“Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes it rains." — Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh
Words of wisdom from the movie “Bull Durham.” It rained today. Pretty much all day. We went out for breakfast, having finished the cereal and milk we bought Saturday night. Then we came back to our motel apartment and did laundry. We had enough for a two full loads, and the clothes I had worn for four days while my luggage was lost had to be washed or burned before I could pack them. While we waited on the washer and dryer to work their magic, we played cards.
Last week when we were on Kangaroo Island, we had met a woman from the east coast of NZ’s North Island who told us a landslide (which she called a landslip) had closed the area around the gannet colony south of Napier. This got my attention because we had an excursion booked for that gannet colony when we got to Napier. I called there today and was told, yes, indeed, our excursion had been cancelled because of the landslide. Roslyn started working the web while I worked the phone to see if there was a suitable alternative.
I will spare you the boring details, and skip straight to the good news that we found another tour that takes a different route and will get me up close and personal with thousands of gannets this Sunday. This makes me happy, because you know how I love the birds.
Which brings me to the only regret I have about our trip so far. We should have spent a day or two less here in Queenstown and added a night or two in Dunedin, where the yellow-eyed penguins can be seen. Dunedin is on the east coast of the South Island, about a three-and-a-half hour drive from here. I thought we would be able to drive there from here, and spend the night if need be—poor planning on my part. This island is huge—almost as big as Great Britain—and the roads are all two lanes and tortuous.
The rain in Queenstown stopped about 5 o’clock. The sun came out, but it was cool enough for sweaters. Queenstown’s latitude is 45 degrees. It’s as far south of the equator as Minneapolis is north. During the New Zealand winter, this is a Kiwi Aspen or Vail. Pulling out a few extra clothes, we got ready for our Valentine’s Day dinner (today is the 37th anniversary of our engagement!). Roslyn had asked Vanessa where to go for the best lamb in Queenstown. Vanessa had sent us to the Fat Lamb, a farm-to-table restaurant in the center of town. Roslyn had the rack of lamb, and proclaimed it the best she’d ever had. This is a supreme accolade, as lamb is Roslyn’s favorite meat and she eats it as often as possible. I had the green-lipped mussels. They were huge— at least half-again as big as mussels we get in the US—and tasty. And yes, their shells really are green at the edge where they open.
We walked back to our hotel. Roslyn started packing and I went out to gas up the rental car. We have a 7 a.m. flight tomorrow to Wellington, at the southern tip of the North Island. We have 14 days left in our trip, and we’ll spend all but two of them seeing as much of the North Island as we can.