So far we have had a very lovely, laid back trip. We don’t have long days of driving and stay at each destination for two nights. Weather has varied between beautiful days to pouring rain.
I have taken photos as we go. I’ll post up a few here. Looking forward to getting home and seeing our fur guys. We always misss the four of them when away. They are such a large part of our lives but all are in good hands.
A fun Mexican restaurant we ate at in Christ Church. Dahlias in a Botanical gardens in Timaru.Botanical gardens in Dunedin. They are known for their giant rhododendron treesPresbyterian cathedral in DunedinMonapouri sunset on west coast.
Arrived into Queenstown last night to a very rainy welcome but it has since cleared up.
View from our room.
Tomorrow we head to Lake Topako then back to Christchurch. They had a 4+ earthquake the day after we left so we didn’t feel it but I understand people there felt it. Not an experience I aspire to.
Mr Penguin finished Yeomi Park’s book, While Time Remains and is now in my possession. I look forward to reading it. Will be back in touch.
I might add I gave up on Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. I’m sure it is an interesting, well written book to have won a Booker but the tale is extremely convoluted and violent from the point of view of a dead man. I will attend the book club meeting to hear about it but just not the book for me while enjoying travels and needs more concentration than I am willing to give at this time.
We have arrived. Christ Church is a lovely city. Tomorrow we pick up a car and begin circle of the south island. I will try to post but as it is a rainy day there is time. Not sure if the weather becomes gorgeous. 😀🐧
Just sharing some photos with captions today.
Enjoyed the tram loop around the city.Rainy day street photography with the phone.No idea who the man is. A wonderful book store. In front of the book store.
Mr Penguin picked up this book. I met her at the Sydney Writers festival years ago and was so impressed. Her first book is simply amazing of her escape from North Korea. We both admire her so much.
Time for afternoon tea.
Mr Penguin is happy to have found a newspaper.Afternoon tea. Decadence encapsulated. Mfudgy brownie with a berry syrupy fill inside, cream and hokey pokey gelatoNeed I say more?The gelato has a dog walking event. We saw it last night. About 50 dogs. Then hey all get treated to doggie gelato. The recipe is: blend together peanut butter, banana and cocoanut milk in a blender then freeze. I will have to try this with our dogs. I think they would love it.
This won’t be long as there is much to do this week. We leave on a two week driving holiday of the south island of New Zealand before too long. First time out of the country for me since 2019. Looking forward to it.
I will definitely be focusing on photography while there and hopefully will have a photo or two to share when I return.
So what else has been going on? I am about to begin the book The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka. Our book group will be discussing this in April. It won the 2022 Booker Prize. It looks interesting but might be quite the complex read.
The Amazon blurb reads as:
An epic, searing satire by Sri Lanka’s coolest author.
“Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida, war photographer, gambler and closet queen, has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the serene Beira lake and he has no idea who killed him. At a time where scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts with grudges who cluster round can attest. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has seven moons to try and contact the man and woman he loves most and lead them to a hidden cache of photos that will rock Sri Lanka.
Ten years after his prizewinning novel Chinaman established him as one of Sri Lanka’s foremost authors, Shehan Karunatilaka is back with a mordantly funny, searing satire. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida is a state-of-the-nation epic that proves yet again that the best fiction offers the ultimate truth.”
I am also listening to something much lighter in David Sedaris’s latest, Happy Go Lucky. The Times says this about it:
“Could there be a more delightful American import than the memoirist David Sedaris? Not since the peanut butter and jelly sandwich have we inherited something so sweet and comforting yet so wickedly naughty.”
I went south of Hobart yesterday to a grotty old beach to metal detect. I didn’t find anything much, mostly trash, but had a good couple of hours listening to this book on the drive there and back. I was laughing out loud in the car.
The only other bookish news I have is I got into Fuller’s monthly poetry class. They will meet towards the end of the month for 2 hours. I am not familiar with the facilitators of the group but know the group was very popular last year. I was on a waiting list all year last year but managed to get squeezed in this year. I don’t know a lot about poetry other than what I learned in school last century😃. It will all be new for the most part so I’ll let you know how it goes. I don’t know if the shared reading of a book is happening this year. The facilitator just had a baby and is a bit busy.
That catches you up a bit so I will leave you with a couple of photos, one of the tourist trade here and one of our beaches.
This is a favourite. Tourists sitting at the Hobart waterfront, one of the most beautiful places in the world, enjoying the scenery. I could hardly believe it.
Travellin' Penguin 