What the Folk!

I'm not surprised. It's sort of equally distant from the equator as Cali.

'K, just saw this one the other night. I'm glad they got a place that their blind dog Bunny can enjoy. I didn't really care for any of the houses. Every NZ home I've on House Hunters is in a major 70's time warp....but the views are always lovely.

Yeah I agree, the houses were kind of funky but the views and the land were AMAZING!

On the top of the New York Times' Most Emailed list this morning was this gorgeous article: A Walk Through New Zealand's Watery Wild. It's about hiking the South Island's Milford Track, and I'd really recommend the piece - it's a bit like taking a beautiful, misty, mysterious five minute holiday while you read it.

And now if you'll excuse me, I need to go sell a kidney so I can afford to move there. I like sheep. I think butter is awesome. I dig walking. This is going to be so great!

SWEET! Sooo going to take a long quiet moment to read that. I love sheep butter and walking too!!!

I watched Kung Fu Panda this weekend. That looks amazingly like some of the scenery! Absolutely gorgeous! I'm a sucker for a beautiful misty scene, though. I think NZ would be perfect for the boyfriend and I, as he loves the mountains and I love the sea. Something for both of us! I wonder if that walking route is the same one that Tessa Rain did years ago. She did an interview on Radio NZ a few years ago where she mentioned walking the south isle (and perhaps the north isle, too).

That looks stunningly beautiful. I have always wanted to do a hike like that (though not necessarily in NZ). I really, really need to take a trip there someday.

Ooooh! I'm going to have to search for that interview! It might have been the Milford Track that she was talking about. Oh but hey, wait, didn't she and Age meet when they were both working in the Abel Tasman National Park? I know there's a really famous hike there, too. Called, imaginatively enough, the Abel Tasman Coast Track.

Oh god, I just went looking at pictures of it, and it almost made me weep. It would make a blind man weep. Golden beaches and lazy green pine trees and water so deep and blue you could drown just looking at it. I won't post pics here for fear of making people even less pleased with January weather than they already are, but if you're the masochistic type, check this out. Nice, eh? Sigh.

I'm an ocean girl, too. I'm always happiest when I'm near water. I think I was a fush in a previous life. You?

This is me too! I am suuuuch a water girl. I grew up with a house at the beach and a house on a lake. When I moved to Colorado and there was no beach I took up white water rafting. Now that I live in Tennessee I'm trying to figure out what available water sport to pick up this spring. However, it is comforting to just watch the Mississippi.

Count me in as a water girl - I love to watch the way the clouds can make it deep blue or an angry gray. When I got married, our apartment was on Riverside Drive in NYC, looking out on the Hudson - we could see the George Washington Bridge as well as New Jersey, and every day when I got home and looked out at the river I felt a calmness after running around the city all day.

I read this NY Times article this morning, and tried to think of ways to raise funds for my "Get Me To New Zealand" Charity.

It's gorgeous! I love that picture! It has now replaced Bret & Jemaine as the wallpaper on my mobile... And Milford track is one tour that I definately wanted to do! It's been on GlobeTrekker more than once and it's just breathtaking... It really is... Sigh...

That sounds so lovely Nancy. That's a dream of mine and the best of both worlds I think, is to be in the city yet be near the water. Whenever I take the PATH to Christopher St. I have to walk a few blocks west and go to the Christopher Street Pier/Hudson River Park area, if only for a minute, to soak in the calming vibe of the water.
http://flickr.com/photos/shebearess/278 ... 902714682/

Okay, Sully. **Turnip hocks a loogie into her palm, extends hand.** You and me, baby. We're going to do it. One day. You bring the gorp, I'll bring the flask of whiskey. I'll meet you in Queenstown, and the last one there's a rotten egg!

^ Hey, can I join the hiking group too?

OF COURSE! The more the merrier! There's always room for wonderful people!

But there is to be absolutely, positively NO LAUGHING at me when I exhaustedly give up half-way through and hitch a ride on a passing sheep. And NO PHOTOGRAPHS of that, either. I've learned the hard way on that one.