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Counting down to the end of our honeymoon, we had to do something incredible to close out such an outstanding vacation. Fortunately, “Lalati”:http://lalati-fiji.com offered just such a package, and at the outrageously low price typical of the venue — a day away at a private, secluded beach, with picnic lunch, booze, and two one-hour massages per person. Frankly, we’d been looking forward to this high point since we started to research the resort, and getting out there and getting it done was essential; being blocked by high winds on Thursday, when we’d planned to go out, only increased our determination. Friday, we finally made it, paddling our kayaks with more than a little dispatch as we worked our way to the beach even before the motorboat would have arrived to take us there.

There’s little to do on a private beach, which is just the way it should be. We sat in beach chairs, drank Fiji Bitter, read books, and looked at the ocean; sometimes, we stepped into the little reed hut to change into a bathing suit or a sarong. Lalati resort motorboated out the massage therapists and we each got two one hour massages; the therapists kayaked back. There was a lovely lunch with grilled meats and pasta salad. The only people we saw all day were some jetskiers, a good 3-400 yards away. That’s what I call vacation!

Evening brought a private dinner on the end of Lalati pier, all by ourselves, surrounded by the dark water. It was quiet and romantic and the perfect conclusion to a honeymoon.

Dinner was, as ever, delicious, although cold winds picked up just at dessert time and we sought shelter in the main dining room.

Which was totally different from the evening before — the firewalking ceremony. In all of Fiji, apparently only a few villages, all on Beqa island, do firewalking, so the local villagers came over to show us their unique skill. It’s a special, mystic ability, and firewalkers must abstain from eating coconut and making love with their wives for four days before the ceremony. Actually, they’d been supposed to do the show on Monday, but for some reason they had to delay it. My money was on coconut. Anyway, dressed in traditional dyed bamboo skirts, the men put on quite a show.

The firewalking was preceded by a “kava”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kava ceremony, and who could say no to that? We sat with the villagers and saw them make the traditional Fijian kava preparation, which, as Wikipedia very accurately describes it, tastes rather like dirt.

As anybody who remembers being four years old knows, dirt is fun and at least pretend delicious. So is Kava. You clap twice before the drink is passed to you, say “bula!” — which I thought meant “hello” but I guess is more of an all-purpose word, like shalom or aloha — then drink up out of a communal coconut shell, then say “vinaka!” or thank you as you pass the coconut shell back. Mrs. DJ L’il Bit was much better at savvying the local tradition than I, and drank her kava correctly from the first time; it took me 4 or 5 cups to get it right, although the smile from the cup-passer made it worth it. (The priest earlier telling me to “wait your turn” was rather embarrassing.) Kava made my tongue numb quickly, and after a few drinks I suppose my head was slightly fuzzy too.

Mrs. DJ L’il Bit was very calm and relaxed after her kava, which, if you know her at all, means that it was a unique and special night. With a result like that, I’ll be mixing kava at home. We slept very well but I didn’t have any particular dreams — maybe the easy relaxation at the private beach came from the kava? Or maybe just from the beautiful beach.

Our last day on Fiji, Saturday, was the subject of much planning. The boat off of Beqa island was at 8:30am, and our flight out at 10pm; what would we do for that time? Frankly, we just wanted to sit by the pool or on our veranda, but we had to catch our boat. For a while, a “jungle canopy tour”:http://zip-fiji.com/ was well in the lead, but we also wanted to make sure we had time to get our souvenir shopping in. Planning for one thing or the other, we got up at 5am to see the sunrise — not that early to wake up, it turns out, when you go to bed shortly after it gets dark! And it was worth it.

Then we got the good news: the boat had broken down, and we’d be taking another boat in closer to noon. A half day sitting in the sun — perfect! Just what we’d wanted. We got to enjoy our incredible, beautiful island for another morning.


That left enough time to get our souvenir shopping done, grab a bite to eat, and get to the airport. While we both wanted to eat at an authentic Fijian restaurant, since we’d had somewhat sanitized resort food the whole time, exposing our stomachs to something new and unfamiliar right before an 11 hour plane ride didn’t seem like the smartest of all ideas, so we ended up at the Hard Rock Cafe. Hopefully, taking the “kokoda-making”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/milngavie/2675027647/ class a few days earlier at least partially made up for the inauthenticity.

Finally, we had an 11-hour flight home on “Air Pacific”:http://www.airpacific.com/. Mrs. DJ L’il Bit wore her veil on check-in[1] and I asked for something special for our honeymoon and the nice airline staffer set us up with a row of 3 seats to ourselves. Mrs. DJ L’il Bit stretched out across them and slept with her head on my lap; I, as usual, didn’t need any help to sleep most of the flight away. And then we arrived home, one hour after we left Lalati,[2] and that was it for our honeymoon. Or, at least, for the travel part, because I have to say, we’re still pretty disgustingly cute together. I hope that’ll stick around for a long time.

fn1. Brides-to-be: wearing your veil makes everyone want to do nice things for you! It got us champagne on Air New Zealand — make sure to bring yours with you!
fn2. Or, 25 hours later and, thanks to the International Date Line, one day earlier.

Coke is made with real sugar in both New Zealand and Fiji, which, if you know me well, you know is a big priority. But there are other good things about Fiji, too. Specifically: the relaxing. And: the activities related to relaxing. And then: the activities that burn off any excess energy so that I can get back to relaxing. 
The flip side of all this is that I’m not having much of that delicious sugar-sweetened Coke here, since, well, who needs caffeine to get in the way of that all-important relaxing? Oh, and I do apologize for the lateness of this entry, but blogging and photo editing was getting in the way of the relaxing. And, if you had the view from your veranda that I have from mine, you’d want to focus on the relaxing too.
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We’re staying at the “Lalati Resort”:http://lalati-fiji.com on Beqa Island, which is at once right nearby Fiji’s “mainland,” with the capital and both(!) international airports; and at the same time remote. 

There are only three small villages on the island, and two resorts. As our boat zoomed us over choppy seas into the island, Lalati Resort slowly emerged from the thick jungle.
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Our first day at Lalati was, to be honest, mostly sleep. Fortunately, like most all-inclusive[1] resorts, sleep is easy. At Lalati, the choice sleep venues are: by the infinity pool, and in the hammock on your veranda. I used both extensively. Also, the hot stone massage at the spa.[2]
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While I slept, Mrs. DJ L’il Bit took a boat ride out to a nearby reef and snorkeled. The next day, I joined in with some snorkeling from beachside, and got to see the amazing, dinner-plate-sized, bright blue starfishes, as well as all manner of striped, orange, blue, and yellow fish, many swimming in and out of anemones and living coral.The snorkel trip was actually a nice wind-down after our big hike up the mountain. Behind the resort rises the two highest peaks on the island — only a few hundred meters, but rocky, steep, and covered in Jungle. Mrs. DJ L’il Bit was ready to work our way up there:
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Fortunately, we had a friendly guide, Sesa, to take us up there, explain the strange and wonderful plants and bugs[3] we saw, and spin us yarns. Also, dare us to go back down by following the paths of what were basically waterfalls.
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The next day was for rest. And hot tub. And testing the difference between the native “Fiji Bitter”:http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/353/1480 and “Fiji Gold”:http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/353/12385 beers.[4] And testing the uniqueness of the native Bounty rum.[5] We even learned to make Kokoda, the local, lime-and-coconut-marinated version of ceviche. I either got too much sun the day before or had a little tropical bug to recover from but, by the next morning, I was ready to go again. Good thing, because we had a big day — a sea kayak trip.
Now, neither of us had been in a kayak since our teens, and neither if us is quite… how might one say… coordinated, so there was much gnashing of teeth over who would flip the kayak and how many times we’d end up in the drink. But it looked too incredible so we went for it anyway. First we went up the cove to Bat Island, a promontory on which all of the many giant fruit bats that inhabit the area and who fly past our bure[6] at night with a cacophony of squeaks. Then we paddled slowly down a quiet, serene, foot-and-a-half-deep channel that only appears at high tide and that divides Beqa in two. Finally we broke out into a little bay on the other side of island — and into a storm coming in. Waves broke over our prow, drenching Mrs. DJ L’il Bit in the front seat;[7] when we tried to turn sideways to keep said waves from breaking in her face, they almost rolled us. But we fought off the wind and waves pushing us relentlessly inland to make it out of the bay and head along the coast of the island, watched over by resident divemaster and jack-of-all-trades Dick, while Sesa kept a motorboat nearby to pluck us out if we tired of our adventure. But Dick had our number. “It’s a long way to the resort, but the lighthouse is just around the point, let’s try for there!” “Around the next point, it’s a village!” “Now we’re more than halfway, we’re almost there!” Just when we were hot and getting tired, the sky finally opened up, soaking us with precious cool, non-salty water.[8] Dick took us a little more offshore and the downpour turned into a refreshing drizzle, and we became only the third couple to make the whole trip around the island and back home in the last year and a half.
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Later, the wind and the rain stayed on-island, so we stayed in the hot tub, and enjoyed the delicious, generous meals that Lalati cooks on-site. From fish tacos to freshly-caught clam chowder to tuna steaks to lamb to steak to curries, the food here is very, very good and even smacks a little of authenticity, from time to time. Meals are all communal, so we hear the day’s stories from the other dozen or so guests at Lalati; always great, since someone’s done a cultural excursion and someone else is here on a dive package and swam with sharks.[9]
Today, the wind kept us in again. (That’s why I had time to process the photos and write this!) But we both got wonderful, relaxing massages, soothing our hard-worked muscles from yesterday, and we enjoyed the hammock and the native rum to great fullness. Tonight is a big buffet of native foods baked in hot rocks buried in a dirt pit, and tomorrow… well, the weather’s better tonight, and if it holds tomorrow, it will be a truly exquisite event. Since the day after we fly home, probably no updates until then; but, oh, the stories we’ll have!
fn1. Except booze, that is.
fn2. They put hot stones between my toes! Ahhh, relaxation.
fn3. Like four-inch-long centipedes.
fn4. Bitter is better.
fn5. Delicious, light, and many fruity and floral notes, even in the dark rum. Not the stuff of the same name from St. Lucia. Can’t even find a link to Fiji’s Bounty, but might take some home!
fn6. That is, hut. Except bigger. Like this:
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Also: roll the “r” when you say it.
fn7. Don’t worry, I got plenty wet too. While only some of the waves broke over her –
granted, with very much water, but only some — every stroke of her upwind paddle brought me a faceful of whatever water was left in there.
fn8. The sea is not cool and refreshing here; it’s warm and comfortable. Usually good, but we were
fn9. Apparently they bring a whole trash can of chum down with them and use it all. The price you pay for scenery!

So this is it… the last morning in New Zealand. Not too many tears; this afternoon we head for Fiji. We ended with four nights — our longest stop yet — in Queenstown, the premier tourist destination in New Zealand and largest city in the area. We arrived with an equal mix of exhaustion and determination to avail ourselves of the adrenalin-fueled sports the area’s famous for. Plus food, wine, fun.

Our first day here ended up being a rest and recovery day, rather than the “big trip we’d had planned”:http://www.dartriver.co.nz/dartriver/FunYakSafari/ — I for one was just too tired to pend 9 hours out doing stuff, no matter how fun. Instead, I slept and caught up on photo editing for you guys.
Next day was back to the big days — started out with a trip up the “Skyline Gondola”:http://www.skyline.co.nz/queenstown/gondola/ for a view of Queenstown from well above. The gondola was cute, steep, and the view was incredible.

And then at the top was the highlight of the trip: the “luge”:http://www.skyline.co.nz/queenstown/luge/. They made us take the “scenic” track because we’d never driven it before but I swear we were tearing along and both almost went off the road several times. Between the searing cold wind, the slick pavement, and the views hundreds of feet above Queenstown… we were ready to brave the rickety chairlift to the top of the luge course again.

We rushed down to visit the “Kiwi Birdlife Park”:http://www.kiwibird.co.nz/ in time to see the kiwi feeding. Kiwis actually are nocturnal, and have few natural predators, as opposed to the imported dogs and stoats that like to eat them. Kiwis are also intensely territorial, and the little furball tried to chase off the handler when he went in to feed her. We also saw a lot of other endangered birds, as well as a number of drunk, obnoxious Aussies.

The evening concluded with a stop for a few drinks at the “Minus 5 bar”:http://www.minus5experience.com/ where we enjoyed vodka at a colder-than-advertised minus eight degrees, in an ice-lined room. Then it was dinner at “Fishbone”:http://www.fishbonequeenstown.co.nz/
Today was even bigger. We decided to end things on a high note and pack in as much New Zealand as possible. Missing our Dart River Safari, but wanting something shorter, we instead hopped on the “Shotover Jetboat”:http://www.shotoverjet.com/, rocketing down a high-walled canyon at breakneck speed. “How close you get to the canyon walls, that’s up to your own personal level of self-confidence,” explained our very self-confident driver. I flinched a lot. Apparently going 85 km/h down a 30-foot-wide canyon is me and Mrs. DJ Li’l Bit’s idea of fun. Actually, this was the perfect jetboat experience for us — totally different from the “Wilkin River Jetboat”:http://www.wilkinriverjets.co.nz/ that we took earlier; dodging canyon walls is very different from dodging tree trunks, shallow bottoms, and the like.
And then we doubled down by “parasailing”:http://www.paraflights.co.nz/ over the harbor. A couple of sassy Kiwis strapped us onto a big parachute on a winch on the back of their boat, told us it was time to “New Zealand us up a bit” and hit the gas on the boat, lifting us up into the air. First it was cool, then it was incredible, then it was ohmygodwe’re600feetup! and then we were just surrounded by the lake and so very high. Also, terrified. Also, exhilarated. Speaking of a thing I’d do again.
What better way to finish a day like that than with booze and food? We started out trying a good dozen New Zealand wines at “Wine Tastes”:http://www.winetastes.co.nz/, one of those automated places where you push the button and get a taste of one of any number of wines. Then it was dinner at “The Bunker”:http://www.thebunker.co.nz/, which was food as good as any we’ve had in LA, with stunning local wine pairings.
Nothing like a good meal before packing.

Everyone says that you need to spend time on New Zealand’s famous sounds, Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound (both of which are, in fact, fjords rather than sounds). Doubtful Sound is the more remote, difficult, and vast destination; of course, we had to go there. Of course, that meant more driving. But, fortunately, at the end of this drive was a boat, taking us through an overnight cruise far, far away from pretty much anything else in this world.

Sure, there was a quick bus ride first, and that after a fast catamaran across Lake Manapouri, which is supposed to be one of New Zealand’s most beautiful lakes. I was too impatient to see our final destination to pay attention, but when the bus crested the mountain to head down New Zealand’s steepest road into Doubtful Sound, and the fjord suddenly broke through the foliage, I knew we were in for quite an adventure.

At the base of said steepest road was our ship, the “Fiordland Navigator”:http://www.realjourneys.co.nz/Main/DoubtfulSoundOvernightCruise/. They greeted us with hot soup and we brought our bags into our little stateroom.

We set out into the mist and rain of the Sound. This was easily the coldest place we’d been so far, but at least with an excuse this time — Doubtful Sound is far, far south, and so remote. Which was the whole point. Whipping wind and fine mist of rain and fog and white-capped waves and all that.

The captain even took us out into the storm-tossed Tasman Sea. Waves broke over the bow of the ship, we rolled back and forth, and I staggered from one end of the forward deck to the next, trying to hold still long enough to actually get a shot off.

Dinner was delicious, with three salads, four starches, and delicious smoked salmon and roast beef and lamb, and even a “Pavlova”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlova_(food) for dessert. And then we fell straight asleep in the quiet dark night. The next day, before we docked, the Captain let Mrs. DJ L’il Bit drive the boat.

And then we drove to Queenstown, to finally park the car for good.

While the drive to Wanaka was long, and rainy, and, worse than both, unexpectedly so, such that it sapped our energy, the fact is that Wanaka might be our favorite place in New Zealand so far. Wanaka is the red-headed stepchild of the nearby, and much more famous, Queenstown. Both towns are on a beautiful lake, both have a gold-mining history, both offer great outdoor options nearby, but Queenstown is much larger. I’m not sure about Queenstown yet, but Wanaka was beautiful, cute, filled with friendly people and good meals, and a great time all around.

We stayed at the lovely “Te Wanaka Lodge”:http://www.tewanaka.co.nz/ where they took good care of us, even cooking me a special breakfast two of the three days we were there. If you look on their “rooms”:http://www.tewanaka.co.nz/lodge/rooms page, that’s the room we stayed in! Funnily enough, the wide-angle lens they shot the room with makes it look smaller, it was actually warm and spacious and blessed with both towel heaters and bed warmers — staples in NZ it seems, especially the towel heaters. They even greeted us with champagne!
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The first night we had some of the best lamb either of us has ever had — Mrs. DJ L’il Bit ordered a lamb special at “Botswana Butchery”:http://www.goodbars.co.nz/Botswana/tabid/71/Default.aspx. We also had our first proper drinks at a bar in New Zealand, and discovered both their incredibly weak pours and their native gin, “42 Below South”:http://www.southgin.com/, which I would recommend to anyone who wishes their gin tasted more like vodka.
We also had a day of relaxation, which included a stop at a pub by the lake for some incredible fish and chips made from the local blue cod, and a swing by “Cinema Paradiso”:http://www.paradiso.net.nz/ to see a fairly amusing New Zealand rom-com in the comfort of a couch, rather than your ordinary movie theater seat, with fresh-baked cookies at intermission. Lovely weather really made the whole thing.
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And then we had a day of adventure — the “Siberia Experience”:http://www.siberiaexperience.co.nz/. Starting about an hour outside of Wanaka, we caught a little plane to the remote Siberia valley; Mrs. DJ L’il Bit was the co-pilot:
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The plane took us through imposing mountain ranges, banking to and fro so that we could see the harsh, unspoiled environment around us:
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Finally, we landed in the serene-looking Siberia valley, only to have to cross an ankle-deep stream fed by glacial run-off. Let me say that glacial run-off is just as cold as you would think, and there was nothing to do but get soaked.
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Then it was a hike on a mountainside path, enjoying the beech forest.
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Finally, a jetboat picked us up to head back down to civilization. What’s a jetboat? Well, apparently, back in the ’50s some Kiwi said “I wish I could go down very shallow streams in this boat” and came up with the idea of going faster, armoring the boat bottom, and basically skipping across the top three inches of water. We didn’t even have three inches and there were some big thunks as we hit riverbed stones. The boat driver frankly enjoyed scaring his passengers and headed straight for every bend, rock, and tree in the river, before whipping the little boat around it and into the water; and then there were the times that he told us to hold on tight and just spun the boat in a fast, tight circle about its prow.
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That was a big day out. Next: Doubtful Sound.

We left Christchurch driving in the opposite direction of Kaikoura, not that we were sad to do so with the rain and cold coming down from the north. Originally, the plan was to take the legendarily spectacular “TranzAlpine train”:http://www.tranzscenic.co.nz/services/tranzalpine.aspx to cross the Southern Alps, but they’re doing track maintenance while we’re in the country, so we drove the route instead — and I can hardly imagine that it was much less spectacular. Our destination was an overnight stop at Punakaki, home of the famous Pancake Rocks, and another overnighter at the Franz Josef Glacier.

h3. Arthur’s Pass
Our route West took us across the Southern Alps, which tower over the New Zealand vista. The route through is via Arthur’s Pass, a road that winds up the Eastern face and then down the Western face of the Alps.
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Mostly two-lane road with one-lane bridges, we were lucky that we had sunny, clear weather to get over this road, instead of the rain, snow, and hail that we had at Hanmer just a little bit to the north.
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At the top of the pass we stopped for coffee and saw a very sassy “kea”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kea steal some other tourists’ food.
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h3. Punakaki & the Pancake Rocks
When we broke out of the mountains and the ocean opened up in front of us, sun shining, we knew we were in for something different than what we’d seen on the East coast. Our first stop was the seaside hamlet of Punakaki — I was actually tempted to alliterate and call it a sleepy seaside hamlet, but there wasn’t enough going on to call it sleepy — where we stopped at the adorable beachside “Punakaki Resort”:http://www.punakaiki-resort.co.nz/ for a night.
After a bracing gin martini, to wash away the day’s drive, we walked up the street a few hundred meters[1] to the famous Pancake Rocks, sedimentary rocks with very visible layers that are supposed to look like stacked pancakes (they didn’t make me hungry). I actually tried my hand at taking some pictures *with a person in them* at the Pancake Rocks. What with being on a vacation and all Mrs. DJ L’il Bit thought it would be a good idea, tell me how it turned out.
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The next day we walked down the Truman Track to the shore, to see some seaside cave. Unfortunately I dallied trying to get a few shots and we were driven back by the rising tide. Fortunately, we’d checked out the entrance to the Xanadu Cavern the day before, being driven back only by our lack of a flashlight in this case, so we got a little cave in.
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h3. Franz Josef Glacier
After a blessedly short zip down the coast, we made it to the wet, cold, and adorably Alpine hamlet of Franz Josef. This time we shook off the drive with a soak and massage in the “Glacier Hot Pools”:http://www.glacierhotpools.co.nz/. Unlike the Hanmer Hot Springs, the Glacier Hot Pools look exactly like the photos on their Web site, and the massage was decadent.[2]
The next morning, after turning on every single heating device in “our room”:http://www.rainforestretreat.co.nz/, we took a quick walk up to the Franz Josef Glacier. After breaking through the rainforest canopy — yes, the glacier is right next to rainforest — we walked across a deceptively-sized, gravelly glacial morane, up to where we could almost touch the glacier.
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That distance ahead? It’s more than a kilometer.
Unfortunately, the glacier is not stable or developed enough to go on without a guide, so that was as close as we got, but it was pretty awesome to get that close.
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Unfortunately, while the drive from Punakaki to Franz Josef was relatively short and easy, the trip from Franz Josef to Wanaka was tough — advertised as 3 hours, it ended up taking closer to 5. But that’s a story for tomorrow.
fn1. It’s funny, having some idea how long a kilometer is doesn’t turn out to be that hard, but even with a meter about a yard, any sign giving distance in meters leaves me scratching my head as to how far I have to go.
fn2. The only cranky person we’ve met so far in New Zealand was at the massage desk at Hanmer Hot Springs. The summer season was just starting, but for her it was clearly already over.

Fresh off the heels of an incredible stay in Kaikoura, we headed back to Christchurch for another stay at the Hotel So, plus the chance to enjoy the city’s sights a bit. Soon we’ll be gadding about the country, doing all sorts of damn-fool things, so our last day in Christchurch has been a bit of a relaxing time for us — sleep in, have a nice breakfast, see the sights. And it’s a good thing it’s a nice, mellow day, because we barely made it here.
Our last day at Hapuku Lodge was supposed to be capped off by catching a boat, going out to sea a bit, and swimming with the dolphins, followed by a nice drive down the coast to Christchurch, and an evening trying some of the meat pies[1] they’re so famous for down here. And things looked good for just that schedule; the weather had beaten the predicted highs in the 60s, and we were breaking out the short-sleeved shirts. Then the weather rolled in. Mountaintops disappeared in mist and clouds, winds whipped at our treehouse overnight, and we awoke to a canceled dolphin swim — “gale-force winds offshore,” they said. Apparently not very odd weather for the area and the season, although I wish someone had told us that!
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So, instead of the dolphin swim, we decided to take a bit of a detour inland to the “Hanmer Hot Springs”:http://www.hanmersprings.co.nz/.

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Let’s face it, everyone could use some pampering! Little did we realize what a choice we’d made… we climbed up into the mountains, and the bad weather followed us. First, the rain was blinding. Then this strange, snowflake-shaped light lit up in the car’s instrument cluster — turns out that, in New Zealand, cars tell you when it’s about freezing outside. Then, true to the temperature, the rain turned to snow. Then the snow turned to pea-sized hail.
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If all that wasn’t enough, the road steadily got smaller and smaller, shrinking to the smallest possible blacktop that could be called two-lane, with a sheer drop-off on one side, blind curve following hairpin turn, one-lane bridges hundreds of feet long, and… did I mention more hail? Even the kiwis didn’t know what to write on the warning sign:
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We made it to Hanmer, only to discover that it wasn’t anything like the pictures they show — it’s a nice family place, sure, like the cafes at Disneyland are a nice family place.[2] The changing rooms were the most durable and maintainable concrete, with no privacy; the pools, packed with families, were surrounded by concrete, not mountain plants; they didn’t serve lunch after 2 pm; and, let me tell you, 35° Celsius water is not that hot when there’s more of that pea-sized hail falling on your head and you’re trying to stay in there and keep warm.
But the worst injuries were self-inflicted, by me and on me. I’d left my bathing suit[3] on the line in our backyard to dry after my last swim, and had just grabbed it, rolled it up, and packed it in a plastic bag for the trip. Perhaps I should’ve checked inside, because I brought an angry, angry[4] guest with me, in that bathing suit. I went into the locker room, took off my clothes, put on my swim trunks, and felt a little sharp poke in my ass. “Oh dear,” I thought “I’ve picked up one of those sharp burrs that you find in my backyard.” So I tried to brush it away. Finding nothing, I tightened the swim trunks, and got a much more painful poke. Now I was confused. I shook out my bathing suit, adjusted it again, and got another, even more painful poke, so I took off the bathing suit to look inside; as it hit the floor around my ankles, what should I see inside but… a bee. Not one of the fat, fuzzy New Zealand bees, but one of the mean, skinny, hornet-looking bees that seem to so enjoy the flowers in my backyard. How it had survived being rolled up, packed in a plastic bag with all the air squeezed out, flown across the Pacific at 36,000 feet, bounced around a suitcase for 3 days, and then trucked up in near-freezing temperatures to finally be let loose in the changing room, but there it was, crawling around, until I smooshed it with my shoe. I briefly planned to look for first aid, but was too embarrassed that I’d managed to get stung 3 times in the ass by an American bee that I’d illegally imported into the freezing New Zealand Alps. Anyway, turns out that the 40-degree mineral pools must be good for bee stings on the ass, because I looked pretty civilized by the time a nice attendant set us up with a private steam room to enjoy for the last 30 minutes of our stay at Hanmer Springs. And then we drove back to Christchurch.

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Today was an about-Christchurch day, and we spent a lot of it shopping at all of the tourist destinations, because it’s way colder than we thought it would be. We both got lovely wool hats, and are thinking of getting the soft, surprisingly affordable sweaters that they make here from a Merino wool-possum blend.[5] Despite the cold, we managed to have some real fun. First, we climbed up the bell tower of the Anglican Cathedral, which is rather surprisingly tall, has an extremely tight, narrow winding staircase headed up, and offers great views from the top:
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Then we went “punting”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punt_(boat) down the Avon river, which runs through the middle of town. Named after the Avon river upon which sits the famous Stratford, home of the Bard, the Avon has the fastest current of any river down which one can punt.[6] Anyway, we sat in a lovely flat-bottomed gondola while a nice man told us all about the city we were floating through. The sights were beautiful, the river serene, and the blankets they gave us for our laps quite welcome.
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Tomorrow we drive to the other coast; don’t worry, I’ll tell you how that goes. However, I doubt that it’ll involve any bees. Or, hopefully, my ass. And maybe we’ll have more bandwidth — the only bad thing I have to say about the Hotel So is that the internet here is glacial — and I’ll be able to put up all the photos, in large size.
fn1. Remarkably, not a double entendre.
fn2. Which they are.
fn3. Swimming costume, in the local parlance.
fn4. And probably extremely illegal, given the strict import laws in New Zealand.
fn5. That’s right, possum. Turns out possums have soft fur! Anyway, this particular possum is an invasive pest that destroys the native wildlife, so the more they kill and make into sweaters, the better!
fn6. Or, more to the worry of the punter, up which one can punt.

Based on past experience, we knew that we needed to relax, catch our breath, and get a few nights’ solid sleep before we could really appreciate our honeymoon. Also based on past experience, we knew that we wouldn’t allow ourselves to make such passive choices unless there was really very little else to do *and* we were also in a brilliant place. That’s why we planned ourselves a nice splurge for the beginning of our honeymoon. We got out of Christchurch for a couple of days, drove north to Kaikoura, and stayed outside of town at a quiet lodge instead of our usual downtown hotel will small, reasonably-priced rooms. Specifically, we stayed in a treehouse at the “Hapuku Lodge”:http://www.hapukulodge.com/. Go ahead, click on that link, we might as well get the you hating me started so that we can be on the same page.

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The drive to Kaikoura was exciting and exhilarating; nothing quite says “I’m breaking all of society’s conventions!” like driving on the wrong side of the road, and we did that for about two and a half hours. That’s right, in New Zealand they drive on the left. Apart from having to look about sixteen times before making a right turn — that’s the Kiwi version of the left turn, except with all the traffic coming from places you don’t expect it — it was no problem. The only trouble came from our rented “Ford Mondeo”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Mondeo, a nice enough car that unfortunately you can’t see the right side, left side, front, or any of the four corners from when driving. Not quite knowing where your unfamiliar rental car is can be an exciting experience when practicing driving where you shouldn’t be anyway.
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Heading for Kaikoura, we saw astounding fields of unknown plants, to say nothing of the sheep eating said plants.
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Once there, we settled into the treehouse we were staying in. That’s right, it was up in the trees, and it was gorgeous:
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Here was our view:
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Our first night in town, we ate at Hapuku’s restaurant and had a truly stunning meal.
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The next night, we went into town and had another lovely dinner.
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In between, we went out to two great lunches, one out of the back of a truck, the other out of a mobile home. The back of the truck people — calling themselves just “Kaikoura Seafood BBQ”:http://www.notquitenigella.com/2009/04/04/kaikoura-seafood-bbq-new-zealand/ — barbecued fish. while the mobile home lady — “Nin’s Bin”:http://www.new-zealand-pictures.co.nz/kaikoura-coast-nins-bin-south-island-nz-1603-pictures.htm –sold nothing but “crayfish,” Kaikoura’s famous, fresh, delicious seafood that we call spiny lobster in the US and the French call langoustine. Nin boiled them right up and then cut them in half with a gigantic, toothy cleaver that looked like an evil paper cutter. Here’s a before and after so that you can see how much we enjoyed the crayfish.
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In such a beautiful venue, with so little to do, we could hardly do anything but relax and get our energy back. But don’t worry, tomorrow you’ll get to learn the pea-sized hail and how my ass got attacked by stinging pests, then you’ll feel better about your trip. Until then, enjoy our relaxing treehouse some more:
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