The story so far... South Island part A

Rachel and I have been in New Zealand for over a couple of months now, with us currently residing (if you want to call it that) on the North part of the South Island. The plan is, well... there isn't much of one at a moment, but I'll give it a go. I've been waiting on teaching registration for a couple of different countries but various bureaucracies are taking their sweet time mailing certain documents. The three months I spent in the Bering Sea are mostly to blame though. The plan at the moment is to take our "if we have to" round trip ticket back to the states in the middle of February. We could stay for up to a year on our working holiday visas, but in the name of being responsible (*shudder* that word gives me the willies) it would be better to try and find jobs in our respective fields. So, we're headed home unless something happens, which I've learned usually does. Ambiguous enough for you?

The first month here, Rachel and I lived in our student housing flat in Christchurch while Rachel finished up her nursing practicum. We had a cool little pad right next to Hagley park and downtown. During that month, we went on a pretty epic backpacking trip which Rachel summarized wonderfully on her blog. Check it out! It's worth a read. Near vertical talus slopes with grass for holds is almost always a recipe for some tasty awesome.

On another trip down south in December we were able to check out the little blue penguin colony in Oamaru, as well as some of the rare yellow eyed variety. They come ashore in the evening, and as the flash of cameras scares them we weren't able to take any pictures. So I'll have to describe them for you: think of the cutest thing you have ever seen and then imagine something cuter than that. Yeah. Pretty cute. The little blues were quite social, running around in groups, squabbling and calling to each other loudly.

On the same trip, we managed to head out to Mt. Cook national park for a bit of hiking in a torrential downpour. Out standing scenery, here's a few pictures. I'll post more the next time I get an internet connection.

On the hooker track. There is never enough time to see all that you want to see.

taking a page from my brother's book on a suspension bridge

New Zealand mistletoe, it was the Christmas season at the time after all

Creatures

It's not an easy thing to see what's down on the sea floor at around 100 fathoms, so sometimes you have to settle for bringing the bizarre up to you. A longliner is actually a fairly selective means of catching fish, but other lifeforms than cod were still unintentionally caught. Most of the animals probably didn't survive a trip up from those depths (except the halibut, they are extremely tough for some reason). As a biologist, it was a great opportunity to nerd out however. There are strange fish and bizarre invertebrates down there. Here's a few.

A very strange looking sponge

This looks like it is straight out of a Dr. Seuss book

By far the smallest skate I saw

The beautiful atka mackerel

One of my favorite fish, a searcher

Sunsets/Sunrises

My schedule on the boat was so irregular, I can't tell if any of the scenery shots were taken during the am or pm hours. Regardless, here's a token few shots from the Bering sea. Generally the weather there is pretty miserable, but every so often the sky would open up and some god beams would come shooting through.