One has to love a holiday...

I'm back in Nelson again after some much needed time off work. Other than my wisdom tooth surgery and a day or two here and there, I hadn't taken any time off work since my visit to Canada last November. I also hadn't seen much of the south of NZ. My short holiday from boxing day until now has helped on both of these fronts.

First things first. I think my last blog was probably talking a bit about my "flat" hunt situation. The update: after my crushing disappointment on that Friday, I found 2 more waterfront apartments that were advertised on Saturday. Note that the one I had first seen was the only 2 bedroom one I'd seen advertised in weeks (if not months) so I was surprised to see 2 more advertised the next day! I went and saw the one that was advertised privately the week before Christmas. I had trouble lining up the one that was through an agent. The private one was offered to me on Christmas Eve, and I said yes. The parking isn't nearly as good as the first one I viewed (which had 2 nice parking spots), so I'll have to hope I can find a flattie without a car! It's also more expensive, but only slightly. And it's shorter term- but then reverts to month to month. Which I guess could be viewed to be a good thing anyway- as it should give me time to sort out whether it's a good fit. Plus it's furnished so it won't be a mega hassle to move in and move out again- if that needs to happen in several months time. I'll be lining up details of when I move now that I'm back from my holiday.

I spent Christmas day here in Nelson. I attended a brunch with friends outdoors, had a wee visit to the beach in the afternoon- and had a potluck type dinner with about 7 others for Christmas dinner. It was quite nice. I felt spoiled when a friend showed me her old bike with a bow on it, saying I could have it if I wanted it. I'm quite bad on a bike- so I said I'd have to come back another day and try it out before saying yay or nay. :) They also sang me happy birthday and put those annoying won't blow out candles on the cake. Although I'm not a big lover of the spotlight, it was nice to have such great friends thinking of me.

On the 26th we started on the road south. Friends had rented a place down in Queenstown for nearly a week and I was lucky enough to get to go as well. We drove down the coast boxing day and ended up in Queenstown. This was after a stop at Fox Glacier in the morning, Wanaka for lunch, and a stop in cute Arrowtown as well. There are lots of historical looking/stone buildings in that town. I loved it! Plus- we tried gelato at a shop - and the strawberries and cream was the best gelato I've ever had. It was $5 for a one scoop cone, but it was worth every penny!!

After settling into our new temporary home in Queenstown we went for dinner at Winnies to celebrate my birthday where we had some YUMMY pizza. Yum. :) I was the only of our party of 4 not already in the 30 club. In a prior post I had mentioned my "life musings" - and expressed my discontent that I don't have any of the big questions answered. I must say that 30 doesn't feel much different than 29. But I have to say I do hope that at least some things become more clear for me as days move ahead- such as will Nelson be my home for the forseeable future- or will it end when this job ends??... As to some of the other bigger picture questions, I suppose they'll answer themselves a bit over time- in part hinging on the answer to this question.

Tourist activities I did in Queenstown:
- Took the gondola & did the loop walk with the great views down to Queenstown
- Went on the Ride of the Rings. This ride departed near Glenorchy. I rode the horse "Joey", who was an entertaining ride- if only for the fact that he was high maintenance. He was ornery- and not a huge fan of other horses. The ride took us through amazing scenery.

Interesting scene locales included riding through the forest where Boromir was shot by the Orcs, and riding to a lookout where you could see the setting for Isengard. There were also a few interesting stories. Apparently Peter Jackson had tried to hire someone to shoot the Boromir actor with a real arrow so that the facial close up would be more realistic. He couldn't find an archer who would do it- so he took up archery himself- but health and safety basically put an end to that possibility. They had to do computer generated images.

One of the horses on the ride was in the Lord of the Rings. They held try outs for horses and riders. This horse, Oscar, was good at the gallop but also stopping when he was supposed to. Apparently they weren't big on using stunt riders so locals were basically invited to try out. There were injuries of various sorts in the tryouts. A number of the riders of Rohan were actually women. And they only had 250 horses in that scene, which were computer generated to look like 2500- which is what Peter Jackson had originally wanted. For this reason the horses had to be rather similar looking.

Also the actress who played Arwen was apparently terribly afraid of horses- and most of the shots of her riding were shot with her aboard a barrel being pulled behind something. I can't recall which of the actors was so afraid of chopper flying that he would instead take a 4 wheel drive as close as possible to some of the remote locations- and then walk the rest of the way.

It was an interesting ride in beautiful country. The guide also pointed out places where some of the scenes from Price Caspian were shot.

- Walk around the reflection lake, Lake Hayes
- Drove to the shotover river and watched the jetboats
- strolled into town about 1/4 to midnight on NYs Eve to watch the fireworks and be there for the countdown. Fortunatly the rain timed that just about perfectly as it stopped for the fireworks.
- Walked through the gardens and along the lake- beautiful
-went for a walk up the Remarkables ski area to the beautiful Lake Alta. Amazing... And amazing views on the way down, although I must say the unpaved road had me nervous without any guardrails and plunging down to one side.
- Went for a ride on the 1912 Steam Boat the Earnslaw- which burns coal and is steam generated. I believe one of the last few passenger steam coal boats still in operation in the world.

Rain, rain, rain hampered much sight seeing on the way home. But we did make it to Ships Creek where there is amazing driftwood, as well as the Pancake Rocks and a few other side stops on the way home.

A few photos to follow in a separate post...