Hillary Visits

We were very happy to welcome Hillary to West Texas for a few days recently. She came all the way from San Francisco to see us and my bump! She got to come to the baby shower and the next morning, we loaded up the car and took a mini road trip to Marfa & Fort Stockton.

Sandhills Day Trip

Our friend Brady came in from New York for a quick visit this week, the first of what I hope will be many visits from friends in the upcoming year. There wasn't much going on in town, so we made a spontaneous day trip to the Monahans Sandhills State Park.

Souvenirs from New Zealand

Retro Funk Vintage shop in Oamaru

New Zealand and Australia are loaded with souvenir shops. There are good ones and there are bad ones, and my least favorite ones are the ones packed with cheesy, cheaply made imported junk. If I could only bring back one thing from New Zealand, why would it be made somewhere else? Because someone stamped New Zealand on it? Because it's in the shape of a kiwifruit?

My idea of a good souvenir is something made in the country, preferably by an artisan or a local factory. In New Zealand, all sorts of things used to be made domestically, before it was easier and cheaper to import. During many of my thrift store wanderings, I have come across many vintage garments, homewares and toys made in New Zealand. Here are a few of the great things Sam and I have collected in New Zealand.

Family Reunion, Covington edition

Despite my woeful absence of late, I have not abandoned the blog! This post is extra long to make up for lost time. We just returned to Texas after nearly a month long visit to the east coast. This was my longest visit to Charleston so far, and we had a wonderful time catching up with Sam's family.

Family Reunion

Our first week back has been all about family. We arrived home on the same day my brother Jordan arrived home from Germany, where he's been living for the last couple years. Needless to say, my parents were thrilled. Our journey involved 30 hours in 4 airports and 3 airplanes, a 6 hour road trip, and 2 sunrises, but with the time change we arrived on the same "day" we left. It was definitely the longest day of my life.

Farewell, Nelson!

Nelson has become a second home, and with it we found a second family. The long-termers and fellow workers we met at Tasman Bay Backpackers were great, and we ended our time with them by having a rowdy and joyful party full of hugs, music, funkyball, late night breakfast and a little bit of braiding each other's hair.

Nelson Lakes Day Trip

We took a spontaneous day trip to the Nelson Lakes National Park with a few friends this week. The views were typical New Zealand stunners, and the sunshine made the chilly winter breeze very pleasant.

The Three Amigos (+ many more)

Sam has been playing a lot of music lately with Jeremias and Teppo, our fellow guests at Tasman Bay Backpackers. After serenading the hostel guests all week, the guys decided to try their hand at busking at the Nelson Market.

Flight of the Conchords

For those of you who aren't a fan of keads on facebook, you might not have heard we entered a competition to win tickets to see Flight of the Conchords play in Nelson. I've been a FotC fan for years, so I really wanted to win these tickets. When I met Sam, one of the first things we did together was watch Season 1 of the FotC show. They have a dry, awkward sense of humor that we appreciate, and their musical parodies are genius.

Final Days in Australia

We consider our month in Australia something of a taster. We got to see a lot, but there is so much left to look forward to when we come back: Uluru, the outback, Perth, Melbourne, Tasmania... the list goes on and on.

We were given a few more days to explore Sydney when our flight back to Christchurch was cancelled due to snow.

Vivid Sydney

We were lucky to be in Sydney for the annual Vivid Festival. Vivid transforms the Sydney waterfront with a beautiful, musical and, well, vivid display of light installations.

Beauty in Brisbane

Self portrait in cubes

The weather was touch and go in Brisbane, so we spent a bit of time exploring the museums. My first stop was the GOMA, or Gallery of Modern Arts, which is conveniently located in the Southbank area next to the State Library, a Science Museum and the Queensland Art Gallery.

Brisbane

I don't know what it is, but there's something about Brisbane that I really like. Maybe it's the remarkably efficient public transportation system and free museums, or maybe it's just the way the river snakes through the city, making it curvy and beautiful.

Yeppoon & Rocky

Hand feeding the magpies at Tony's house

Just to warn you, every single photo in this post contain animals!

We stopped in Yeppoon again on our way south, to visit Tony and his wife Katie and hopefully do some fishing. Once again, the fishing was cursed and the weather went sour. Despite the rain, Sam and I enjoyed our time at Tony's place. His deck overlooks a small nature reserve and we were visited by lots of different birds. Some of them walked right into the house to look for scraps until Tony's dog Snoop chased them away.

Stanage

This whole "fishing trip" thing didn't really work out. The fish weren't cooperating. There were setbacks or disappointments in Yeppoon, Mackay, and Dingo Beach, so the guys decided to try one last spot, Stanage. From everything we heard, Stanage is a fishing hotspot. A lot of this information said the best fishing was by boat, but other sources said there was plenty to be caught by land fishing as well. Sam and Matt gave it their best, but Stanage was yet another in a long line of fishing letdowns.

That's not to say we didn't have a nice time! Stanage was a very isolated spot to visit, and we had some excellent sightseeing.

Dingo Beach

Dingo Beach was one of our favorite stops in Australia. We weren't originally planning to go there, but we were bored in Airlie Beach and it wasn't too far away. It is off the beaten path and not at all commercial. The long beaches are almost empty, and covered with chunks of coral.

Airlie Beach

From what we hear, Airlie Beach used to be a small, quiet place to sit on the beach beneath a coconut tree and take in the scenery. Now it's a strip mall, mainly an outpost for people heading to the Great Barrier Reef. We passed a few days here while we waited for the weather to improve before our reef cruise, and it was very beautiful on first sight, but without much to keep us interested.

Mackay

We spent our first afternoon in Mackay exploring the beach at low tide. We walked for a few hours, sunk in quicksand up to our calves, found a wheelbarrow rusting in a tidepool and saw about a thousand tiny blue crabs scuttling en masse across the flats.

Sunshine Coast to Yeppoon

After spending a couple days in Sydney, we used our JetStar vouchers to head north to the Sunshine Coast Airport. Sam's friend Matt was nearby and heading north up the coast, so we went along for the ride.

Sydney

We flew in to Sydney and spent a few days there before heading north to the Sunshine Coast Airport.