Where are The Velvet Ropes?

When we were in New Zealand we rented a little camper van and drove from the north island to the south, stopping wherever we felt like it, for 11 days. We saw a little sign on one of the many long, deserted roads. It may have even been handwritten, with alittle arrow. Well, we parked and walked a short distance and saw this...



I can't possibly describe in words just how palpable the energy created by this water was. I could FEEL the power as much as I felt the fine cool mist rising up from the spray on my cheek and eyelids.The water was the clearest I'd ever seen, sparkling, icy blue, fresh as if we'd literally happened upon Eden.

It was a magnificent experience, one that makes you want to do whatever is necessary to protect this beautiful planet. It looks amazing in the pic above but you have no iea how big it really was. To give you a better idea, here's a picture I took of my husband, standing in the same place as I was.



My husband joked (though he's right) that in America this would be roped off basically as far back as the street and we'd only be able to view it through a thick plexiglass wall. Not far from the truth. We're such a litigious society, we can't let people do things due to the small percent of the population who'd do something stoopid of their own free will then sue for it. At least in NZ, you're allowed to stay safe or mess up according to your own level... Natural selection at its finest

Time Wasters

I have such a good story for the next post. I wrote it three nights ago on my tiny iPhone keypad, using one finger... But since I'd pre-loaded the baby duck photo, the giraffe video and the picture below, that story had to wait its turn. So please check back in a day or so! In the mean time, this post is part of the continuing series of Adventures that occurred on our honeymoon. By virtue of spending 3 wks in New Zealand and an additional week (too short) in Australia, I collected a plethora of adventures in nature, ranging from the usual to the outrageous and extreme.

Today's mention fits into the category of the former, though having never spent time with goats, let alone ones names Ringo and Lilly, I personally found nothing usual about it!

This is on the rolling 40 acre homestead of my friends who moved from LA about 6 years before, to live out their dream of a simple, good life. They found this land with a house they've since rennovated - mostly with their own hands. While these two goats are theirs and they hope to have more animals, for now they lease out much of it for sheep to graze (a great way to mow and fertilize the land while bringing in a bit of cash). They mulch, they built and grow most of their own fruits and vegetables and make most of their own furniture. He's a volunteer fireman and edits arthouse movie trailers, she started a theater co., helped wheelchair bound kids experience freedom by learning to ride horses, writes,sews and goes into nearby Auckland to see plays. They're great cooks and have made lots of friends to keep them busy, as if the things I've listed aren't enough!

All of this is to explain the title of this post. These goats are so amusing that my friends feel they spend far too much time being distracted from their many chores by them. Hence their nickname -- time wasters! They come right over to you at the fence like this and won't let you go. They want treats, pats on the head, their ears scratched. That's Ringo in the foreground with a look that says, " Drop the camera and give me BETTER attention!" I admit it took a little getting used to their eyes- the pupils are horizontal rather than vertical, which gives off a kind of alien vibe.

They are leash trained so they can come out of their pen to enjoy long walks. Perhaps the funniest part is when they may wantto go faster or stray off the path and told no. They express themselves by delivering a nice little headbutt to the behind of whomever's holding that leash. Once our friends finally free themselves from these two hooligans and indeed get back to work Lilly and Ringo can be seen settling in atop the tin roof of their shelter (as goats love to climb) perhaps to keep an eye on their masters, or better yet, coerce them into coming back.

Though I have much yet to write on our adventures in New Zealand, there are a few others to be found under that label on the right of this page

Cat Nap

Before being able to work with animals was ever a possibility in my consciousness, let alone getting close to the big cats, I went to New Zealand on my honeymoon and saw a billboard in the middle of nowhere that read: PET A LION CUB. There was a picture of it's irresistable, furry face and a big arrow pointing down the deserted highway. I had to restrain myself from bouncing up and down in my seat and pointing as if I were two years old again. Instead I managed to say "Let's go" in my adult voice to my husband. And we did.

We found a small private zoo of sorts, very green and tropical, with short paths to a few exhibits. We made a beeline to the cat cages and there we found not one but a pair of sleepy kitties. Lots of folks came up being loud and taking pictures, who had no more interest than to see them and leave. We hung around so long, chatting with the keeper about their care and purring to the babies, that she let us touch them on their faces instead of just on their paws. Guess she knew true animal lovers when she saw them.

I just loved the way these big kitty feet were pushing against the fence while he snoozed.

As usual, you can click on any photo and it will enlarge. The first one is worth seeing the cat's face better!

Adventures of Another Kind

I said I'd occasionally break to add tales of our month long honeymoon in New Zealand and Australia where we had many many many adventures in nature. We marveled when driving through the 2 islands that are NZ how fantastical the landscape was. It's not that Lord of the Rings was filmed there and so it now looks that way to me -- the movie was filmed there because the place holds a kind of magic everywhere you look. I almost felt like I saw faeries in the forests and gargoyles in the rocky desert mountains.

Here's a perfect example:
We were driving along in an area so lush and green crayola crayons super pack doesn't even make the color, and we saw three miniature horses. Maybe this is a known breed, but I've never seen anything like it before.

I was fully prepared to witness little hobbits pop out from under some mushrooms, jump on their back and ride away.

Fox Glacier in New Zealand

If I HAD to pick the activity I thought was most memorable in New Zealand, it was climbing Fox glacier. We were dropped on it by helicopter, and even from that height it was hard to tell it's size. I remember thinking, OK, it's big, but it's not THAT huge. Then the pilot pointed out barely discernable black flecks on the surface below us... and it was the party they were picking up when we got out. I realized we would be that small in comparison too once that copter flew away, and humbly corrected my erroneous perspective.

I can't possibly describe how enormous it was. However magnificent it looks in my pictures, they appear too small on the blog to translate. So expand these in your mind's eye, and then know it's only a fraction of what it really was.

This is what it looked like to be standing on the thing, ready to take a step. They gave us walking poles with a little prong at the end, and funny boots with ice spikes that we secured with seemingly flimsy 1 " leather straps. This was going to be what held us as we walked along crevices like this -- the

difference between life and death! Clearly I lived to tell the tale.

We were lucky to catch a day with bright sun, otherwise we heard we'd have been icy, wet, freezing.

The snow was grey-white marbled with streaks of dirt made from the rock it was crushing below as it moved (yes, it was moving, though so slow you could never tell). I don't know that I gave much thought to what being on a glacier would be like, but everywhere we went there were surprises -- like sky blue translucent ice caves or little streams of clear, cold, clean, glistening water.

We hiked around, did some slippy slide stuff where it was safe to by invitation of our guide, took pictures and marveled at this rare excursion, knowing as we did that it would forever be at the top of our once-in-a-life time list.

Nature in All Her Forms

You probably know from your own adventures in nature that it's not all about animal encounters. There are many things Husband and I did on our honeymoon that would qualify. We went to New Zealand for 3 weeks last November, and since we were that far over, hopped to Australia for an additional, skimpy, but better than nothing week. Not nearly enough time in either place, but we managed to do an amazing variety of things.

It fascinated me that you can experience all four seasons and just about every topography that exists in the world all on the two humble islands that make New Zealand. And we did. There were beaches of every kind, endless forest, desert-like areas, hills and alps, waterfalls, glaciers and fijords to name a few. 

There were also encounters with Dolphins, miniature horses, and birds both new and familiar (In fact, wherever I go it seems I find ducks -- or they find me-- who will eat out of my hand).

In our short stay in Australia we went to the Great Barrier Reef, saw bats flying overhead in the middle of the city at Sydney's great Hyde Park, and went to Steve Irwin's Australian Zoo.  

We also climbed the Bridge in Sydney Harbor.  Maybe it wasn't made by Mother Nature but it sure felt adventurous.

I thought I'd sprinkle in some of those tales. Tune in tomorrow.

There's a new Goose in Town

Came back from New Zealand to find a new pair of geese showed up at the park's lake. While I believe they mate for life, they look like 2 males in size. One isn't smaller than the other, which would be the obvious way to spot the female. If the slightly smaller one is the female, she has something I've not seen before -- a traffic-cone-orange beak. The other has a black beak with the horn-like protrusion, just like Mr. Goose (refer to previous posts). He eats very gently from my hand but the orange beak is grabby.

It makes me have great fondness for the gentle one, because he's quite big, and they are both wild. Having flown over our pond and stopping for what I imagine was a few night's stay, they quickly learned there are lots of people who bring food, and that they are the biggest of the competing mouths. Watching the 4 geese we have in action amid the muscavoys, black bellied whistlers, wood ducks, those white Afflack kind of ducks, coots and nutrias, I understand where the phrase "pecking order" comes from.

No fear of their bite when it comes to me. Besides that I am the "biggest" of them all, they have no teeth, just little ridges about half way back on either side of their bills... looks very much like the teeth in a hair comb, Barbie sized. When they open up I can see a slim, long, rather human looking pink tongue, so at the very worst it feels like a weak clothespin shutting if they grab your finger when you're handing out bits of bread.

What amazes me is that wild ducks in New Zealand also ate from my hand (though the Pokekos (behind them) didn't. This is a morning feeding from our camper van), and these wild geese greet me and take from my hand too. How is that possible that they seem so tame? They see me coming, start to honk and lumber quite deliberately toward me with their big, rubbery feet slapping the ground and their fluffy white butts wiggling, which amuses me to no end. I have to admit, I feel quite amazed and lucky to have this kind of interaction with them.