A fabulous birthday weekend! Part II

That next day we headed out to The Chasm and Lover's Leap, which is where the sheer cliffs drop off into the sea. Lover's Leap is a eroded cliff where an arch has formed at the bottom of a deep chasm (unfortunately those pics didn't turn out). It's just a 5min walk through a pasture full of sheep (and sheep poo!). 

By then we were sweating on a hot NZ day (75 degrees!) so headed out to St.Clair beach, where Kimball got some awesome surfing pictures while I checked out the heated outdoor saltwater pool and coffee shop. 

On the way home we stopped by Nugget Point for the sunset. What a great way to spend the weekend!

A fabulous birthday weekend! Part I

Well, as some of you may know, last Sunday was my birthday. Just for fun, Kimball and I headed for Dunedin, a city 3 hours away. The first thing we did when we got into town was to check out the new Chinese garden. Dunedin's mayor is Chinese and the city's sister city is Shanghai. So this amazing garden, rock waterfalls, bridges, lanterns and all, was built in Shanghai, then disassembled and reassembled after being shipped to Dunedin. Incredible! It was definitely a place I could visit again and again.

Then we drove out of town, to the Otago Peninsula where we caught a boat that took us out to see the sea lions, albatrosses (with a wingspan of 10 feet!), baby seals play fighting, cormorant rookery (where they nest in the hundreds on a steep sloping cliff above the water, balancing their eggs precariously on shelves of straw) and one little blue penguin swimming in the water (who happened to be quite brave and allowed us to get very close to him). What amazing animals!

Next we headed for our favorite place, the Penguin Place, for some good photo-ops of the elusive yellow-eyed penguin. We saw one playing in a freshwater pond, which seemed strange since they usually head out to sea. The others were molting, so had to stay out of the water. They looked like fat down pillows with the stuffing coming out. =)

Finally, starving, we headed to the only place to eat on the peninsula, 1908. A classy little restaurant with local specialties like venison and blue cod. Kimball had the venison and said it was the best he ever had.

Exhausted, we drove about 5 minutes to our little cottage for the night. It was a fisherman's hut back in the 1800's that had recently been converted to an adorable cozy little cottage by a German/Maori couple. We slept so good in the down bed and woke late the next morning to a knock at the door and our hearty German breakfast being delivered in a large basket. 

(No luck getting the rest of the photos to load for this edition so check out facebook for the fun pictures of the cottage, penguins, etc).

Young Adult Beach Trip

This weekend Kimball and I joined the church's young adult group for a trip to Curio Bay, where one of the church members has a bach (pronounced "batch" what they call a beach house, also known as a "crib" here).  It was an amazing little place right over the beach where we could watch the dolphins play from the breakfast table. The little Hector's dolphins there are rare and only about 3-4 feet long. There is a group of about 40 of them that live in the bay and are there almost every time we visit. Today, they were surfing the waves with us and Kimball caught pictures of it. 

The youth pastor, Jonathas, has arrived recently from Brazil and got to try surfing for the first time and managed to catch some good waves. He's doing a great job with the youth to follow up on the work started by the last youth pastor.

While Kimball was out surfing a sea lion swam up to him and touched his board. Later while we were on shore a sea lion scuffled right up to us and lay his head down to sleep on the rock we were sitting on! We're not sure if it was the same one but he sure was friendly. Didn't see any penguins on this trip but heard they were around. It was so relaxing to spend time with God and nature and fun friends, we'll have to do it again!