Monday, 14 February 2005
Dundee: 7:37 a.m., PST
Yippeee! Finally got email from Dawn:
By the time you get this it should be after midnight there. I am up on an upstairs landing alternately laying on my stomach or sitting on the floor typing this while listening to the folk's playing El Presidente downstairs.
She writes about figuring out how to get online, but then describes their outing yesterday:
We did go on a small gauge train today up into the bush and then we went to a water park. Not anything like what you would expect if you were in the US. It was a lovely path through gardens filled with interactive water sculptures. Water moving the wheels of a bike with a pipe sculpture man pedaling. Bikes that you pedalled so that water hoses would squirt where you aimed them ... Grandpa really soaked Elizabeth. It was really cool. The kids (including Grandpa as a kid) had a great time and I got a lot of good video.
We'll know for sure when we get the pictures, but I suspect it might have been this, the Goldfields Railway, which is often mention amongst tourist atttractions in the Coromandel.
Anyway, it was really great to get the email from Dawn. Also, now that she's connected I look forward to emails and photos. Hurrah!
2:25 p.m.
The problem with getting any email from my family is that now I want some more. More! Right now! Speaking of more, and right now, we're down about half a week already. Why at this rate they'll be back in no time. No time, or 18 days. Same thing, right? Sigh.
3:07 p.m., PST
How cool - I just saw that a certain "dundeegirl" posted on my Xanga blog last night, talking about how great Qantas is. And she gave me two eprops! Let me just say: Neato!
10:08 p.m., PST
Dinner should be wrapping up down at Hahei, and later on Dawn will be trying to try sending some pictures by email. However they might not get sent for an hour or two, so I'll have to check again in the morning. We talked for a long while tonight, and Emily had called a friend earlier - they've almost used up a $20 calling card. Good thing that $20 NZ, not US.
Emily said she went snorkeling with Richard today and saw a stingray. Dawn and Liz swam in the deep water of the estuary, where Liz happily bobbed around thanks to her floatie. Liz, Derek and Richard tug some kind of shellfish (tupa-tupa?) and they ate the fritters today for lunch. What were those things called?
(Google, google, google) I'm not sure what the name was, precisely, but it can't be the reknowned toheroa, as there are today very strict limits on the harvest of this mollusk...
(Google, google, google...) Oh, here we go, the tuatua, an abundant local clam. That must have been it - sounds just like "tupa tupa" and not protected. New Zealand sounds cool, but good God, the names make me insane.
Meanwhile, back in the United States, I took the garbage can out to the curb. My life is exciting, too.