10/23/18: i become a sheep farmer (in my dreams)

Back to the sheep, just for another 500-10,000 words. There are SO MANY OF THEM. It is an unbelievable pleasure to come around a turn and see yet another 900,000 sheep and I’m not over it yet, even remotely. I haven’t gotten my courage up to pull over and try to get some of them to love me, largely because I am terrified they will not, but golly they are a pleasure to regard. The vast majority of them appear to be a variety called Corriedale, and I’ve got several websites to recommend if you’d like to know a LOT more about sheep. More importantly for our conversation, it’s apparently lambing/shearing season here, and thus the pastures are filled with shorn and unshorn sheep, as well as a bajillion little tiny lambs. The Corriedale aren’t particularly large sheep (I say confidently, based on my extensive knowledge of sheep), and their little tiny lambs are just the MOST precious. [insert heart eyes emoji here]

I met a lovely young woman in Twizle, who was from SoCal and had gone to Emerson College. I made a valiant effort to keep my tone light when I asked how she ended up HERE, but holy mother of motor oil I’ve only spent two days in NZ and I could name eight towns in which I’d rather live. Twizel is pretty but also…desolate? Desolate. She politely ignored my dropped jaw, and informed me that NZ has a one-year work visa, and therefore I am not coming back and will be staying in NZ (though not Twizel) to herd sheep for the next 365 days.

No, seriously.

Anyway, while I find the station that will hire an out-of-shape 42-year-old with no previous experience and a burning desire not to kill animals, I plan to continue to find amazing motorcycle roads, and so far NZ is delivering. A real highlight of the day today was the route from Wanaka down to Route 6 (fun fact: turns out this was the Crown Range Road and I rode it without realizing!)—all y’all who ride with me would be amazed at how much better I’ve gotten about the heights thing. This road had lots of curves through all sorts of gorgeous landscapes and then a bunch of nasty switchbacks descending into the valley. The tightest were marked at 20 km/hour, and it was super fun taking the inside lane on the ones that went to the left. Despite the F700 having a wheelbase some 6.5 inches longer than the S3, I don’t notice the difference and am finding the bike very well balanced and nimble. I also discovered that yesterday, Monday, was “Labour” Day here, hence the traffic; today, Tuesday, I was able to spend a lot more time in 5^th and 6^th gear. 😊

A few pictures from today, and then I must run: I have a date to see the little blue penguins come ashore after a hard day’s work fishing and doing whatever else penguins do. (Aside: one must purchase a ticket to see the little blue penguins make their nightly pilgrimage back to their nests. There are two options: a general admission ticket and a premium admission ticket and every one of you who knows me knows my finger didn’t hesitate, even for a moment.)

First order of business: order a cheesy scone and these blessed people will both heat it up AND serve it with butter. I also asked for a coffee and am starting to wonder if coffee itself is maybe not actually a thing here? I was in an actual coffee shop (I mean, the name was "Urban Grind"), and when I said "Coffee," the nice lady looked at me in puzzlement and said "You mean, a flat white?" So I had a flat white. 

Here are two views of the scary road--one includes MC for scale and the other shows a bit of the view going down into the valley with Mordor or whatever mountains those are in the distance. 

This little stop-off was advertised as a boat launch with restrooms, so I pulled in (for the restroom, that is). Imagine my delight to discover it's ALSO a place to do donuts! And here's me with no easy access to another back tire so...no burnouts. :( 

Finally, BREAKING NEWS: I *just* got an email from the penguins and it's amazing--these penguins are like rock stars! I'm planning to reply to say the details are wrong and I'm expecting 10-15,000 penguins, and I'm hoping like heck every one of them sashays ashore flipping their hair back and complaining about the brown M&Ms.