oh how we miss you

how wonderful it is to hear from you all. it makes me smile with slight tears to read your sweet comments and words.
we still have no word on jobs yet...very very long aaster holiday weekend here! most people get fri,sat,sun and monday off! so frustrating!

ok, just heading to crawl in with that beautiful man i married.
love you people, a lot!

goodnight,
s

huntin!

well guys&girls ~

we so love your comments on the blog! ny and ha-bay we love you too! and miss you more than you know!
we are in the process of job hunting right now. While the job market is exceptionally favorable for the seeker, as there are more jobs available than people to fill them at the moment, we are going to be quite particular with the kind of work that keeps us here. We have both agreed that if we find great resume boosting employment we will hang around for a while longer. However, if all we can find is retail/customer service/hospitality work then we will head home. Yes home! god we just miss you people! so as you can imagine home is sounding pretty good. Sarah has a job prospect in the works that we should know about fairly immediately. And now is looks as though P may also have some work at ASB (banking) as a temp. So we will keep you all posted. Promise.
ok, all our love to the people!
Sare&pocket

working in Q-town

Paul- very serious bartender, working at the bar at alpine village. our wonderful friend Matt manages this hotel and gave us a free room and some work for a week or so. work included housekeeping and bar tending. AND we got free meals out of the deal! you couldn't ask for a better host.

still at alpine village, this is our view...not too shabby!

the beautiful hotel we were fortunate enough to be able to clean, and sleep next to. an extraordinary place, and they the new Wolverine movie crew is staying there at the moment

shotover river&skippers canyon

the most pristine and clear river we have ever seen. and they are allowed to run these jet boats up an down. terrifying to watch them almost slam into the rocks. we later learned that last year there were two deaths that happened while engaged in this activity
skippers canyon...so scary! there were several signs of danger warnings as we were entering the canyon. we made it half way down and had to turn around because we had no 4-wheel drive. passing two suv's and rafting buses on our way up, edging our way around about two inches from the cliff! put a little hair on our chests

we enter queenstown

queenstown views from the lake beach

this little seagull is much prettier than the ones we are used to pretty and ancient stone cottage outside of queenstown

sunset in Haast

beautiful Haast...south island west coast town
enormous boulders, breathtaking river, killing paul that he couldn't stand to fish it due to all the swarming sand flies

west coast views

sarah^ paul^

sarah and paulie in car form

antique car heaven

another beautiful coastal view

wellington&picton

< harry potter tribute at the wellington railway station

^paulie in our teeny-weeny hostel room. sooo loud!

our sweet little pop-top trailer in Picton. this is the town at the northern tip of the south island. we wished we could stay in a pop-top every night. Beautiful view of the water, nice cozy and quiet atmosphere, even creatively inspirational.

One last chance to fish while in Napier...then off on the open sea to the south island. These pictures are from Windy Wellington - what you ask? No pictures of the 3 hour ferry ride. Maybe because we slept - the whole way through fighting the rolling seas with a little Dramamine!

car campin in Napier

back in Napier, this time we are out of $, and decided to try camping in our new car, Mitsi......it was very cozy


Nice view!

random N.Z. moments

s&p with darren and renee on the west coast.
sue and steve, photographed by Miss Alex Parkinson
paulie and Alex hamming it up

beautiful waihi beach

this place has become our little NZ version of Port Townsend. A getaway, cheap and charming place to stay and surf for a couple of days. or in Paul's case, catch a fish right off the beach.

sleepy in Christchurch

well all~
we have spent the last two nights in Christchurch at the lovely Colette Parkinson's and her fiance Matt's beautiful house.
while paulie and I were in Dunedin we wandered into the old train station to check out the fashion week shows that were taking place. while I was inquiring about the sold out show, p heard a familiar voice. He turned around to discover that it was colette! The parkinson's eldest daughter. small world! anyway, she reached into her bag and pulled out her house key, insisting that we stay over at their house in christchurch, despite them not being here. This is just another example of how absolutely good and generous these people are.
so, today we are leaving the comfort of their home headed north to picton. We will stay there for another night, hopefully in the same pop-top trailer we got last time. then, at 8am tomorrow morning we will catch the ferry back to the north island.
We anticipate getting back to auckland in about 5days or so. But one never really knows when they are travelling with paul, the avid fisherman. We may find a cozy little stream, chocked full of enormous trout, and get waylayed for another week!
Missing you all very much!
xoxoxo, S&P