a fence post and Em tried to persuade it to perch on her arm, but instead it decided to land on my ...

... had a 6 minute shower in the campsites timed shower block! We had breakfast and headed off fairly early towards Golden Bay. It was a long windy drive with lots of steep hills which Daisy struggled with a bit. However we eventually arrived in Takaka and had a well needed break where we went to an internet café to catch up on emails etc. We then continued to Totaranui in Abel Tasman National Park where we stayed for 2 nights.

... on the tasty sea grass that the black swans are so fond of. It is intact, as you can see by the photographs and approximately 3 metres in length and a lovely subtle grey mottled colour. Anyone going on the Puponga Beach ride with Gail and Don this weekend will get a very good view of it as it is beached 100 metres from where the horses have a gallop before leaving the beach to go up into the hills.

Tuesday - Finally after not seeing them since early December 2008 our things from the UK have arrived! It wasnt all plain sailing though. Firstly, it began to rain last night and was still pretty wet when the van was due to arrive at midday. Secondly, our drive is pretty steep and the guys from Nelson decided to bring biggish truck ( less than 1/2 full) with all our things...so ...

... s really hard to pick up their poo when they are in our faces. What goof balls. The chickens are fun too. They have them just for fresh, organic eggs. We have been picking up their eggs, and when they see us, they run like crazy towards us. They eat lots of the food scraps and even drink milk too. Weird.

The other day, we were walking around some of the sheds and I felt like something was watching me. I looked ...

It's been a good start to 2009. 2nd year of training is so different from our 1st year (duh!!!!)....not so much classroom work but more directed and inquiry based learning which has been good. It's been good to have new neighbours too in the Lee's and McEwen's altho we never see much of them with all the busy schedules and deadlines to be met. It's ...

DAY 17 Well, part of day 16 too. We arrived in Dunedin which is a really big and fairly industrialized town mid-afternnon. We now realize that lodge is another name for B&B here and we found ourstaying staying at a rather unusual one on the outskirts of town. Edwardian I'd think but with lots of wood paneling and knights in armour about the place. We had nice room with superb wet room/bathroom - they do them well here. As we hadn't stopped for ...

... visiting with fellow travellers, some of whom were from Montana! The next morning we said goodbye to Abel Tasman and hiked to Totaranui. We were supposed to catch a water taxi back to the start of the track in Marahau, but the water was too rough, so we took a bus back instead. And that is my Fall Break, in slightly more than a nutshell. Overall, the track isn't much of a backcountry experience because water taxis drop day visitors off along the length of the ...

... prefer to pay for the fuel to allow the ship to coast through the waters - the passengers are far from happy. Having spent time in the afternoon catching up with the diary and uploading it to the internet, we dined in the bistro by ourselves and then watched the entertainment of comedy combined with magic, performed by an Englishman, Leo Ward - one of the better shows on this ship. Tonight we were in ...