We are not chefs, just boys

Well I can't really believe its November, it came so much sooner than we thought. Its slightly weird that a month filled with cold, falling leaves (have they fallen) and thanksgiving is a sunny paradise here. I'm not really sure where we left off on the blog, so we'll start from last weekend. Curt is here and is fitting into the Picton lifestyle marvelously. Jay was working last weekend so I showed him the sites around the area. We had a delightful time together that included the discovery of Monkey Bay, which is a little wave cut bay that is a climbers playground. Seriously it has everything, caves, overhang and slab with no need for a crash pad because of the sand below. Pretty sweet.

Oh yeah very important! There are waves in Robin Hood Bay! This is one of two surf spots that we can get to without driving over an hour south, needless to say were pretty pumped to see some waist high splooger bombs. Although it is close, it is not easy to get to. You have to drive 10k on mountainous gravel road that pushes the chitlin to the max. For real, if you don't drive maniacally fast to get some air into the engine, the car over heats, and the 20k ride ends up taking you two hours. But that said, it keeps the bay very desolate, which is already is picturesque as is, with turquoise water wrapped in lush hills. Hopefully we will get a chance to surf it this week. I picked up a board in Kaikora on Sunday, and although its hard to justify spending a large portion of my net wealth on something that really has no practical application, nothing makes me physically happier than surfing. The board is also very me, it is a 6' 0" twinner retrofish, with a slightly ridiculous paint job. Can't wait to shed the gnar!

Actually, on the way back from Kaikora, two pretty incredible things happened. The first being witness to one of natures most bazaar events(well, we think its bazaar). We stopped off on the 1 to do a little hike to a waterfall, probably about a half mile in through the woods. We got there, the waterfall was spectacular, but we were more surprised by the presence of seals. In the middle of the rocky woods, a half mile from shore, the not so graceful seal had made the trek to play in the waterfall. There were actually more seals here in the woods, than at the seal colony we visited a few hours prior It was very fitting seeing that Jay was joking about mountain seals all day, but it was seriously an amazing event. Planet Earth would totally do a special on it.
Also on the way home, but not as spectacular, we visited one of our future surf spots. It’s a 500m point break, that is back dropped by snowcapped mountains. I really can’t imagine the mountains being any closer, it’s a unique place.

At home we are planting a garden, spearheaded by Mr. Romanchucks weeding. We are gonna try to grow the basics, beans, corn, tomatoes, peppers and basil. We already have some basil growing, so hopefully the others will come along nicely as well. We are also looking into getting some chickens, as they make delightful household pets! But really, we found a coup in the backyard and with a little work we could have a miniature farm in our backyard, very organic.
So the Chitlin unfortunately hasn't been fairing to well. It sounds like shes about to take a mechanical dump, kinda like Sean's Astro van before it died. But being the keen mechanics we are, we decided to get the oil changed...try to do it ourselves. Things got off to a quick start. It took more than 20 minutes for three of us to find the fucking dipstick. But once located, we found that the car was critically low on oil. And although we never technically changed the oil, because we couldn't get the damn oil plug out, we did add oil, and now she runs and sounds 10 times better. Raging success!

So yeah, I guess it seems we are really settling in here. At night we usually have some NZ brew and play music, and we work during the day. I hate my boss, hes a dick but thats ok. It’s starting to get really nice out, which I hear is the opposite of what is happening at home. I can't really think of anything else to write right now, but its probably a bit long as it is.

I miss all of you alot. Keep in touch amigos! I'll throw on the pictures tomorrow the library is closing.