Happy New Year

Today is a bit of a relaxing day. We are checking out of Te Anau, but are in no rush to really leave town. So leisurely breakfast, then a bit of souvenir shopping if the shops are open. It's enough of a tourist town that they might be and I'm hoping so. Not that I can't buy souvenirs in the other towns, but I have managed to lose my freebie sunglasses and I forgot to bring a hat. I managed to get sunburned yesterday. I'll also certainly be packed before Nancy so after I finish my morning tea I might grab my camera for one last look at the lake. Here on the back side of the fjords the mountains are more rolling and it reminds me a lot of Lake George.

--Later--

We drove across the country yesterday, but only sort of. We went from the west coast to the east through the rolling green hills of the southern part of the South Island. It was pretty, in a much less dramatic way. Every hill was blanketed in sheep. It was a nice drive, good to see it all. We stopped half way in the town of Gore to have some lunch. We ate at the only place that was actually open. Oh yeah, happy new year.

So it was about 4 when we got to Dunedin, but of course it's summer pretty far south so that gave us plenty of time to do something before dark. Because here it is at 9pm and it's not dark yet, not even a little. Anyway, we went for a stroll through the botanic gardens. That was lovely, I never tire of taking photos of flowers and now I had a good reason for bringing that macro lens. Then we had fish and chips at an Irish pub on the Octagon.

I'm ready for an early bed tonight. It's funny because Leah is generally a perfectly amiable traveling companion, but oh my goodness she never gets tired.

Pictures will come later.

--Later--
There's lots of flower pictures, but they can wait for more editing so just a couple for today.

There is a whole street art tour in Dunedin, but this was right outside our hotel window.

Milford Sound

If I had to pick only one word it would be magical. It was about a two hour drive up, mostly in the rain, and still around every bend it was like "oh look at that" and ""oh that's beautiful" and "oh wow." Not many pictures yet because of the rain, though we did pull over for the kia on the guy's car. It was practically like Galapagos: be sure to get my good side.

Te Anau

I used to carry a paper notebook and write in it each day to capture my memories of trips. And that was perfectly good and appropriate and normal. But somehow doing it electronically feels like I'm wasting my time on my laptop and I should be out doing stuff. So don't expect daily updates, but I'll probably write little bits as I go along and then post once for each location. Or maybe twice if my photos get too much.

Fall Break

We have a long weekend for fall break so I promised myself I would have one day where I did no work - no grading, no writing, no editing, no freelance. I have lived in Wisconsin for more than a year and have not really left Milwaukee. So yesterday I went for a leaf peak drive.

Poster child for Young of the Year

So I'm nearly finished with Young of the Year. My goal is to show it at the scientists' working group meeting at the start of November, which gives me 6 weeks to do all the color correction, stabilization, image clean up that needs to be done.

At the same time I need to get all the marketing materials ready. Right now I'm looking for the chick that can be the one I use for the web site, poster, business cards, etc. For those of you who are more graphically minded than I am, I'm running a poll.

Vote for your favorite chick.

Hiking the Adirondacks

Kate and I went up to her favorite waterfall and brook this week to wander around and take photos. We had a debate about whether it qualified as a hike or was just a walk. I pointed out that we had 100 photos of waterfalls as we walked, which means we have to be walking up. Otherwise it would just be a stream.

Why take the easy route when there are waterfalls to view?

There's also a bit of video on youtube.

And a bunch more photos:

A Week with the Terns

I'll start with the highlights and end with all the rest of the photos.

To give you a sense of the island:

They aren't kidding about don't land. Between Common Terns and Roseate Terns there are over 10,000 nests, which means 30-40 thousand birds, half of whom are tiny and under foot. You have to be so careful walking around.

That's a little blind on the left. There are maybe 10 of them scattered around the island. Then the big blind on the right which was the only one tall enough to fully stand in.

Sunset on the 4th of July.

If you do a google map search for Great Gull Island you can see it, but not at this time of year because most of the island is covered with vegetation like this and the map looks mostly dirt and open. 

Morning chick check. The commons like to hide under the brush.