June 17- from George

George here—

Even though this is my 5^th trip to New Zealand and 3^rd in so many years, the sites we have seen the past few days on South Island have been new to me and amazing in many ways. 

As a city boy, I don’t get many opportunities to spend time around farms, so the chance to spend the morning at Murray and Vanessa’s outside of Nelson was a blast for all.  Burke likes the many dogs running around the farm, Josh like driving farm vehicles, Laura enjoyed walking around the property with great conversation, and I enjoyed seeing the cattle chomp up a line of hay and oats.  

I could get used to farm life.

I’ve also really enjoyed many of the short (30 minute- 1 hour) walks we’ve been able to take along our excursion.  Saturday was one of my favorites. At lunchtime, we ate at a café at Pelorus Bridge and then saw an old bridge over the Pelorus River and walked through the campground to see where a scene from the upcoming Hobbit movie was filmed.  (can’t wait to see both of these movies).  

The Pelorus River

I’ve also gotten into rugby a lot while being here on this visit.  (mostly because it’s the main sport on)  During my time with Furman students, I was able to see an Otago Highlanders game and have watched another 10-12 games on the Sky Sports channel.  Last night, we were able to watch a test match between the NZ All Blacks and Ireland.  Even though NZ won the first match by 30 points, they only won last night on a late game drop kick.  Even though I would never want the boys to play (too rough), it’s still been interesting watching.

Sunday (today) has been Wai (water) day.  We It all started when we were trying to add fresh water to our campervan and found that the pipes at the water park had frozen.  It had gotten down to about 26 degrees last night and we were thankful for our electric heater in the Campervan.  From there, we met the Henrys in Blenheim and drove to the beach (about 30 minutes from town) and saw some huge waves.  We enjoyed a brief walk to Monkey Bay and the boys had fun trying to avoid the water washing up on top of them.  From there we left the Henrys and took our campervan south towards Christchurch.  On the way, we stopped to see a baby seal colony along a creek in a pool under a waterfall just off the main highway.  Amazingly, these fur seals would waddle right up towards us and give us an inquisitive look (or they were just looking for food).   

Laura and Josh talk to a baby seal

Yes, I looooooove hiking, Dad!

Our final water story of the day came with a 30 minute free hot tub session from the Holiday Park in Kaikoura. 

We head to Christchurch in the morning and will spend the rest of the week there.  After that, it’s back to travelling, so hopefully I can fill in more later.