Russell-Rest Day 3

10.22.07

We were a little bit restless in town today. This is the longest time we have spent in one place since arriving in New Zealand. This is the Labor Day (or Labour Day here) weekend here and Monday is a national holiday. All the people up from Auckland for the boat race left this morning so the town was pretty dead this afternoon. We did manage to get out on a little ride to the car ferry dock in the next town over. We thought the town would be on this side of the bay, but it was just the dock. We lucked out and found a new walking track near the dock and had a nice little one hour hike through a kiwi bird conservation area. The trail ended at a little secluded cove called Pipiroa Bay where we had our last can of tuna. We had been putting it in the bottom of the bag for a little while now. We did spice it up with a little cheese so it went down a little easier.
We are off to catch the bus early in the morning. We have to catch the ferry at 7:00 am to make our 8:00 am bus to Auckland. We were out of groceries as of this morning so rather than hit the store we opted for dinner at the Duke of Marlborough Hotel here in Russell. It has the distinction of being the first licensed hotel in New Zealand. The ambiance was pretty cool and the food was really good. We did splurge and have a couple of beers with dinner.
I have been taking Chinese language lessons online for a couple of days now. I figure I should be able to say a couple of things before we get there. The lessons are podcasts that are free on iTunes and there are study materials available on http://www.nextgreatthing.com/. The teacher started off today’s lesson with a Chinese proverb which went “if you are not progressing, you are regressing.” He equated it to keeping up on your lessons, but I found it kind if notable to our trip. Forward progress, no matter how slow, is always a good thing.
Zàijiàn
CK