THE update.

ok i've been putting this off for a while now... i have about 15 days of travel missing from this blog, and its about time i catch up, since the next few weeks (or months??) i won't be moving around too much.

so.

as usual, i'm just gonna start from the beginning, probably break the blog entries up by location or something so that its not all one big paragraph, and then get around to writing about what is actually happening in my life right now. so i left off in christchurch on the 11th.

On Jan 12, joel and i grabbed the transcenic train from christchurch up to blenheim to stay with rob and frances at glenmara for a few days. the train ride was lovely, so comfortable and with great views of the east coast, particularly around the kaikoura region (definitly want to get back there for dolphin swimming before i go!) the train ride lasted about 5 hours, during which joel and i slept, ate, and walked around to the outside cabin to get fresh air. we arrived in blenheim around 1pm and were immediately greeted by francis! it was great to see her again, she really is such a sweet person. we hopped in her truck and headed on back to the farm. as soon as we got there mandy (the giant great dane) came to greet us and was way less shy than when i first met her. we went in and had lunch with barbara and rob before heading down to the beach for a swim. joel went in, but i stayed and looked for rocks. i think that's why my bag has gotten so freakin heavy, i must have 10 pounds of rocks in there... i am still partially a nerdy geologist at heart.

after the swim we went back to the farm and helped with securing loose vines in the vineyard before settling in to one of frances' famous dinners of salads and corned beef. afterwards we stayed up for a long time chatting (joel got along particularly well with them, given his knowledge of american politics and general high shmoozing capabilities). after we went back to the room, joel and i went through all the pros and cons of hitch hiking versus the stray bus. we had basically decided to hitchhike and camp (rob and frances had picked up a cheap tent for us) but upon calling stray we realized that we couldn't cancel his ticket without a big fee. so the decision was made for us, which was fine with me but got a little bit of grumbling out of joel...

the next morning we woke up and did some work in the vineyard (mostly putting in drippers in the irrigation system and doing some weeding). after tea we went out on an amazing wine tasting with frances. the first place we stopped was a beautiful beam-and-post (i don't know if thats the right term, but anyways) winery for Nautilis and Twin Islands wine. how is works in NZ is that the winery is located right on the vineyard, and the tasting is absolutely free and involves up to 8 different types of wine. in the marlborough region of NZ, the wines produced are primarily sauvignon blanc, some reisling, pinot gris, and a little bit of chardonnay. pinot noir is also starting to pick up speed as well. At Nautilis and Twin Islands we tried three different types of sav blanc, one pinot gris, three different chardonnays and two pinot noirs. the first we tried as a sparkling sauvignon blanc, which was really nice.

the next place we went was called Spy Valley and was by far the coolest winery i have ever seen. its located in a valley where they literally have spy operations set up-- these two perfect white spheres in the middle of a valley, the most bizarrely beautiful spy base i have ever seen. anyways, the winery gets quite a bit of fame out of this location, and put just about every spy reference they possibly can in their marketing. the labels are really neat looking, with morse code and pixilated images, all that weird sort of new-agey robotron spy superhero stuff. and the wine is amazing. we tried sav blanc as well as a gewurtztraminer (which was totally weird and tasted to me like juice gone off), two chardonnays (joel likes the oaked and i can't stand it), a merlot/malbec, pinot noir, and a really interesting desert wine called a noble chardonnay. basically this wine is made by letting the chardonnay grapes catch a fungus, which reduces them to basically sugar. the noble chardonnay thus comes out as a syrupy sweet wine with a very high alcohol content. its delicious, but i couldn't help thinking of fungus this whole time.

after the wine tastings, we picked up about 2 kgs of apricots and peaches at a local pick-your-own farm and headed home to a dinner of sausage and beans. afterwards, we stayed up chatting til very late, given that we had to catch the stray bus the next morning.

about midmorning we drove into picton to catch the bus at the ferry terminal. we said bye to frances and barbara, who gave us apricots for out trip and gave me a christmas ornament made of flax (i told her that i was collecting christmas ornaments from all over the world, so she made me one with a traditional maori design).

We hopped on the bus, which was driven by Baggins, one of my drivers from before who is hilarious and awesome and invites new people up one by one to have a chat with him, just a little get to know you session. super sweet. we stopped off in nelson for the night and stayed at a nice little hostel called "accents on the park". we were able to set up our tent in the back for about 15 bucks a night each with the use of their facilities. camping here definitly saves a ton of money- you just have to ring around to the hostels and see if they offer tent spots.

ok, well i think this is a long enough entry, so i'm gonna move on to a fresh page...