It was a very clear night, for once, earlier this week. Lately the unseasonable weather has kept the sky overcast, and its been cool and rainy. Monday it was downright cold, with a noon high in Winton of 3 degrees C. on the clock downtown. But we had at least one "fine" day on Wednesday, and that night I went out to the shed for wood about 11 oclock. The Milky Way was brilliant across the sky, with the Southern Cross and the other constellations I don't know visible. This was the best night for viewing I have seen since we've arrived, and I took a few minutes to look up. The Greater and Lesser Magellanic clouds, satellite galaxies of our own great whirlpool were easilty visible, shining in the South. And this got me thinking about humility. This experience has reminded me daily of my "place in the universe", as Vicki calls it. In the clinic, I'm daily talking with 80 and 90 year old patients. They have been reflecting back on their lives, what it has meant, and sharing how they deal with the surprise of waking up each morning at their advanced ages. And then there is the immensity of this New Zealand landscape: the power and size of the ocean, the force of the winds, the towering hills and mountains, combined with the age and luminosity of the starry dome above to put me in my place. It is hard to express these feelings without seeming trite: "we are only very small, and only here for a short time", etc. But I admit I was thinking (smugly) about how this was good for me, how it was helping me to reduce stress by putting things into perspective, how great this was to be here and know my place in the universe.

Which is why my hard drive crashed the next day. Not the hard drive on my older back-up laptop that I brought. No, the hard drive on my new, 9 months old Dell Latititude. The one with about 300 pictures on it, taken since we arrived in Winton, that WERE NOT BACKED UP YET. The one with all my work and passwords and notes on it. Just dead. The machine wouldn't boot and the drive just clicked and clacked. 3 hours work downloading the Dell diagnostics disk on the other machine and testing the machine confirmed the problem. Dead drive, no way to resurrect it. I even tried freezing the hard disk for awhile. No joy.

This is one of those times when you just have a sick feeling in the pit of the stomach for a day or so. Never being good at facing reality, I have looked at costs of data retreival services. Yes, they do work. They got back 100% of the Columbia's hard drive. But the cost would be about $1000 any way you look at it. So time for some hard facts. The pictures are gone. Thank goodness I have posted a bunch to this site. I've asked people at home to back the site up so I don't lose those too. And I did back up my laptop (5 GB of data) at home before I left, so I haven't lost all my teaching files. But I am going to have to let the pictures go.

And again learn that important life lesson. You can't hold on to anything. The Buddist lesson: everything changes, all is impermanent. So to get attached to things or ideas; like "the idea that I was going to have 1000 great pictures of this trip to cherish forever and ever", is to just invite pain.

So yesterday we drove up to Wanaka, and then up the Matukituki river valley to Raspberry Flats (love that name). This was a great drive, in the rain, through a huge, glacial valley. There were waterfalls pouring down from the heights everywhere, "9 cattleguards in the next 20 km" as the sign told us, and 5 streams to ford with the car. At the carpark, we put on our raingear and set off to visit the Rob Roy Glaciers. This was described as a "gentle tramp". Which means, I gather, that you don't have to use your hands all the time to go up, as in a "steep tramp". It was 4 hours and 7 miles round trip. But definately a walk through the Misty Mountains of Middle Earth: huge tree roots, a roaring stream, and at the top the bright blue hanging glaciers above the cirque. I had hoped to see Keas on the tramp, but they were too smart to come out in the rain. But I enjoyed the walk, and tried hard to stay in the moment. Because the moment is all we ever have.

Now excuse me please, while I log off and call Dell, to send me a new hard drive. It may be awhile before there are any more pictures on this blog.

It wouldn't be a trip to New Zealand without a rugby game. Now I'm certainly not a "keen" sports fan, and I'm the last one to teach you the difference between the All Blacks, the All Whites, Black Caps and the Blues. But the local chemist kindly invited me and the girls to accompany him to the season opener of the Southland Highlanders rugby team. Unfortunately, no one can plan for the weather. We have been having very unseasonable cold and rainy weather here for February, and after the severe drought in January, we are now very close to having the local farmers complaining about TOO MUCH rain. (But at least we aren't as bad off as the poor folks on the North Island, who have been flooded out. Daily we see pictures of homes and cars filled with two feet of mud, rivers washing out bridges, "landslips", and stock washing away in the currents.) So we ended up attending our first rugby match in about 14-15 degree C. weather, with howling wind and rain. The stadium stands have a back, but we were uncovered. I had made Vicki buy a nice raincoat earlier in the week, and we took trashbags to put over our knees. But frankly, cotton clothes do not cut it in weather like this. I had on a pair of warm-ups under my jeans, 3 layers on top all under my nice gore-tex hip-length raincoat. Lesson learned: you need polypropylene "thermals" in this climate. But a little suffering while watching the game really puts you in the right mood anyway.

That's because, out on the playing field, there is a lot of suffering going on. Not that any of the players are going to let on. The game consists of two 40 minute halves, and there were only two stoppages for injuries, and in neither case was there a substitution. Geoff, the chemist, explained that mostly these were a ruse to buy a little time and regroup. The goal of rugby is to move the ball quickly down field by running or kicking. You cannot pass the ball forward in any way. So you pass it laterally or backwards. The receiver then charges up field until he slams into a defender. The SMACK of the bodies colliding is the sound I will most long remember from my first game.. There was no blood on the field that I could see, but that may have just been a function of all the blowing rain. There should have been blood. Lots of it. These guys wear no padding or helmets. And there is a reason that they call two of the major types of play a "maul" and a "ruck". Cause that is what the players do to each other. As you can imagine, it was GREAT fun. A very fast game mostly, with lots of action. As a viewer, you need to really watch where the ball is going. And there is nothing like the sight of one of YOUR guys sliding on his belly and hydroplaning into the end zone to complete a try. And oh yes, by the way, our guys WON.

Saturday the rain continued heavily, so we mostly did some shopping in Winton and stayed around the house. It has been cold enough here to need to keep the wood stove burning most of the time, to heat the house. But on Sunday, I prevailed upon the girls to drive up to Te Anau. This is a drive to the northwest, up the river valleys about 1.5 hours from Winton. Most of the drive is through farmland, past some more of NZ's 39 million (recent census) sheep. But some of it is past the Takitimu mountains, and over some tussockland into Te Anau. The small town is the headquarters for Fiordland National Park, and it is quite small- mostly an outpost for backpackers and trampers, as compared to the resort atmosphere in Queenstown. I had wanted to hike along the shore of Lake Te Anau, a deep glacial lake nestled in the mountains. The first part of the Kepler track (one of the Great Walks) has one of the only two examples of mature red beech forest left in the world, the other being in Patagonia. We drove to the start of the track and ate lunch in the car during a brief but heavy rain shower. Once this passed over, we crossed the control gates of the lake, and walked 5 km through the forest to Brod Bay. This is a fabuous forest, with a very open understory, unlike most New Zealand "bush" which is usually impenetrable. The forest was filled alternately with huge ferns, thick green moss, tree ferns, or occaisonally a segment of understory full of moss, a "goblin forest". Its a fun walk because the forest changes every 5 minutes from one type to another. All the time, you can hear the waves breaking on the lakeshore 20 meters away. The red beech are a beautiful tree, many of them I figured are 600-800 years old. We arrived at Brod Bay and had a quick bite of dessert on the beach (quick due to the sandflies deciding WE looked like dessert to them). I hiked up another 5 minutes to look at the climb from Brod Bay up to Mount Luxmore. I would dearly love to walk the Kepler track, but I'm just not sure I can physically do it with a pack- its very steep and a climb of 800 meters in about 5-6 hours. We'll see. We walked back through the forest, hopped in the car, and scooted home in time for New Zealand Idol, our Sunday night family obsession. Its kinda hokey, but a kick to watch together. And if this weather keeps up, we may know all the New Zealand commercials before we come home. (Did you know the female breast vertically bounces 8 cm without a sports bra, and only 4 cm with one? There are some very graphic commercials here you will NEVER see in Superbowl-shocked America!).