Changes in Latitudes

We drove out from Lake Wanaka and past Lake Hawea towards Tarras. Tarras was put on the map in 2004 when " Shrek the Sheep " was found in a cave, having avoided being sheared for six years! He became quite the sensation, being taken on tour before eventually being sheared in front of 200 people and on live television. There we stopped in the little store for some small souvenirs and an ice cream. Continuing on we stopped at a town called Twizel to get some information on Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park and the dark sky reserve. This part of New Zealand has the world's largest dark sky reserve, which boasts the best stargazing...we decided to not stay the night though since we had some amazing nights before that. When we got to Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park we got some advice on how to not take too long of a hike but also get some great views. The little known trail, Red Tarns, was recommended to us and we were happy we did it. From the top we had a great view of A...

From Greymouth we drove south along the west coast of New Zealand. This was the only day we had bad weather. The rain poured pretty hard, and I was a little bummed because Mount Aspiring National Park was what I was really excited to see and get in some nice hiking, but we still stopped along the way through the park for short (30 min) walks in the rain. The road that goes through the park is called the Haast Highway ...our stops included Fantail Falls, Blue Pools (not pictured), and Makaroa before we called it a day. [Rain on the GoPro ...looking at Franz Josef glacier] [cairns in front of Fantail Falls] [Marius adding his cairn] [We are big fans of picnic lunches when we're on a road trip] [soup, bread, cheese, rice crackers, hummus and coffee] [Entering Mount Aspiring National Park] [We were supposed to see Aoraki/Mount Cook really well from this side, but the clouds did not let us] [Cell phone service is really spotty and often nonexist...

Day three we woke up not feeling 100%. We had been eaten alive by sandflies, were not too comfy in our tent set up (Marius' legs were sticking out of the end), and we just weren't feelin' it. But it was the last day, the last 10 kms, the last hours in Abel Tasman. We packed up, the sun was shining and it was yet another gorgeous day. [Packing up on day 3] This section of the track wove in and out from woods to beach. While walking along one of the beaches early in the day, a group of hikers called us over. We took our packs off and went to see what was up. They had found a colony of fur seals playing in the cove about 100 yards from where we sat. We watched them for about 15 minutes. The pups were playing in the water and one of the adults swam by us to check us out and make sure we weren't dangerous. Such a beautiful way to start the day. [Difficult to see, but there are fur seals by the rocks] [Momma coming to check us out] The last six kms of t...

New Zealand is known for nature, and the Department of Conservation (DOC) has found a great way to get people to see the best of the best. Thus, the 9 Great Walks of New Zealand: Abel Tasman, Milford,  Lake Waikaremoana, Tongariro Northern Circuit, Whanganui Journey, Heaphy, Routeburn, Kepler, and Rakiura. So far I can say I have done three of these: Milford, Tongariro and Abel Tasman. We walked the Abel Tasman with our good friend, Divya. They recommend using 3-5 days to do the trek, and we did it in three...but we like to brag that we rather did it in 48 hours. We flew to Nelson on Monday morning with Divya in tow, and a shuttle picked us up at the airport and drove us to Marahau, the start of the Abel Tasman Coastal Track. The weather was predicted to be perfect for the whole week and we were excited to experience this unique part of New Zealand. At 12:30 we began walking and we had to walk 24 kms to make it to our accommodation. We managed to get to the hut at Bark Bay...

I finally got around to editing my footage from when we went to Iceland last September. We rented a car and drove the Golden Circle, and the next day we visited the Blue Lagoon.  I'm not too happy with the quality of it, but maybe it means my GoPro is outdated. GoPro even has a new editor to make a sort of 30-second teaser. Pretty cool! Iceland 2016 teaser from Justine Diaz on Vimeo . The Golden Circle and Blue Lagoon from Justine Diaz on Vimeo .

M.Ytterstad We pulled into the so-called "Paris of the north" - Tromsø, on Friday night, and it was great to see land again. The views from the boat were pretty amazing. Saturday we moved everything from our boat onto another boat that would take the gear and samples back to Bergen. We were pretty efficient so I was able to walk around town as well as take a nice long hike. The weather was of course perfect for a long hike, and after a bit of research I opted for the popular trip up Fløya (671 meters above sea level). I ran from the boat and up a fair amount of trail before halting to a fast walk. It was really warm in the sun, and I was on cloud nine. After a long sleep I had a light breakfast before we had to all catch a taxi to our plane. We flew directly from Tromsø to Bergen, and I was greeted at the luggage carousel by Marius. It was a good survey, though, occasionally uneventful due to how the stations and our work shifts lined up. On Thursday I'm flyi...

Work is going fine. My boss has given me some lab activities to keep me interested in my work, so I'm testing antibodies. The positive control turned out as expected, but it is such a pretty staining that I have to share the picture. This is an embryo of a starlet sea anemone ( Nematostella sp.) approximately 30 hours old. The green is actin (a protein in cell walls), the blue is nuclei, and the red/pink is clusters of DNA. There are some pretty examples of cell division in this embryo! Also, as of a couple weeks ago I'm officially a published scientist! ....well, the paper has been accepted for publication, so it will likely not be in the journal before next year. The journal is called ICES Journal of Marine Science. Furthermore, this weekend the mountains got a nice thick layer of snow, so I took Pancho up for his first time in a proper bit  of snow (not counting the icy leftovers that were on Jutenheimen this summer). He's now 6 months old and weighs bout 34...

Since the marathon I haven't gotten out for a run longer than 4 miles, but I have gone for lots of hikes on the ridge behind our place with Pancho. We have had relatively little rain this fall, so it will be weird to have a typical rainy week. The morning after the super/blood/eclipse moon, Lydia wandered out of the house and has not been seen since. She has been a part of our family since 1995 and things will feel so different without her. I hope that she found peace wherever she wandered off to for her last rest (if that is what she did). I will miss her dearly, and wish it wasn't the way she decided to leave us after being with us for 20 years. We love you, Lydy pity

We drove from Copenhagen to Oslo in one day; it's only 6 hours. While we were still in Denmark we found a grocery store to stock up on cheaper beer and some road snacks. But then the GPS took us the wrong way, and we found ourselves in line for the ferry from a city just north of Copenhagen to Helsingborg, Sweden. Instead of backtracking to the bridge, we decided to take the 20 minute ferry ride across. We obviously went way north! Six hours later we were back in Oslo. We took it easy the next day and walked around our neighborhood and up the river. It was good weather for a long walk. Rigmor had us over for dinner and served moose "gryte" (a stew) and "Troll krem" (troll cream = lingonberry, egg whites and sugar) for dessert. We still had some must-sees to cover in Oslo. Mainly the royal palace and ski jump/ski museum. We made it in time for the changing of the guard. Skis varied by region and were over 15 feet long back in the day! Dad...