Our New Zealand Adventure: April 2008

Global Warming

Check out this photo:

In the center, to the right of the stripped piece of ice, you can just make out a raft, which is large enough to hold about a dozen people. It provides a nice bit of proportion for the photo.

The scary thing is that 100 years ago, that raft would have been beneath approximately 1/2 mile of ice. Twenty years ago, that raft wouldn't have been there--the glacier was 4 miles longer in 1990 than it is today.

In case you're wondering as you click through the pictures in the photo album below, the glacier is that ugly black thing. It's covered with debris that has fallen from the mountains on either side of it.

Queenstown Trip Pictures

Here are the pictures from this weekend's trip to Queenstown and Aoraki/Mt. Cook.

I'll get around to posting some thoughts about the trip once I get over this sinus thing I've got going on.

I also put up some older pictures, too.

Just got back from Aoraki/Mt. Cook

We got really, really lucky for our trip. We left Queenstown earlier in the day than we had originally planned, so we arrived at Aoraki/Mt. Cook with plenty of time to do a couple of short hikes and enjoy a beautiful day. I have some great pics to post--hopefully tomorrow. We thought we'd get in one more this morning, but rain, rain, rain! So no hike, but we pretty much saw most everything yesterday ... and were treated to a rainbow as we left Aoraki. Now it's time to rest.

Cost of living

Filled up with gas the other day, at NZ$1.89/litre. With the current exchange rate that makes gas here a little more than US$5.75/gallon. Since oil is still climbing, I think we'll probably break the US$6.00/gallon mark before the end of the week. Some rural gas stations, by the way, have been charging NZ$2.00/litre of the past couple of weeks.

On the food front, I bought milk on 'special' yesterday for NZ$2.99/2 litres. (They don't sell big gallon-sized/4-litre sized bottles here, probably because they wouldn't fit in the tiny fridges they have here.) Boneless, skinless chicken breast was on 'special' for NZ$13.99/kilo. While the overall cost of groceries hasn't climbed as rapidly, I'd estimate that most staple items (dairy, meat, vegetables) are up about 30%-40% in the past year. If you're frugal, like we are, and don't buy a lot of crap, then chances are you've seen more of an overall cost increase than someone who buys lots of processed foods.