Thursday, March 17, 2011

Happy Campers

We have been successfully camping in our very cool van for two days now, and are now on our way toward Mt. Cook.  We have stopped in the little town of Geraldine to catch the internet but do not have the time to download pictures yet. We will try to do that after going to the mountains, when we travel back to Dunedin on the east coast one more time, before heading to Millford Sound and Queenstown.  


We went on a short hike yesterday morning before we left, and met two lovely (the Kiwi adjective of the day) people who are from the Christchurch area. They invited us to have coffee in their little motorhome and gave us great tips for where to go on the South Island. We then made our way into Ashburton to provision and spent way too much money for lots of staple foods.  I am sure we will use it all and save in the long run. We ended up camping in the Peel Forest Park Scenic Reserve last night and went on a good hike to a pretty waterfall yesterday afternoon. The weather was cloudy yesterday but today is beautiful and the mountains should be wonderful. 


On our way out this morning, we hiked to see the Big Tree, a totara almost 3 meters across and more than a 1,000 years old. The old grove had large matai and kahikatea trees as well along the track, lots of ferns, and huge birds, called wood pigeons, but much larger than any pigeon we had ever seen.  Our van brings us all kinds of camping memories of past Sierra adventures and a clear music station blasts hits from the past. We are having fun.  Life is good; love to all.

1 comment:

Anandamayi Baker said...

So very grateful to know that you are both doing well and continuing on your adventures. The events in Japan have been heartbreaking to follow. It causes one to easily feel deep gratitude for the very simple pleasures/experiences in life. And it makes friendships
all the more profound. Wishing you much grace, protection, and joy,

Anandamayi