Dunedin 1 week in

We've been in town for a week now, busy, busy, busy looking for apartments, setting up bank accounts, Kate starting to do some work around the lab, me trying to sort out visa stuff….. and on and on.

Anyway, GOOD NEWS! We've got an apartment and we move in tomorrow! yeeeeeeah, its been 5 MONTHS since I've had a permanent residence and I'm pretty exited about it. No photos of the place, that's in a post to come soon.

Today we took a break and visited the beach. The beach is on the other side of town from us so we splurged on a bus ticket. So when I say "other side of town" I mean about 9km (5.5 miles), yeah Dunedin is tiny. So tiny we ended up walking all the way back to our place.

Lots of surfers out today

The obligatory sign post to far away places…..

Coffee. I realized I haven't had a coffee since arriving in town. This is a crime on many levels, but even more so because of Dunedin's reputation for good coffee. Most coffee is espresso based, or at home people either use a plunger (french press) or just rock instant grounds. I have yet to see an American style drip machine anywhere here, including at the shops.

This long black (americano) hit the spot.

Stumbled across the greatest park of my life:

A kids bike course for learning the road rules (I'll be on this once I get a bike)

A Whale (and a monster thing in the background)!

Dino Slide!

Time for bed!

Adelaide

I visited my old lab at the veterans hospital and had some time to kill so I wandered over to the second hand shop. It's run by a lovely but cantankerous gang of elderly ladies. The shop was closed for the holidays but I spotted this gem a sign on the window.

It raises so many fascinating questions: How do they know who stole it? Why can't they just get it back? Why won't they prosecute? Is $60 the average price for a mid-range wheelbarrow or are they attempting to upgrade? It has the makings of a thrilling episode of a British village crime show.

We went to McLaren Vale, 45 min from Adelaide and enjoyed getting reacquainted with delicious Australian wine and gorgeous vineyard views.


We've also been getting reacquainted with the burning heat of South Australia and the beaches. At 5pm the sun was still strong enough to give me a solid sunburn.

Brighton beach welcomed me home with a jellyfish sting for old time's sake. It's not that impressive looking (by the time I took this photo you could only see a faint red line) but it stung for a few hours and made me feel vital and reconnected with my wild and dangerous native land.

Costa Rica Part 2: Caribbean Cahuita

Cahuita is about 5 blocks of dusty roads, carribean restaurants, reggae bars, cabinas, stray dogs and the odd chicken; the shabby tropical state of decay and extremely laid-back vibe reminded me a lot of my childhood in West Africa. It was a great place to just switch off and have the luxury of trying to invent ways to kill time.

We first stayed at 'Cabinas Smith', in a nice clean room off a little courtyard, complete with a Rooster morning wake-up call. Across the yard was rickety old porch permanently occupied by a rickety old man and a middle-aged lady who slowly drawled the day away in the local creole english. Here's the porch, sans old man:


The town has 2 beaches: black and white. We visited black beach first, the waves were perfect for lazily splashing about.

We saw leaf cutter ants along the way:

The next day we hiked through Cahuita National Park, which contains the white beach and the first 2 animals we saw were a squirrel and a racoon, both common in Wisconsin so exciting but not mind blowing. Then came the monkeys.

The monkeys:


Our faces after seeing the monkeys:


We also saw Howler monkeys which have much uglier faces and make some pretty loud, scary grunting noises.

We decided to move to Spencer's Seaside Cabins that day to get a bit more of said Seaside and scored a private balcony in the process. Here's the view!

Not a moment too soon as Justin came down sick while relaxing in one of the many hammocks at Spencer's and went into old-style invalid mode, taking lots of clammy naps on the ocean-front balcony and under the mosquito net. Was it all the cheese we ate for lunch or Roberto's "special rice" full of unidentifiable seafood the night before? Perhaps we'll never know but the next morning I once again got to mangle some Spanish, this time at the Pharmacy. Luckily the lady put me on the phone with an English-speaking doctor and I triumphantly returned to Justin with meds plus some delicious pediatric electrolyte drinks. Look at the Teddy!