Why did you read this book? I remembered enjoying it as a kid, and I thought Jeremy might enjoy the wacky Australian-ness.
Has Jeremy read it? Yes.
42-word review: A swagman, a koala and a penguin alternately try to protect and rescue their unending, flavour-changing magic pudding. I remembered more wacky hijinks and fewer songs. It still had some amusing parts, but I was glad it was quite a short book.
Overall rating: 3 puddin’ thieves (out of 5)
Red-billed gull chicks at the Royal Albatross Centre, Taiaroa Head (I didn’t get this close to any albatross).
[I thought New Zealand Fortnight would be a good time to report on all the things we gave a go in New Zealand]
Why? Part of New Zealand’s charm is that it contains numerous geographical features that are not usually found together in one country, including glaciers. There are two famous glaciers on the west coast that you can hike on: Fox and Franz Josef. Unfortunately, Franz Josef glacier has receded to the point that you can only reach it by helicopter. We did think about doing the more adventurous heli-hike, but it didn’t seem worth the additional cost (and we’ve been in helicopters before–once while I was flying it!), so we just did the half-day hike. It turned out to be rainy, so the helicopters wouldn’t have flown anyway.
How did it go? It was fun! The glacier definitely looks more impressive when you’re on it, and it was cool to see different features like crevasses and tunnels relatively close up. The guides had carved out a path for the half-day hikes that went past a couple of different features, and we got to walk through a kind of fissure in the ice. I was a little jealous of the full-day hikers we saw who didn’t have to stick to a pre-marked path on the ice, so they could go looking for cooler features like ice tunnels (they also got full crampons, instead of half-shoe ones).
Would you do it again? I probably wouldn’t hike on just any glacier again. But, if we were near an especially impressive one, where we’d be able to walk through ice tunnels or something, I’d be interested.
Hanging valleys, Milford Sound
Here are some unexpectedly beautiful things:
1. Bird flight paths (via FlowingData):
2. Poetic gems buried among the illiterate rubbish that fills youtube comment threads.
3. Bento-box art of a used-car lot (from this post, which contains many more conventionally cute lunch artworks). 
Also, here are some more conventionally adorable things:
1. A puppy chasing her leash
Milford Sound
[First in a series. If we keep this up, it’s worth thinking about why we are doing it.]
Reason #1: We have a soft spot for the medium. After all, it’s how we met.
There were seas of gorgeous lupins all along the road to Milford Sound.
Why did you read this book? As noted, a goal for 2014 is to read 24 books related to personal growth. I tend to be averse to these books because they look hokey when I see them on the shelf, and yet I rarely regret reading them afterward. Anyway, one of the department stores here has a whole “goals stationery” section that got me thinking about all this, and they had this book also sitting on the shelf as a suggested impulse buy. (What I actually did was pull out my iPad and buy the book for my Kindle, but still the store had the right idea marketing-wise.)
Has Beckie read it? Yes, long time ago.
42 word review: Useful on the whole. Good writing; insightful about their experiences, accompanied by many asides to research and quotes. Sometimes gets bogged down by excessive personal narrative and repasted blog comments. Also has such a privleged life already, can be hard to relate.
A sampling quotes I found useful:
Overall rating: 4 yearlong stunts (out of 5)
Traffic on the road from Te Anau to Milford Sound.
