Tail End of the Whirlwind

Whirlwind...what a whirlwind. 6 months of whirlwindiness that New Zealand has been graced with my presence :)

6 months have come and gone. What a beautiful country. Kate and I finished our trip just a few days ago and she has taken on on a jetplane back to the States. How sad and strange. But she is off to new and exciting ventures. I'm still here in Rotorua scheming my next scheme.

Originally, I'd be heading back down South working and playing in the mountians and snow. Now my heart/gut/intuition/desire/wants etc are pointing me North. to the ocean. to the warm climate. to the sea. to the history of these lands. the the kauri trees. to the abundance of produce. to employment. to native forests. to the lands I've yet explored. I'm excited.

We finished our trip on the South Island in the lands of the Catlins - along the rugged coastline of the southern chunk of the South Island. What beauty. If the winters weren't so far south and frigid, I'd easily choose this area for my next stop. Instead I'm heading north where the winters are significantly less frigid...in fact, often the winters in the Northland are classified as winterless. Oh Hawaii, how you have changed me.

One of the most fasciniating places we visited on the trip for me was Curio Bay. The rare and solitude seeking yellow-eyed penguins were are sight all to themselves, but what captivated me were the ancient trees. Felled. Living lifeless in the sea to be seen only when the tide leaves the shore. These trees and their trunks were knocked down years ago. Like 180 million years ago. Some sort of volcanic ash preserved the fallen trees and fast forward 180 million years later, I am fortunate enough to be awe-inspired by such an ancient forest and the process it took to preserve them for so long. You can read about the basics of Curio Bay and the ancient forest here http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-visit/southland/southland/curio-bay-porpoise-bay/features/fossil-forest/

And you can see some visuals taken straight from my camera here:

The above is a fallen petrified tree from an ancient forest during the Jurassic Period.  Can you see the lines?! This sucker fell 180 million years ago!

Beautiful Moonrise second night in the Catlins near Kaka Point.  Right - it is beautiful - and the moon was sooo bright and full that I think my camera mistaked it for the sun :)


The penguins also reside here and all along the Southern coast...these are a different sort of penguins than the ones you might have seen in that one movie - "March of the Penguins," right? Have yet to see that movie, but I wanna.

This pic (above) is cool because it shows all the main things that Curio Bay has to offer - the penguins and the ancient forest.  The long flat rocks in the water are the petrified fallen trees and the round-ish looking rocks poking above the water are the tree stumps. 

As you can see from the sideways trees in the pic above, the Catlins being so far south catch a bit of strange weather pattern - as in LOTS of wind.  Fortunately what we encountered was fairly minimal compared to the type of wind that causes these trees to grow at an angle!
Ok, cool. Northland is next. Intending to be in that region for most of the rest of my visa period. Intending to live S.I.M.P.L.Y. Ahhh, I am so ready for that.

And I really want to find some kale.