The Southern Alps

Hi y'all,

Big all day tour today up into the mountains . We prepared yesterday and grabbed some ham and cheese and extra focaccia bread from the Italian place. That way we have breakfast on the go . Our pick up time was 715a. It was raining and cold when we left. So much for bragging about it being summer here.

First we rode the train up into the mountains for about 3 1/2 hours. It was a nice comfortable train ride, with big picture windows and wide seats.

We were content with our little picnic breakfast. We had headphones and at each gps point a recording told us about that area we were in. I will add photos:

We had a great day. The beauty here is so varied and never ending .

This parrot, the Kea, is endangered because they let freaks ( people) hunt them for about 100 years. Well..... they are crazy birds but beautiful.. But dear lord, they are too smart for their own good. They figured out that good eating was had on a sheep and would ride on them and found the spot where it's liver is and dug down and ate it. And it killed the sheep. What the living hell ?!?!? But yeah. So they let people shoot and kill them until they were almost extinct.

Chris : We were told that these parrots are some of the smartest animals on earth, that's what our guide said. Apparently they need high levels of zinc for their bodies to do whatever, to survive I guess, forgive me if the science here is over your head. Well, they figured out that there are trace levels of zinc in car parts and it's a whole lot easier to eat a car than try to forage for plants high in zinc content so they just chew the wiper blades and radio antennas and door handles and front grills off of cars. There are only about 1500 left and they all live around the little town we had lunch in. They are really comfortable around humans and can be pretty aggressive with your chips and sandwich. We even saw one try to steal a pair of socks that a guy on our tour bought. But it was really cool to see them up close and I feel privileged to have seen them. It's not everyday that you get the chance to see a parrot that will eat your car and your liver.

Rhonda: Then we went out to a crazy rock situation on the mountains.. Long long long ago this was all undersea and the rocks were coral at one time . This area was featured in the Disney movie The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe during the big fight scene.

Chris: The train ride was stunning, that's all I can say. You just run out of words, or at least I do, trying to describe this amazingly beautiful country. But, from what we learned from our guides, it's a geological ticking time bomb.

If you look at a map, New Zealand isn't very big compared to the land mass of Australia or Europe or the Americas and on and on. It's magical and magnificent stunning and beautiful but it ain't much land on the world stage and all of it is in constant peril in geologic terms.

Geologists warn that they ain't seen nothing yet in terms of a devastating series of earthquakes and on the south island there is a volcano that is past due for a major eruption and when it happens it will be a blast bigger and more powerful than an atomic bomb.

Humans have gotten arrogant all over the globe and it will catch up with us sooner or later. There hasn't been a major earthquake in three hundred years so let's build vacation rental cabins in the mountains. That volcano hasn't erupted in four hundred years so let's build a city here. Let's build luxury hotels and posh restaurants on the waters edge in San Francisco and let's build the biggest cities in the world on an island in New York or in major earthquake zones in Mexico and Japan. But the earth doesn't care, she doesn't care how much money has been invested or what you're making renting out your beach house before you retire. She will do what she has always done, she will shake and change and her continents will move and when she has had enough of us abusing her she will stir up storms and floods and fires and she will be done with us, but before then, doesn't that coral reef look like a great place for a floating high end sushi restaurant ?

Rhonda: Between earthquakes, volcanoes, cyclones, high winds etc. they live knowing it's a matter of time before another disaster hits. But the people are so happy and sweet. Just the nicest people you will ever meet. So if y'all can at all you need to come and see this place before something happens and changes it.

Love y'all.