Manapouri ... where the web runs slow

We've just arrived in Manapouri, where they seem to be on Web 0.2.3 (well, it's really just that this must be the world's ooooldest crappest computer - and they charge me $2 for 10 mins of web access, which just about gives you time to load a page. Cheeky beggars.) Tomorrow we will leave here on a boat which will take us cruising in Doubtful Sound, which is very exciting. We have arrived here from Riverton, which was an enjoyable little town and gave us a fab dinner at the Beach House Cafe. Prior to that we spent a night in Curio Bay, which was wonderful - a perfect beach front studio, with the wild ocean crashing onto the beach just outside the windows. And we finally saw some penguins! very exciting.

Before that we had Christmas in Dunedin which was almost traditional - midnight mass in St Paul's Cathedral with a full chamber orchestra and a very good choir. Then a great Christmas lunch at Jeff and Gail's (Jeff is P's da's research partner) - chicken, ham, roast potatoes, stuffing, broccoli and asparagus, followed by cheesecake and pavlova (which the New Zealanders claim to have invented). On Boxing Day we went on a boat trip out along the Otago Peninsula and saw albatrosses and dolphins, seals, sealions, a very black thing that I've forgotten what it's called (a big bird), shags, ummm and lots more wildlife. I was most excited by the dolphins and managed to get a couple of good snaps, which will appear on Flickr whenever we next get to a place we can upload from.

On which note - we've not been proceeding very speedily with the labelling of photos, as the bandwidth at P's da's was struggling to deliver all our giiant pics to Peachjuice, and didn't have much left for flicking through Flickr. So apologies for that - and for the fact that they're all out of order - will be rectified sooner or later! (There just has to be some good bandwidth and a post-2002 machine somewhere in this country!)

There must be plenty more to say but time is ticking and P is clearly itching to have a go - so over and out for now.