On Saturday February 26, We flew to Queenstown on the south island, to see Steve and Edie again in a different spot :) They had a timeshare at Wanaka, a smaller town on a similarly beautiful lake as is Queenstown, ringed by mountains. Kevin and I had some time in Queenstown before Steve came by to pick us up….during which, we ran into Steve and Peg Matter! They planned to stay in Queenstown and take a 3 day tramp, before joining us later at our place in Levin. So Kevin and I did some ambling (took a gondola ride and walked through the botanic gardens) while awaiting our ride. After Steve J picked us up we took the Crown Ridge Road over the pass to Wanaka. This road was “sealed” in 2000, which gives you an idea of it’s remoteness; although it is fairly heavily traveled in the summer, I’d say. Would you believe, we later asked a man to take a picture of the four of us, by Lake Wanaka; not only was he a former Iowan, but it turned out he wrestled for Harlan the same time Kevin wrestled for Decorah, they graduated the same year! Wild :)
We took another tramp, the Rob Roy. www.doc.govt.nz/rob-roy-track/ This one was about 4.5 hours, across a swinging bridge over the whitewater :), and up and up to a lunch spot across from some glaciers, feeding many waterfalls...simply awesome! Another day, the guys found fishing spots and Edie and I took a bike ride along the lake edge.
We went to a Lonely Planet recommend, Cinema Paradiso, for a movie (The Kids Are All Right) and dinner. We loved it, someone should bring this concept to Decorah. You order food before the movie starts (pizza, burgers, etc, and it was good food!), then go in to sit in second-hand comfy furniture (including a small car) to watch the movie. They stop it for intermission, you file out to the “foyer” I’ll call it to eat..then back in to finish the show. We don’t think the building was originally a theatre, and in Decorah it could run oldies and independent and second run films. It was great! Any takers??? You'll find my pictures taken during this weekend at picasaweb.google.com/WanakaWeekend
We awoke in the early AM today at home, March 4, to a shaky bed. It lasted about 10 seconds, no rattling or anything...so the result for us is, it’s a little unnerving, but we get back to sleep pretty easily now. This is the fourth one I’ve felt. Upon waking later, I looked it up on NZ’s geonet website. It tells me where the quake was located, intensity and depth. Also has a map showing where people have reported as having felt it, and how intensely they felt it. So this one was in north suburbs of Wellington, about 48 miles from us, had a depth of 30 km (18 miles) and magnitude of 4.7. The online newspaper said that people there were shaken more due to the fact that this is the 2nd one of that size in a week. Wellington, the capital city, is overdue to have a big quake and the building stock is in worse shape than in Christchurch. Scary.
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