a long over-due entry

hi friends,

it feels much longer ago than a week since we were in hawaii and now we are much, much further from home. we are currently in nelson, which is a smallish town on the south island of new zealand. our next host will pick us up on tuesday to take us to their farm in cissy bay, which is in the marlborough sounds area (prime wine country, well-known for their sauvignon blancs). we enjoyed a beautiful summer day here--sunny with very low humidity, which was a welcome change from the muggy fiji weather (not complaining by the way). we'll be at this farm for about two weeks and the lifestyle sounds much more laid back than the previous farm. if anyone is interested in checking out the farm the website is: cairnhill.ws

so after we left kona on the big island we ended up in the honolulu airport for a very sleepless night spent on the airport floor. the next morning we flew to nadi, fiji and were instantly blasted by hot, humid air as we walked off the plane. we were there during the off-season and our "resort" was all but deserted--i think one day the handful of other guests had all gone into town and we were the only ones on the property. it was kind-of weird until we realized it was awesome. we had the pool to ourselves (the ocean water was about 90 degrees so the pool was much more refreshing). we had planned to just hang out at the this resort for the two days we were there until some other guests highly recommended checking out one of the smaller islands. the location of our resort was not straight out of one of those gorgeous pictures you typically see of fiji, but that was okay with us. but after looking into the tours we decided on a day cruise to a 6.5 acre island called mala mala--and it was by far the highlight of our time in fiji. it was ridiculous--there were only four other people on the tour with us--a couple from canada and a couple from australia and they were lots of fun. we went on two guided snorkeling adventures, which were amazing!! we even saw a white tip shark--the guide advised us to just say "bula!" to the shark if we saw it b/c it's harmless ("bula" means "hello" in their language). i also saw a stingray briefly but it quickly swam under some coral, which was fine as i wasn't too keen on it sticking around for long anyway. the tour crew prepared a fabulous meal for us and challenged us to a scrappy game of sand volleyball before heading back to the main island.

then we arrived in auckland on feb. 12th and made it safely to the home of the mom of a friend of tom's (got that?) who is working in the city for about 16 months or so. she lives in a really cool part of the city called ponsonby. she was extremely hospitable and we felt very fortunate to have to opportunity to spend time with her. we had one very nice day in the city just wandering around and taking the ferry to another part of the city called devenport. it rained most of the next day, but we forged ahead with our plan to take the ferry to a nearby island called waiheke where there are about 30 vineyards and some very nice beaches. in our soggy state we still managed to visit a couple of wineries for some lovely wine tastings and we found a funkalicious cafe where we escaped the rain a couple of times. and, go figure, the sun graced us just as we were leaving the island :) it was a great day regardless--beautiful scenery for sure.

we'll hopefully have some wi-fi available at the next farm so i should be able to send some updates over the next couple of weeks. i'll send the links to the most recent facebook albums soon. with much love....jill