October Showers Bring November Flowers

The season flip has been a strange one to get used to. It's weird knowing that Halloween is just days away, yet the trees are covered in cherry blossoms instead of fall leaves. The days are getting longer (it's light out after 9pm), the weather is getting warmer (although we've had a couple insane wind/rain storms this month too), and the boys are getting restless for summer break (which starts at the beginning of December)

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A week and a half ago, we went to Sandfly Bay. SO AMAZING! Last week we tried (I might actually drown myself) to surf at St. Kilda. SO AMAZING! Last weekend we went to Victory Beach. SO AMAZING! Which makes me assume that we're surrounded by unreal beaches. The water here is more turquoise than at home, but the water temps feel about the same.

above Sandfly Bay

The hike down to the Sandfly beach is through a farmers field, and every farmer's field is full of sheep, so I was pretty tickled over all of the little lambs. As we walked down towards the beach, the path opened up onto sand dunes, and as we climbed up over them we were greeted by a huge sleeping sea lion on the beach below. I started madly snapping photos of it... little did I realize that the beach was covered with them!

Sandfly Bay

As we ventured down the beach, dodging these great beasts, Scotty spotted a sea lion surfing out in the waves. We stopped to watch him and it became clear that he was looking for a place to come up on the shore. His big body disappeared into the white foam and then emerged onto the sand less than 20 meters from us. I quickly started to film, and suddenly, he quickened his pace and ran straight at a sleepy sea lion on the beach. I felt like a correspondent for National Geographic as these huge sea lions wrestled on the beach right in front of us! 

The beach was littered with these hulking bodies, an they kept flicking sand onto themselves to keep the flies off which made some of them harder to see. There were a few times I got a lot closer than intended because I was too busy looking everywhere else and not where I was going.

We went and sat in the penguin hide and watched some of the sea lions dive into the water from the rocks, but the penguins don't usually come up onto the shore until closer to sunset. Otago is home to the world's rarest penguin: the yellow eyed penguin. In order to see one, you typically have to stay hidden, and being that it is breeding season, it is very important that people give the penguins their space so that they will actually come ashore and feed their chicks.

 Last weekend Brian and Helen took us to Victory Beach. The hike (I should actually say "tramp" because kiwi's don't use the word "hike") to the beach leads past more farm land, and there are these massive natural pyramid structures in the middle of the fields.

The walk to Victory Beach with a pyramid the the background

Could I look any MORE like my mom???  Identical.

We hunted the coast for signs of the penguin, but only found footprints and pathways through the long grass. We walked all the way to the other end of the beach and found seal pups hiding on the rocks. Scotty got in closer to take some pictures and a protective mom started growling at him. Brian burst out laughing at me when a mama seal charged forward on a rock and I immediately turned and wheeled outta there while yelling "CRAAAAP" I had seen how quickly that sea lion could run the week before, and I am not even half as fast as Scotty, so it bodes well for me that I am quick on the draw.

The baby poses for pics while mama spews hate from her eyes

The pups had little meerkat faces. So cute.

I will always remember leaving tiny baby Maya on Nena's doorstep, knocking on the door and then Bri, Helen, Scotty and I hiding behind a tree to see what Nena would do with this little Kiwi Asian baby sleeping all by herself on the doorstep.

 As we turned to walk back down the beach, Scotty started yelling and pointing out in the water. There, bobbing up and down over the waves was a little yellow eyed penguin. Brian and I quickly got low on the sand and waited to see if this little guy would actually come onto the shore. He glided in, stood up, and then turned around and swam back out. He did this a few times before deciding it was safe and proceeded to wander across the beach less than 50 meters from us.

There are only less than 6000 of this species of penguin in the world

This week on "The Nature of Things With Scotty Suzuki"- we look at the Furry Sea Lions, Hooker Seals and the rare Yellow-Eyed Penguin on New Zealand's Otago Peninsula:

Quick Drive Through Dunedin

I put together a quick little video to give a glimpse of the city of Dunedin (and a bit of the surrounding countryside). It is such an adorable little town. Being from Vancouver, we quickly noticed how many old buildings are still intact around the city. The railway station is probably Dunedin's most famous landmark, but there are so many amazing buildings (I quite like the old bank). The city is very European, with the "octagon" (lined with pubs, restaurants a theatre and the art gallery) marking the heart of the city. We live up near the top of the hill and get a great view of the bay from neighbouring streets. While Scotty has picked up driving on the other side of the road with very little effort, I have been pretty afraid to try (especially in the city), but we live less than a 10 min walk from the Octagon, so I've taken to wandering around the city on foot. I have found quite a few charming little shops (a vintage one that would make my friend Jac just die), but have stuck to window shopping thus far. Dunedin has a massive college population and, in the next month or so, will virtually clear out as all the college students head home for the summer (I still am so confused with the season reversal), but the city gets flooded with tourists every time a cruise ship docks at port Chalmers. Dunedin has a well respected design school (both fashion and interior, and yes, i have looked into classes, but I can't afford the HUGE international student tuition), and many of the shops reflect that. I've drooled over quite a few local designers' threads hanging in store windows.  To say the least, the creative centres in my brain have been piqued.

The surrounding countryside leading along the Otago peninsula explains why Dunedin is often referred to as a little Scotland (that, and the fact that it was founded by the Scotish- in fact, "Dunedin" is actually the Gaelic name for Edinburgh). Bright green rolling hills give way to sheer cliffs that drop off into the sea below and the wild vegetation is knotted and sturdy. On more than one occasion I have felt like I am taking in sights similar to what one might see in Scotland.

The video starts off very close to our hostel (up above the city) and in the middle we drive through the Otago Boys Highschool (it looks very old english). The beach is Sandfly Bay (about a 15-20 min drive from the city). Apologies for the shakiness, but it's hard to keep it steady while whizzing around in a car. I'll take pictures and go into more detail later, but we've been here nearly a month and I know people are eager to see what it looks like down here.

ps- the All Black just won the Rugby world cup and while it is nearly midnight here, the city just came alive. I can hear yelling and screaming outside my window and Brian and Scotty and blowing off fireworks with some of the boys. 

We're Up and Running

Spring break is coming to an end (there's 7 weeks left before summer break). We've been living the Kiwi life for nearly a month. It feels like we've been away from home forever. We got our computer this week and I was finally able to unload all 2000 photos from my camera. Looking back at the Fiji photos means we actually were there, but it feels like it was all just a dream.

Yes, Fiji is amazing. I still can't believe I got to go.

The water is blue, the corals are bright and the jungles are lush, but it is the people that really impacted us. Never in my life have I come across more boisterous and joyful people. One of my favourite memories was the village visit up in the interior of Viti Levu. We lunched, rafted, played and danced with the villagers.

These people know how to live.

I am madly searching through all my pictures, trying to figure out how to tell everyone at home about our time spent there without writing a novel... and then there are the videos that need to be edited (Scott W- I could really use you right now!). So the first entry will be short, but I will leave you with a video I took from the village.

We had just come up from billi-billi rafting down the river (explaining why Scotty has a wet sulu) and after the Kava ceremony, we, the guests, were to choose our dance partner when the singing started.

We kept breaking between each song for another round of Kava (a mild narcotic, looks like muddy water and makes your tongue go a bit numb, and is part of every welcome ceremony whether at a village or a hotel/resort). On one dance round, a bunch of ladies started hooting and hollering at Scotty. They wanted him to dance with one of the older ladies in the corner, so he went over and grabbed her hand. She hopped up and just started shaking it. Scotty totally knocked her for a loop when he started gyrating his hips (they didn't think a white guy could move like that). The ladies got real loud as he started to shake his butt and thrust his pelvis around. My face hurt from laughing at this pack of ladies pounding the floor, screaming, whooping, and crying with laughter as this 60 year old lady wrapped her arms around Scotty's waist and rested her head on his chest while he was just shaking it like Beyonce. When the song ended, the lady collapsed on the floor and all the ladies were laughing and fanning her. It was an unreal moment that I wish I could have gotten on film, but I had to join in on the dancing and fun too. The video can't even do justice to the electricity in the air. The life that these people radiate. I get excited just thinking about it.