Janelle: “You’re getting some grey hairs, at your temples.”

“Like Dr Strange, this dimension’s Sorcerer Supreme?” I asked, hopefully.

“No,” she said. “Not like that.”

It’s good to be home.

Surfer’s Paradise, originally uploaded by Mister Wind-Up Bird.

Tomorrow we make our way to Brisbane after a little more than ten weeks in New Zealand and Australia. We saw some scenery, came up with some ideas and shipped three versions of Color Splash for iPad, so I’ll chalk it all up as a success. Where will Pocket Pixels appear next? Berlin? Thailand? Only time will tell.

Bay of Plenty Beach, originally uploaded by Mister Wind-Up Bird.

Janelle took this awesome photo today, our last holidayish day in NZ. Tomorrow we head to Auckland airport, then back to Aus for a few days before finally heading home. Home!

St. Paddy’s Day, Nelson style, originally uploaded by Mister Wind-Up Bird.

Janelle and I spent a leisurely afternoon at the charming Freehouse, a pub in a tiny church, complete with peaceful garden and huge yurt tent.

cycling through Nelson wine country, originally uploaded by Mister Wind-Up Bird.

Tasty Whitebait fritter stall, originally uploaded by Mister Wind-Up Bird.

“What is whitebait?” I hear you ask.

From wikipedia:

“Whitebait are tender and edible, and can be regarded as a delicacy. The entire fish is eaten including head, fins and gut. Some species make better eating than others, and the particular species that are marketed as “whitebait” varies in different parts of the world.

[...]

“New Zealand whitebait are caught in the lower reaches of the rivers using small open-mouthed hand-held nets although in some parts of the country where whitebait are more plentiful, larger (but not very large) set nets may be used adjacent to river banks. Whitebaiters constantly attend the nets in order to lift them as soon as a shoal enters the net. Otherwise the whitebait quickly swim back out of the net. [...] The combination of the fishing controls, a limited season and the depletion of habitat as a result of forest felling during the era of colonisation results in limited quantities being available on the market. Also, a lack of shade over waterways has been shown to kill the whitebait eggs.”

The more you know!

Meghan and Aaron join us in Picton, originally uploaded by Mister Wind-Up Bird.

You know why New Zealand feels like home? It’s because all the same people are here! We hung out with (brother) Tyson and (brother’s partner) Gillian in Wellington, where Tyson’s doing an internship at Weta Digital. And then in Picton, we were visited by (friend of the kommune) Aaron and (former roommate) Meghan, who are cycling around the South Island. Just before that, Janelle hopped up to North Island to visit her parents, who flew over from Australia, and once we ship the retina-ready version of a certain iPad app, Hendrik will meet up with his dad, visiting from Germany. It’s a chain of “You’re going to New Zealand, huh? You know, I kind of wanted to go there…”

The glamourous life of an itinerant iOS developer.

Oh, Sure, We Know All About Star Wars. It’s a Circus, Right?, originally uploaded by Mister Wind-Up Bird.

An actual display in the Te Papa museum in Wellington. I sometimes think the late twentieth century was something NZ only heard about second-hand. And that’s what makes it so charming.