Lately there has been a lot of trash talk going on in the comments section casually dismissing  my complaints about the weather down here. Implying that I am some kind of a mama's cry baby weenie boy which anybody who has ever met me knows to be mostly totally untrue.  And you know who you are.  Yes it's you Bob and I am calling you out on this. Why just a few weeks ago there was such a monster storm here that the driftwood was pushed up to within 50 yards of my house which is two whole blocks from the beach.  So as a now  hardened "West Coaster"  did I hunker down whimpering pitifully  in my soon to be swept away shoe box house?  No indeed.  I waited for high tide then drove 30 miles up the serpentine coast road  through the raging deluge to Pancake Rock Park where the land  juts way out into the Tasman Sea just to watch huge waves explode on the lime stone cliffs then travel through a network of underground sea caves to series of blow holes causing towers of sea water geysers to erupt 100 yards or more inland.  Of course I froze my ass off but a man's got to do what a man's got to do.   This is the same thinking - or lack there of - that convinced me it was a good idea to quick run to the all picture widow  glassed in 7th floor sky bridge at St Lukes Hospital to try to catch a glimpse of the killer tornado tearing up Cedar Rapids, Iowa 35 years ago.  Also last week I googled the wettest place in New Zealand and it's not Milford Sound which everybody says is so rainy but a place called Cobb River about 20 miles south of Greymouth were 2 years ago they had  an officially measured 18 meters of rain.  18 METERS....That's more than 50 feet of rain in one year.  I rest my case

OK  I'll admit that the weather has been a little better the last few weeks so I was able to do a little fly fishing.  If I say so myself I got pretty good at it.  I had tons of practice  perfecting my casting technique without the periodic annoying interruptions of haveing to take fish off the line.  Next time I think I'll work on the catching part.

Also last weekend I drove way down south to spend two days on a boat cruising through Doubtfull Sound which the locals say is much better but also less accessable than the more popular Milford Sound.  The weather was unusually clear without a cloud in the sky the whole trip.  The sound is more accurately a fjord and we wound our way through it's narrow passages for 2 days amoung snow capped peaks out to the Tasman Sea and back.  Very cool and very beautiful. I even went in for a 1 and 1/2 second jump in swim (peer pressure sucks) We saw seals and peguins and my favorite - Kea parrots along the way. On the way back to Greymouth while drving past Franz Joseph Glacier the weather was still unheard of clear so I got a helicoper ride up over the glaiciers and around Mt Cook.  The sun was almost painfuly bright on the new fallen snow.  It was stunningly beautiful.  We landed on the glacier for 1/2 hour or so.  The snow was too hard to make snow angels but I did start a snow ball fight.  Then on the road again back to Grymouth and gathering dark clouds and rain as I entered town.

This will likely be my last official entry from New Zealand.  Tomorrow I am leaving Greymouth to drive to Christchurch to ship my priceless dirty clothes and other very important stuff  home, transfer all my hard earned money back to the states (the 63 cents US per NZ dollar is killing me) and sell my trusty car,  The next day I'll be jeting over the Tasmin Sea to Australia for a few days on a boat out of Carins scaba diving on the The Great Barrier Reef then, God willing and the creeks don't rise, down to Sydney to do some sailing and catch a performance at the Syndney opera house Then on that long miserable 18  hour minus one day flight to the US and, with any luck at all, back to the welcoming bosom of my loving wife who hopefully has yet to realize that her life is so much better with me on the other side of the world

But stay tuned for one more blog from Australia and then after I get home on the 25th  or so I'll down load all my cell phone and camera pictures for all your oooing and ahhhing pleasure.

Go Goats!

Dr Jay