February 22, 2021

We had a little snafu with the blog site.  Thank you to Fleur for giving us a heads up.  The NZ tech team (Jim) has resolved the problem after a lengthy chat with the Indian team who supports the site host.  There is no doubt that this is an international affair and that we are not in control. The good news is that we are back online!

We are wrapping up our time in Wanaka.  We expect to head south to Kaka Point in the Catlins (at the south end of New Zealand) on Wednesday.  We hope to visit Slope Point, the southern most point on the South Island, closer to Antarctica than we have ever been at -46.67 degrees latitude.

In the meantime, we walked across the park (30 minutes) to St. Columba’s Anglican church on Sunday.  Again, we marveled at the normalcy of worshipping in the same physical space as others.  We enjoyed a cup of tea after the service (real china cups and a massive teapot) and met some of the parishioners.  All lovely.

We enjoyed talking with family and friends in the US and New Zealand from our sunny patio.  No need for fake backgrounds, here.  We were relaxing when the house owner popped by to see if we minded if she got something out of the garage.  Of course, we didn’t.  She indicated that she was very open to feedback on the place, the way she said it (‘we’re new at this’) made us think that we might be the first non-family to stay here.  We talked (gently) about the house groaning, the fact that 2 out of the 4 dining chairs have loose joints, and how it might have been nice to have a coffee pot.  It was all good.  And then she told us to help ourselves to plums from the tree in the next lot to ours.  Such a lovely gesture.  The plums are delicious.  I feel that I should be making jam, but we’re just eating them fresh.

We’re feeling quite established here now – in addition to the plum tree, a cat has shown up (Jim’s thrilled – not) and we’re perfectly expert at hanging up our washing.  (The cat just walked in like it owned the place.)

Today we got haircuts and Frances got a nail buff.  All quite interesting from a people point of view.  Jada, from the Dolomites area in Italy, was our stylist.  She’s been here about 3 years and is waiting on her permanent residency.  Her partner (also Italian, from Tuscany) is a chef.  They met here and would like to stay.  It feels safer to her and a better life that in Italy.  She said that the landscape around Wanaka reminds her of Italy.  In contrast, Kate, the manicurist, grew up in Wanaka and only left to go to Gore (further south) for her cosmetology training, and then came back.  She said that she has only been to the North Island once. She looked to be very early 20s and is avid mountain biker.

Feeling freer and lighter with less hair, we went down the hill to the Speights Ale House and enjoyed a glass of their cider on tap.  So far, the best that we’ve had is a local cider – Lakeside, but we have not yet found that on tap.  We accept the challenge to keep trying. (They also had a local Pinot Noir on tap. More opportunities.)

The one other thing we wanted to tell you about was the flood markers.  The level of Lake Wanaka looks a bit low to us right now.  Checking online, it seems that February/March (the height of summer) are typically low times for the lake.  There is a nice marker downtown that shows just how high the lake has been.  Not all of those floods were that long ago!