Is it just me or is the road moving?

it shook so hard.... just kidding

There was a nice little shaker last night after dinner – earthquake that is. They’re saying it was a 7.6 which is pretty huge – BUT the epicenter was in the middle of nowhere, about 150km from Queenstown so it didn’t do any damage or cause any injuries. I do have an interesting story to tell about it though. Last night Sophie and I went out for dinner as I’m headed overseas today. We’d just finished an amazing Thai feast and were walking back to the car to head home. We were walking along the street we were beside a big wooded park area near the center of Queenstown. As I approached our car I heard the strangest sound – in a tree I could hear either a cat or a possum absolutely freaking out, hissing, running all over the place and making all sorts of noise. I thought to myself that it was odd – not what you usually hear. Just as I was about to say something to Soph, everything started to get weird. At first I thought that maybe my two glasses of shiraz had gone to me head. I felt dizzy and unsettled. I put my hand on the car to steady myself; I thought I was ill or something. Then I realized that the car was shaking. Soph and I looked at each other and said in unison, “do you feel that?” the shaking wasn’t violent or abrupt, it was like you were floating in the sea and the waves were moving you around. It felt like jumping up and down in slow motion. And what’s more it was totally silent. You expect earthquakes to be loud and chaotic – there was no sound, no breaking glass, no fire alarms or sirens. We stood there for about 30seconds as the earth shook. It was only after that I realized that the animals in the tree had predicted the quake… spooky!

Well I’m supposed to be flying out of Queenstown this afternoon to Auckland to catch my flight to San Francisco tonight. Fingers crossed I can get out of here – nothing to do with the earthquake – just fog, lots and lots of fog…

Not today, but this looks like today

Next blog from a new time zone or here tonight trying to figure out plan B.