Hope all is well there at Cane Creek! We are fine and autumn's chill is definitely here. There was more snow on the hills yesterday!

Well, it's less than a month before my visit back to Orange County. I'm looking forward to receiving my Mother's Day hug from Johnathan and seeing all of you!

I finished my real estate course and thankfully have passed. I plan to start work as soon as I return from my trip. Things are done differently down here and it will be very interesting.

About 3 weeks ago Don decided he'd like to go for a drive down to the Catlins, which is about 2 hrs. away from where we live. 12 hours later we returned home. Don's idea about sight seeing is let's see how far we can drive and still get back home in time to see the rugby game on TV. I keep telling him that hotel's have TV's, but he's not listening too well.

The Catlins are a very pretty area, very wild and not too many houses or towns. There's only one gas station with about a 2hr. drive to the next pump. There were several waterfalls located out in the forest and the bird song was beautiful. The native birds sound different from what I'm used to back in NC. They have a different pitch that's not real "chirpy", with very distinct punctuated notes and tones.

We also went to a neat lighthouse perched on a headland. I made it to within a 100 yards and then I couldn't walk across the last little bit leading up to the structure. I'm trying really hard with all this adventure stuff, but sometimes I just "whimp" out. We then made our way to the petrified forest, which can only be seen at low tide. It's around 180 million years old. The trees are all lying down and have been covered and recovered several times with various amount of ash from volcanic eruptions.

Lastly we made our way down to the very bottom of the South Island to a little town called "Bluff". It was the end of Hwy 1 and had a great sign with pointers showing the various distances to locations around the world. My batteries died in my digital camera and I couldn't take a photo. Bluff is famous for it's oysters, so we stopped at a cafe had an early supper got in the car and headed back to Dunedin. It was a nice trip and I hope you enjoy the photos.

Take care and I can't begin to tell you how much I'm looking forward to attending church at Cane Creek and visiting with all of you.

Love to all and God Bless,

Cindy
CindyMc@canecreek.org
May 9, 2005

Nugget Point Lighthouse & Islands.	On The Way to Nugget Point.
Peaceful Waters.	Matal Falls.
McLean Falls.	Purakaunui Falls.
Niagara Falls (A Pioneer's Joke).	Petrified forest 180 million yrs old.