Tuesday, February 24, 2015

A Quick Note

I was so good at posting regularly and then it all just stopped!  I promise this wasn't just due to laziness.  Mere hours after posting the final Christmas Vacation post, I might have accidentally deleted EVERY SINGLE picture we'd taken since November from ALL of our hard drives (including all 3000+ Christmas Vacation photos).  I was in the process of copying the pictures to the external hard drive that we keep at work (just in case something happens to our apartment), and somehow managed to DELETE EVERYTHING FROM EVERYWHERE - and yelling "No! No! No! Stop!" at the computer a the top of my lungs at 11pm didn't fix a thing!

Fortunately, as I lay immobilised from shock on the living room floor, Rob managed to figure out a way to get them all back.  It cost us $70 in recovery software and hours of stress, but I'd say it was well worth it.  Either way, I've been a little computer shy since it happened. But everything is now backed up in multiple places (3-4 to be exact) and I am slowly regaining my computer confidence.

In other news - as I was repenting the error of my ways, I had a bit of time to reflect on my computer usage, and long story short, have decided to dial back the amount of information I share via Facebook.  Therefore, blog updates will no longer be posted there, and after a couple weeks I'll remove any past links to the blog.

Fear not! The blog will continue as always (which is to say, sometimes updated regularly and other times more erratically), but I just won't be posting links to Facebook whenever there's a new post.  So be sure to bookmark the address before it disappears for good!  You can also subscribe to the blog via email and follow me on Instagram (where I'm EmJayPow), which seems to be all the best parts of Facebook without all the bullshit. I'll put the blog link in my Instagram profile and maybe put some updates on there? 

Monday, February 9, 2015

Christmas Vacation - Part VI: Otago

We made it - seven posts and one month after our return, the final Christmas Vacation post is here!

We left Akaroa well-rested and looking forward to spending a few days heading South toward our final destination - Dunedin. Dunedin has a whopping 126,000 people, over 20% of whom are students at the University of Otago, so it has a bit of a college town vibe - but in the best way possible! But more on that later....

Our first stop was the town of Ashburton, home to the world's most famous spinning wheels. I don't spin (don't have the hands for it), but they had plenty of other goodies for me to check out - along with a cafe for Rob to hang out in while I browsed.

I have been waiting to go here since we moved to New Zealand - it's pretty magical!
The drive to Dunedin was 6 hours, so we decided to break it up and spend a night in Oamaru (population 13,650). Oamaru is famous for its Blue Penguin colony, its Whitestone Cheese Factory and for being the Steampunk capital of New Zealand.  We had our fill of penguins in Pohatu, so headed to the Steampunk HQ, which was odd, to say the least.

Outside of Steampunk HQ
Inside Steampunk HQ - I don't really understand what's happening in here, but it was a good way to kill an hour.  The Infinity Room (pictured in the top right) was actually pretty cool, but there's no good way to describe it.
The next morning marked the beginning of a no good, very bad day. Now you may be wondering how a day that starts at a cheese factory could possibly be bad, but it was where things started to go downhill. The cheese factory's "legendary cheesecake" turned out to be lemon flavoured, which I'm allergic to and is gross.

Top row: That cheesecake is taunting you! Bottom row: The one high point in an otherwise crappy day - the tasting room at the Emerson's brewery in Dunedin.
Sighseeing in Dunedin, which is known for its Victorian architecture.
Over the next 12 hours:
  • My favourite knitting needles broke after I slammed them in a door. They're super pricey, but nothing else can compare to them. None of this matters because they're not sold in New Zealand, so replacing them is probably not in the cards anytime soon.
  • We had to walk nearly 2 miles to find replacement knitting needles, and they didn't have the right size.
  • It started raining while we were walking back from the brewery.
  • The restaurant we reserved dinner at lost our reservations and told us it would be an hour wait.
  • The food at the restaurant we went to instead was inedible, and the waitress was incredibly rude.
None of this seems too terrible writing it all out, but it was made so much worse by what happened as we were leaving the cheese factory - I pulled my green sunglasses out of my purse only to find the frames had snapped!  I bought them for St. Patrick's Day 2013 for $10 at Claire's, so it was probably only a matter of time, but that didn't make it any less devastating. 

In memoriam - RIP green sunnies. You will be sorely missed.
By the time my no-good, very bad day rolled around, I was exhausted and ready to get home. As a reminder, I spent three weeks travelling back and forth from Sydney, only to arrive back in Auckland the day before we left for our Christmas Vacation trip. At this point, I'd slept in 18 different beds in just five weeks. I love travelling, and I know how lucky I am to have these problems, but I also learned what my limit is, and that's 18 beds in 5 weeks!

The next day was the last day of our trip, and we headed out to spend the day at the Otago Peninsula before catching our evening flight back to Auckland.
First up - the Royal Albatross Centre! It is not raining and I am not afraid of sun, but I am protecting myself from bird droppings - which you would do too if you'd been pooped on as many times as I have!
The Larnach Castle on Otago Peninsula - built by some crazy rich banker in the 1880s. The castle fell into disrepair and then was restored by a single family starting in the 1960s. The grounds are a great spot for a picnic.
Home.

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Christmas Vacation - Part V: Pohatu Penguins

We were first interested in Akaroa because we read you could swim with dolphins, but they were completely booked, so we didn't think we had any other reason to go here.  However, as I was searching for dolphin swimming companies, I came across a blurb about Pohatu Penguins, which is a family owned company whose primary business is the running of a sheep farm that just so happens to be in the middle of a penguin colony.

Years ago, the family noticed that the Australian Little Penguins living in their bay were struggling, and started rescuing them. The New Zealand Department of Conservation now assists them, but the family is still primarily responsible for the rehabilitation and rescue of the penguin population in this area.

They have a number of different tours, but the one that attracted our attention was the Pohatu Package, which includes a sight-seeing drive out to Flea Bay (the unfortunately named bay where the farm is located), the option of a 2-3 hour hike through the bush, an evening penguin tour, one night's accommodation, and an optional 2-3 hour sea kayak trip the next morning. The price was cheaper than a night of just sleeping in a hotel, so we leaped at the chance!

Our stay at Pohatu ended up being one of the highlights of our entire trip! Our private cabin was in the middle of a sheep pasture, and sheep do not stop baa-ing at night, but we would go back tomorrow if we could.

Embedded videos don't work on mobile devices, but if you click on this sentence you'll be taken to a video of what it sounds like to stay on a sheep farm. Does anyone else think sheep kind of sound like some guy is yelling at you?

We have no affiliation with Pohatu Penguins nor were we paid to write this review - we are just very enthusiastic, pleased patrons!  Bottom right is overlooking the Akaroa Harbour - one of the prettiest we've ever seen!
An amazing waterfall we passed on our hike down to our lodging - very glad we didn't drive all the way down, but also very thirsty at this point. We thought we had a stop before our hike started, so didn't pack enough water. By the time we reached the waterfall (2 hours into the hike), we didn't care whether or not it was safe to drink.
Some views on our hike, including our home away from home on the right of the bottom right picture.
I am not ashamed to admit that I chased a sheep down for a good five minutes to get this picture. #mysheepmatchesmyshirt
Some of the rescue penguins. Rescue ranges anywhere from hand feeding penguins that need more personal rehabilitation to providing safe boxes along the shore where penguins can go to malt and umm... be romantic together.
Our little penguin watching hut - built so they can't see you and you don't spook them. This guy is a yellow eyed penguin.  The bottom left shot was taken through binoculars - pretty cool!
Sea kayaking through Flea Bay
The many, many seals we saw.  The top left picture was taken without zoom - Rob accidentally steered the kayak a bit too close for comfort, and shortly after this picture was taken , the seal started growling and hissing at us while our guide frantically warned us to paddle quickly away.