Happy Everybody's Irish Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day from Dunedin!! Although Dunedin is 11,913 miles away from Dublin, the neighborhood St. Patrick's Day festivities would suggest we are in Ireland.  St. Patty's Day is almost as big here as in the U.S. but unfortunately no one has heard of corned beef and cabbage as a holiday tradition.  With the help of google and Mama Bennett, I hope to change that in about 2 hours.  Anyway, moving forward and looking back now....

I had promised a wild weekend filled with interesting foods in my last post and I'm pleased to report my expectations were far exceeded at the Wild Foods Festival this past Friday through Sunday on the west coast of NZ.  Foods I ate included but are not limited to: live huhu grubs, shark, ostrich, tree root, scorpion, cow colostrum, and lamb.  If someone came up to me now and offered me a live grub they just wrastled up out of a log, I would politely decline, but while at the festival you get so caught up in the mindset of trying new and weird things and peer pressure that the grub suddenly seems no worse than my mom forcing me to take a bite of cauliflower.  Since I try to keep this a family friendly site, I'll omit a few details on what it was like to eat a living grub but I will tell you it tasted like crunchy, dirty, water.  Not delicious, but if I had to choose between the grub or plucking my leg hairs, the grub wins by a mile.  The atmosphere at the festival was a blast as well.  The usually  sleepy town of Hokitika was transformed to a buzzing place of music, partying, and people dressed in costumes.  I have fond memories of Ronald McDonald sward fighting with a pirate while waiting in line to get in. Our 16 member group made a strong showing while dressed as dominoes as well.  After the festivities were over, we headed down to the beach to swim and watch the sunset at the end of an uncharacteristically gorgeous day.  At nightfall fires flickered as far as I could see down the beach in either direction as the moonlight reflected off the ocean.
We woke up early and took an alternate route down the west coast of New Zealand and then across through Central Otago.  Never has a car ride felt so much like the destination.  The entirety of the ride weaved in through the mountains and then back out to the coast.  Two hours after we packed up from our campsite on the beach in Hokitika we were hiking our way up to Frans Josef Glacier, New Zealand's biggest.  Then an hour after leaving the glacier we were back overlooking cliffs and sandy beaches*.  Really bizarre.  Probably my favorite time of the weekend came when we were jamming out to Jamiriquai with mountains all around and an emerald lake and trees with leaves changing colors right beside us.  I had several giddy, "I'm in New Zealand!" moments.  The typically 8 hour drive took 14 due to our frequent stops.
This weekend the gang heads out early Friday for a weekend in Fjordland National Park.  More stories to come and love to you all.

*Second picture in the post brought to you by my flatmate Andrew. His superior photography skills and camera captured the scene better than anything I could dish up.