Catlins coast, Southland farm country and the real New Zealand

It has been hard to find time to post on the blog as much as we would like! Our time in NZ has been busy so far, all with good things. There is no shortage of possible topics and experiences to reflect on here, but when I finally get a moment to sit down and write it's hard to know where to start. So today I'll just post a quick update, and tomorrow or Monday we will try to share some more reflections on our goals for this sabbatical time and what "sabbatical" means to us, as well as go into a little more detail on what we're learning about the parts of New Zealand landscape and culture we've been able to explore thus far.

Last time I posted, we were just getting our bearings in Dunedin & NZ in general. A week and a half later, we feel like we know our way around better and have moved into a house where we'll be for the next month. This past week, Soren has been attending his wonderful kindergarten, our lovely babysitter Kate has taken Avery on adventures each day, and Eric and I have had some much-needed time on our own to go on hikes, take yoga & exercise classes, and eat lunch in peace! We haven't had a bad cup of coffee yet and the Dunedin area continues to be gorgeous and charming, despite cold, wet and windy weather. 

Last weekend, we drove south to spend a couple of days in the Catlins area, a wild and quiet corner of the country that's pretty far off the beaten path tourist-wise. Following the "Southern Scenic Route", a scenic drive that connects Dunedin with the Fiordland and Queenstown areas, it turned out to be a perfect place to explore with young kids. We found several short walks that were easily accessible off the main road, yet uncrowded. I'll share some pictures below. Soren did a great job leading the way on our hikes, and even Avery walked the whole way to McLean Falls, the largest waterfall in the area at 30 meters high - probably about a mile from the trailhead. We were especially enchanted by exploring Curio Bay, where at low tide you can wander among the sunken remains of an ancient petrified forest that is 180 million years old. Standing there at the southernmost part of mainland NZ amidst Jurassic rocks and trees was a jolt of perspective on how fleeting our human life spans are in the grand scheme of geological history...and how fortunate we are to be alive on this incredible planet and experience awe and wonder at its beauty.

This weekend, we are in the heart of southern NZ farm country, in a small town called Lumsden, having a very different experience. Eric got connected with Mike Kirby-Sing, a local pastor here and invited us to come out for a few days and stay on a sheep farm owned by members of his church. This place is absolutely gorgeous - bright green rolling hills and valleys with snowy peaks in the distance.  The allure of living out here isn't hard to understand! Yet farming here is far from easy. We had some inkling of some of the rural issues and dynamics we might encounter when, the first week we were here, we heard about protests in NZ's cities against recent greenhouse gas emissions regulations proposed by the New Zealand government affecting the agricultural sector. We won't claim to be experts on all the ins and outs of this issue, but will try to share a bit more of what we're learning in another post, because I think it's a really fascinating case study.

For now I'll just say we feel really lucky to have local connections and get to spend this weekend meeting folks in this farming community. There are lots of similarities, and many differences of course, to Missoula and Montana and the dynamics around rural/urban political and cultural divides. We dove in head first today to all this, as we got to have a real NZ experience at a community lamb "tailing" on a local farm. It's been fascinating to hear directly from farmers about their experiences on the land and perceptions about the proposed emissions reduction plan and other environmental and climate issues - a lot of echoes of Montana and the US in skepticism about government "meddling" and even skepticism about the issue of climate change in general. To be honest, that perspective has been a bit of a surprise.

It's kind of funny, because I think before coming here we harbored a bit of a fantasy that New Zealand was some green utopia immune to human shortsightedness and the problems of the wider world... and of course that is not the case! New Zealand is a real place with real people and real challenges, and is very much interdependent on the rest of the world and global issues. Coming to this realization over the last couple weeks has been deflating, in a way - because who likes to have a fantasy bubble popped? But it also has been oddly refreshing. It's a relief, in a way, to know that our problems and struggles back home - while unique to our local context - are shared everywhere to some degree, even in a magical place like New Zealand. I'm sure it is also a relief to our family to know that, while it's tempting to stay here forever, we will in fact be coming home eventually!  

 More soon...

A helpful reminder for our first few weeks of travel with kids

A helpful sign on St Clair beach reminding us that New Zealand is far from...everywhere

A great example of the late 19th century architecture found all over Dunedin, which was modeled on the city of Edinburgh, Scotland

Baldwin Street in Dunedin is supposedly the steepest residential street in the world, according to the Guinness book of world records. Avery walked up the whole thing himself and was very proud.

And when we got to the top he was very tired.

View of Dunedin and Otago Harbor from Signal Hill north of the city

View of the "nuggets" from the Nugget Point lighthouse along the Catlins coast, with sleeping toddler. Uncooperative preschooler not pictured

Absolutely stunning coastline and turquoise waters for miles and miles. Fur seals on the rocks far below!

Happy kid finds a good walking stick

Gorgeous MacLean falls in the Catlins

Soren walking along a fossilized 180million year old log in Curio Bay, one of the worlds best examples of a petrified forest from this period

Lunch stop at Tautuku Estuary

Purakaunui Bay

View from the house where we're staying in Lumsden, in central Southland

Yeah...this place is something special

Eric chatting with Jonny Elder, whose farm we're staying on - a fount of local knowledge and sheep farming expertise and just a really nice guy, like pretty much everyone we've met over here.