Here we go again...

Hi, Everybody! Before we begin to describe what was YESTERDAY'S adventure, some housekeeping. 1. For about 6 hours there, we had a picture posted of our friend Scott from Washington, DC. He had, on New Years Eve, decided to shave his head, and there was a picture of him almost bald except for one little tuft in the front. It was adorable and some of you even got to comment on it. Alas, we had to take it down, as the person who PROVIDED us the picture didn't have Scott's permission to POST it online, and so until we get said permission, it is stuck on our hard drive, waiting to be let out to run rampant all over cyberspace. If that happens, I'll be sure to cut-and-paste the comments back, so nothing will be missed.

2. Anyone who has a blog on "Blogger" or "Blogspot.com" (same thing): What the hell, Dude? They've been hounding us for weeks to 'change over' to this new format that claims to be way better and more convenient than the old one. Finally, last week, we changed over, and it is much less convenient now. This very post, the one that you're about to read about our lunchtime beachside adventure was posted yestedray, in great detail, only to be lost when we tried to format our pictures correctly. This is NOT COOL, Google-based-blogger, and you'll be getting an angry letter from us very soon. Grrrr....

Okay, with that out of the way, we're going to do our best to recreate the unbelievably witty post we had yesterday. Our roommates, Leigh and Jason, were nice enough to loan us the cute little Nissan Figaro we've posted a picture of before. So we started out going south to get to the coast (little map of Wellington here. The peninsula we travelled is the little hammer-looking one that Cobham Drive runs along). We got to the coast in about 5 minutes. That's the funny thing about Wellington, I don't think we've gone a day without seeing the sea since we got here, and yet in 10 minutes on FOOT, you could be in the bush. Pretty unique.

Anyway, we kept the Pacific to our right and drove past Lyall Bay and Moa Point. Then the road curved us east and north until we got to Breaker Bay, and then past some really nice houses in a suburb called Seatoun. Twisting and turning our way (with Baby G taking pictures out of the roof of a moving car the whole time!) north even more, we decided to stop for lunch at a little cafe called the Chocolate Fish, where, if you're lucky enough to get a table on the beach, the servers have to run ACROSS THE STREET to get your food to you, as the actual cafe itself is on the other side of the road. We each got lunch and a couple smoothies, and then continued up and around, past Scotching Bay and Kau, finally to head South all the way along Shelly Bay Rd. until we got back home. The whole trip took us a little over two hours, and it was really relaxing and nice.

Also, it was good to get some practice driving on the left, as we are taking a trip next week up north past Auckland to the beaches up there, and to do so we are renting a car for the way up. We'll post more about that on Monday, as it'll be the day AFTER the music festival Leigh and Jason are taking us to and the day BEFORE we leave for the Northland. Details to follow, in the meantime, enjoy these pictures! They are slightly out of order, as "New" Blogger doesn't do things nearly as well as "Old" Blogger did, but you already heard about it.

Dizzle's chair at the Chocolate Fish. Painted to look like "Where the Wild Things Are". There was another one at the table next to us painted from the "Mr. Happy" books. They all had little poems or quotes on the backs as well.

This is the sidewalk sign at the Fish. One day, we're going to call and ask when they close, just for the laugh we'll get from whatever they say.

Our view from the table at lunch, looking back to the restaurant. Note the food runners in the back left...they wear orange vests that glow in headlights so they don't get, you know, run over and stuff on the way to a table.

This was taken at the beginning of the afternoon -- Lyall Bay into the Pacific. You have no idea how many views there are that are this beautiful all over the place. We are truly lucky to have seen such sights all afternoon.

Rev J. has a thing for lighthouses, and so Dizzle asked BG to snap a quick shot of this one. It's in the center of the frame, and is very tiny, bu this was the best zoom we could get. Also, towards the beginning, we think this is on the south end of the peninsula.

The food at the Chocolate Fish looked so good, we had to take a picture before we dug in. BG: Mixed fruit smoothie and a dish called the "Big Daddy", which was scrambled eggs and cheese and bacon, in a giant bowl with toast. DZ: Tropical fruit smoothie with a panini sandwich of bacon, cheese, tomato and hash browns with hollandaise, sweet chili sauce and sour cream. Yum!

This was our view looking out over Karaka Bay AT lunch. Seriously, while we ate, this is what we got to look at. The barge-ish boat in the center is called the InterIslander, and it is what travels back and forth to the South Island with people, cars, and cargo. We'll take that puppy sometime in the autumn (March-ish) and post pictures from inside. In the meantime, trust us when we tell you that the vessel is HUGE!

More coast, taken from towards the end of the afternoon. This is of downtown Wellington from across Evan's Bay, so we were already headed back south at this point.

Finally, a picture of the road. It was narrow. :)

Missing you all a ton. We can't remember if we ever mentioned the whole in the OZone here, but there is one, and so we're both sunburned and applying SPF 30+ daily. How's YOUR January?

Love,

BG&D