First Guests to New Zealand!

The kids hanging with Becca and Joel.
My cousin Joel and his cute wife Becca with our kids. Since they live in Hawaii, it is just an 11hour flight to New Zealand. They planned a "sweet as" tour of the south island. We were excited to have our first guests to Dunedin.


The next morning we went to the Farmer's Market and hung out. Joel is a gifted photographer and took some awesome action shots of Alex on his bike at the Skate Park downtown too. Check out Joel's images at the bottom of this blog post and click on his website for more...
http://joeldavidsonphotography.com/


Later in the evening we went to Sandfly Bay to try to get a glimps of the Yellowed Eyed Penguin surfing in at sunset. We were lucky enough to watch some Giant Sea Lions barking at each-other and see one penguin come in. It was so so so cute!



Climbing to the top of Baldwin St after dinner.





Becca with her amazing camera on the steepest street in the world (Baldwin St)

Gardening in October

jen and alex in the garden

i put up this little would fence in hopes to keep neighborhood cats from pooping in my fresh compost.

yummy winter greens - the kiwis call these silverbeet

spring flowers popping up

Moeraki Boulders at KoeKohe Beach





These  Moeraki Boulders are unusually large and spherical boulders lying along a stretch of Koekohe Beach. We started our road trip on the Otago coast heading north of Dunedin. The boulders are scattered either as a single rock or clusters  within a stretch of beach where they have been protected in a scientific reserve. The erosion from wave action hitting the mudstone exposed embedded boulders. These boulders are grey-colored septarian concretions.
Local Māori legends explained the boulders as the remains of eel baskets washed ashore from the wreck of an Arai-te-uru, a large sailing canoe. This legend tells of the rocky shoals that extend seaward from Shag Point as being the petrified hull of this wreck and a nearby rocky promontory as being the body of the canoe's captain. (sited from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moeraki_Boulders)

Amazing! The most striking aspect of the boulders is their unusually large size and highly spherical shape, with a distinct bimodal size distribution. About one-third of the boulders range in size from about 0.5 to 1.0 metres (1.5 to 3 ft) in diameter, the other two-thirds from 1.5 to 2.2 metres (4.6 to 6.7 ft), the majority being nearly to almost perfectly spherical. A minority of them are not spherical, being slightly elongated parallel to the bedding of the mudstone that once enclosed them. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moeraki_Boulders)

Ellie trys to get on top

Alex Chills out on Beach

Jen on Top!

John and Ellie

family photo

Ellie balancing on Moeraki Boulders



These amazing Moeraki Boulders were created by a process similar to the formation of oyster pearls, where layers of material cover a central nucleus or core.
For the oyster, this core is an irritating grain of sand. For the boulders, it was a fossil shell, bone fragment, or piece of wood. Lime minerals in the sea accumulated on the core over time, and the concretion grew into perfectly spherical shapes up to three metres in diameter.

 



Video of Sea Lions

Click below on link to witness our first encounter with Sea Lions

Video of Sea Lions

 

Giant Sea Lions

September 19th  -  Sandfly Bay.

 This gorgeous bay is backed by deep sand dunes on the southern coastline of Otago Peninsula. 
This trip we got to view our first Giant Sea Lions. 

*This Track begins Seal Point Road car park off Highcliff Road about 7km from Anderson's Bay, Dunedin

View from the top of the Hike. Notice the ball? Yes, our children are stoked on Rugby now. They both got mouth guards this week and have been practicing side throwing and tackling eachother at our nearby park.
(Although Ellie's age group is "touch" rugby)
We are so pleased that they want to try out this classic Kiwi Sport.

Safe distance of 20 meters when walking past sleeping  Sea Lions. The beach and the dunes are also haul-outs for New Zealand sea lions. These are large animals (300kg) and they are not at all afraid of humans. Be very wary of them!

These two were cuddling and fun to watch interact

We all thought that the Sea Lions looked so cute

John and Alex walking toward a sleeping Sea Lion

This guy was huge!

We are looking forward to coming back in the evening to view the Yellow-eyed penguins surfing in on their belly's. We are planning to bring my cousin Joel and his wife Becca here next week to check out the "Penguin hideaway" available for viewing in the morning and evening. 

 

Ellie thought that this Sea Lion was a girl.

These Sea Lions make sounds called "barking" but it is more like a Grizzly Bear Growling sound. Very Impressive!

Alex and Ellie

The waves have the same impact on us that a campfire has - they are so hypnotic to watch.

Mama Jen with her bandaged hand with kids.

The kids worked on their Gymnastic Skills in the sand.

Ellie going big!

The kids going tandem.

Check out that White Sand - Simply Gorgeous!

Kiwi children call their mommy's "mum" and Dad is spelled "dab"  (cute technical error)