Here a baa, there a baa, everywhere a baa baa

OK, most people already know that New Zealand has a lot of sheep. I guess I'd heard that too, but it wasn't until I started the 14 day bike trip odyssey with Andrea that I started to appreciate just how many sheep are on the south island.

Yep - when your butt is incredibly sore from uber long rides and your quads are throbbing from hill climb #976, the rest of your senses start to function at a higher level. Olfactory senses for example. Smell. On the bike you can tell when sheep are over the next rise way before you see them.

There are probably more than 15 million sheep in NZ, which 3X the number of people in Singapore. It's a good thing the sheep haven't learned how to walk and SMS at the same time, because it would create massive gridlock. I shudder to think what the implications would have been on US inaugaration day - all the sheep texting Obaaaaama back and forth.

The 2nd picture here is covered with sheep - if you look close you can just make out the little dots on the hillside with a faint hint of fluffiness. Happily, most of the sheep are responding well to my calls (AKA "baa") - yes, I'm referring to the sheep impersonations I'm so famous for. It works better on the bike than when we're in the car with the windows rolled up, I'm still trying to figure out why. I got the best results with the sheep in the vineyard - I surmise this is because either a) the sheep are shorter than the grape vines so they couldn't see that I was on a bicycle - which is a dead giveaway that you're probably not a sheep; hardly any sheep ride bicycles in NZ, or b) the sheep were sampling a little too much of the chardonnay and were "baa"ing back just for the hell of it. I'll continue my experiments and will provide regular reports as I learn more.

NZ also has salmon farms. Andrea explained to me that the locals are only allowed to farm the "good" salmon (when she says high class stuff like this I just nod my head and smile - I didn't know there was a difference and thought "good" salmon was what Santa left in your stocking or if you were able to get it on sale at TJs) so it's extra uber delicious. When we stopped at a salmon farm I scampered out to feed the salmon with the kids (Wow! Look at that one, he's huge! Hey, stop splashing me!) while Andrea negotiated prices with the Salmon farmer. I think they were charging something like $15NZ per kilo, which is about $7.5US per kilo, for salmon that was gutted a few seconds ago and still panting. We opted for the salmon sashimi. I don't want to say how much the tub 'o sashimi cost - this is a family blog.

We're now in Kaikoura and even went swimming with the NZ fur seals today. No, I did not eat any seal sashimi. I'd like to write more about sheep, salmon, and seals - or just about anything starting with "S," but I need to get up to the room and hasten my butt's recovery from muscle soreness in preparation for the ride tomorrow...