a first glimpse of NZ
July 7, '04

(click on the first picture to get started; captions are at the bottom of each picture page)

View of the moon over the pacific ocean, taken through the airplane window.  I thought the clouds down below looked amazing, but apparently my camera did not agree. Farmland on the way from the airport to Dunedin.  Dunedin airport looked surprisingly like Albany airport - on a plain, surrounded by hills - except the plain and the hills here are much bigger, and the airport much smaller!
I went on a tour of the Otago Peninsula, which you can see here view of Dunedin from the other side of the bay
the ocean!  it is sooooo flat. typical NZ scene
ooh looka that you can tell it is winter because the sun is so low in the sky, casting those shadows
I decided that until i take Geology here, I will just assume that NZ basically popped up out of the ocean.  Right, like toast. we stopped at a very windy beach
it was also pretty obnoxiously cold we glimpsed a seal but it climbed into the bushes!
you can see the sand blowing across the beach a new vantage point of the beach where the previous photos were taken
let's get a slightly wider angle on that one, thanks mate rocky outcroppings way down below
look at all the sheep! a preserved Maori gathering place
uh, yes, this was supposed to be artistic... Otago bay in the evening on the way back