Weather Report

David, you asked for me to put the weather up here. I think that seems like a cool idea but I can't figure out an easy way to do it. Here is a link to our (basically) local weather online:
http://www.metservice.co.nz/default/index.php?alias=oamaru
Beyond that, I'll try to add into any new posts what the weather was like that day. I think maybe the snow pictures misled people. It was only snowing way way up in the mountains. Down here where we are it is really very nice outside. When the sun shines it is pretty much t-shirt weather.

Today's Weather: Sunny, warm, I wore a long sleeve shirt. The afternoon got bit cloudier and therefore colder.

Matt

By Popular Demand

Here by popular demand is a picture of the house we are working on. All the timbers are from native species. They had a huge truck pull up with logs and then had it all milled right on the spot. For some reason it was cheaper to do it that way than to buy it pre-milled. I guess they took out the middleman. We haven't had a chance to take any really good shots of the house yet but when we do I'll post them. Also I'll post detail shots of the places that we have been working on.


This is a shot that I took on a stone beach right neary. I'm using it as my desktop, thought you all might like it.


Matt

Here are some pictures that we have taken.

This is us on the flight from DC to LA.


This is an amazing little used bookshop that we found in Christchurch. They only sold used books about natural history. I thought I would never get Carrie out.


This is just East of Christchurch in a small town called Sumner. If you look at a map Sumner is really attached to Christchurch but it is much prettier here on the coast.


Another shot at Sumner. Very rocky beach here. Cool tidal pools.


This was a snowman that Carrie built at Arthur's Pass in the mountains. This was the only stop on our train ride from Christchurch to Greymouth. It snowed a lot on our way there but on the way back it had cleared up a bit. Great packing snow!


This is also at Arthur's Pass. Beautiful mountains. From here we took a 5km tunnel under the mountains out to the West coast. (The other passengers got really sick of hearing the last note in Jingle Bells).
(42°56'40.86"S, 171°33'54.18"E)


This is a shot out of the window of the bus that we took from Christchurch to Waimate.

Matt

Never Done This Before

Well, I've never done this before. I've always felt like everyone in the world ought to care what I have to say but I've never acted on it before (other than talking loud in supermarkets). Now here I go.
Carrie and I thought (well Carrie mostly thought) that we should put up a blog so that we could share pictures and thoughts with anyone who might care to look at/read them. We agreed that putting pictures up here was a much simpler way than to try and use one of those online picture sharing sites. I'm sure they have advantages but I never go to them because they have too many ads and too much signing in. I think this blog should be without both of those things (at least not in excess).
Ok, so I'm going to stop writing now except to say that Carrie and I will be posting again shortly and hopefully we will be putting up some pictures to boot.

Matt