Dunedin NZ, March 1

We left Tauranga Feb. 20 and are now in Dunedin, in the southern end of the South Island of New Zealand. The roads are slow and windy; even the main highways have "oh my God" moments when a big truck rounds a turn. Until today, the weather has been spectacular for viewing mountains, hills, azure seas and lakes, wildlife, vineyards, and sheep, sheep, sheep.
The big struggle has been finding places to stay during high season in the cities. This is an "improv" trip, we are making it up as we go. The first day we spent an hour on the phone and an hour at the tourist bureau only to find there were no rooms at all in Wellington due to the opening of the biannual Arts Festival. We detoured to Napier, a sweet seaside town that is the center of the Hawkes Bay wine industry, ran to the tourist bureau, and got the second to the last room in town at a bed and breakfast on the water (sweet!). It turned out that day was the big cricket match in Napier, between the NZ and England national teams. In Christchurch we got a room for one night but there were no rooms the next night because the big cricket game (same teams) was coming to Christchurch. Yesterday we arrived in Dunedin after having no success finding a place on the phone. Once again, the tourist bureau found us the last room in town. It's not what we consider a room in town - it was about 40 minutes down the coast along the scenic route they recommended. Turns out today is the big rugby march between NZ and Australia, here, in Dunedin.
For the past week we have been travelling in tandem with our friends Jim and Katie, other American yachties. In the countryside, we have been "tenting" and "tramping", as they say in New Zealand. Glorious. By the sea we have seen blue and yellow eyed penguin, fur seals, and hopefully this afternoon, albatross. We are becoming conversational in local jargon ("dodgy", "lovely", "the cricket")and must be losing some of our Americanisms because people have assumed we are Canadian or Australian(??). (It's either that or they can't believe Americans would be traveling overseas these days). Our car is performing very well especially for the $2300 US we paid for it; we cross our fingers it continues to chug along until we leave NZ.

February 18 - Tauranga, New Zealand

Back in New Zealand, it is mid-summer. Corn, apricots, peaches and blueberries are in season and it is a big month for outdoor festivals. The weather is mostly "fine" (meaning sunny and in the 70's during the day) but highly variable (meaning it can cloud up and rain or blow at any time). We have taken turns being sick with a cold-flu type thing so aren't enjoying the beautiful weather quite as much as we would have liked.
We are living aboard Rasa Manis in a big marina and just bought a 1992 Asian market Toyota wagon for errands and travel while we are here. We hope it will survive our use (knock on wood) and resell for something close to what we paid when we are ready to leave the country. We hope to take off any day now for a tour of the South Island, but between illness and getting orders for new parts and sails finalized, it may take a while to get going.
The Kiwi are so friendly. Yesterday a couple we met on a day trip in December just "popped by" the boat to say hi. We had a serious discussion about the US election. They were very well-informed, which is no surprise - the newspaper and TV coverage of the Clinton-Obama drama is extensive. We often have to work hard to understand people(they seem to understand us just fine!) and get vocabulary assistance from Karen, our neighbor on the dock, a single mother of two girls who has been single-handedly building out her own sailboat for eight years.
Hope the next entry is from someplace else - it's lovely here but the hills and the waters beyond are beckoning.