The Dog Just Wanted Attention

Tachi is doing much better and probably won't need the surgery. It's amazing how quickly he improved...makes us wonder if he was just faking it. We'll never really know what was wrong, if whatever was in his paw worked its way out or if it was the antibiotics. The mysteries of vetrinaray science (and $250). I suppose all that matters is that he's getting better and starting to rough house with Buddy. =)

Walking with Dinosaurs

We just got back from Walking with Dinosaurs: The Live Experience. It's a cool show about dinosaurs that showcases life-sized animatronic dinosaurs. It's about as close as we'll get to seeing real dinosaurs. The dinos were very detailed, and their movement was really fluid - not robotic at all. Even their eyes moved! And they roared! In fact, the ushers were handing out ear plugs because some of the dinos are really quite loud. Our favorites: brachiosaurus and utahraptors.

There were lots of kids in the audience, including one little boy in front of us who proclaimed, "I want to be a dinosaur!" at intermission. It's a family-friendly show, although I wonder if some of the younger kids might have nightmares about the big, scary dinos. As we were walking back to the car, Greg turns to me and says, "See, I'd say something like 'Be careful. I hear that the dinosaurs sometimes escape at night when everyone's sleeping.' to our kid." I replied, "That's mean! You're not allowed to talk to our kids after things like this." When I shared Greg's comments with our friends, one of them just shook her head at Greg. I'm sure she was thinking, "Poor Cheryl."

Our Dog is Broken

This morning started with the sound of Tachi heaving at 5:00 AM. The heaving sound quickly turned into a barfing sound. Ugh...it must be all those "treats" that people were feeding him. As we were cleaning up the mess and getting Tachi some water, we noticed that he was limping.

Greg put him on his back and started to check his feet. When he touched the outside pad of his front left paw, Tachi yelped and started to squirm. He had a cut on that pad about a week ago. We had put some Neosporin on the cut, and it looked healed over. It didn't look inflamed or red. But Tachi wouldn't put any pressure on his left paw. When he sat, his front left paw would be lifted off the ground. When he stood, it was the same thing.

Since everything looked okay on the outside, we took him to vet to have his paw checked out. The vet started to check his paw out, but Tachi was too squirmy. He had to be muzzled and restrained by both the vet tech and Greg. I guess I'd be squirmy too if someone was poking me where it hurt. The vet didn't see or feel anything wrong during the exam and recommended an x-ray because it could be fracture in his paw.

After waiting for 15 minutes, we were called back into the exam room to look at the x-ray. As we were looking at his x-ray, the vet commented that Tachi was a handful during the x-ray. Oh boy. I wonder if he's going to hate going to vet now. We looked at the x-ray, and there was no fracture. But there was a mysterious, small density at the base of his outside pad. The vet speculated that it could be an infection was developing where the cut had been, which is what was causing the pain. Or it could be a piece of gravel or something embedded in that pad. We had two options:

1. Wait it out and see if whatever was causing the pain would work itself out. He'd give us some antibiotics in case it was an infection.
2. Schedule a surgery to remove the mysterious density. Because they didn't know what they were looking for, it would be difficult to find it and could actually do more damage to his pad than good.

We chose option 1 and would touch bases with the vet on Friday for a progress report. If it wasn't better, then we'd have to bring him on Friday for the surgery. Ugh...I really hope we don't have to bring him back on Friday.

On our way home, I told Greg that this must be like being a parent with a kid who was climbing a tree, fell and broke his/her arm. The big difference is that a kid would be able to articulate what's wrong or what happened. Whereas a dog, really can't do that.

Tachi's been mopey all day and very tentative with is front left paw. Instead of following us around the house or playing with Buddy, he's just resting on his dog bed. I hope he feels better soon. =(

The Stockings were Hung by the Chimney with Care

We added Christmas stockings to our holiday decor. They're the traditional red ones with the white cuff. We wrote our names on the cuff with glitter glue so Santa would know who's stocking was who's. I don't want him to accidentally put Greg's lump of coal in my stocking. (I'm just kidding, honey. I know you're an angel.)

We even got a stocking for Tachi. It's also red and white, but it's shaped like a dog paw with white patches for the pads of his feet. It's really cute! I have a feeling Tachi's stocking is going to be stuffed with lots of new doggie toys and maybe a few treats too.

Our First Christmas Tree

A few weeks ago we went shopping for our first Christmas tree. The big question was real or fake?

Growing up, my family always had a fake tree that we'd assemble and then decorate with those glass ball ornaments, tinsel, a few ornaments (like two) that my brother and I made as school projects, lights and a star at the top. Hmmm...I bet my parents still have that baked angel (I think) ornament stored in the Christmas box, collecting dust in the garage. Maybe I should go rescue it. But I digress. It wasn't until I was in high school that we started getting a real tree for Christmas. I loved getting the tree every year. It became a tradition for our family to go pick out a tree at the local tree lot the day after Thanksgiving and decorate it. We'd leave that tree up until the day after my brother's birthday. Mind you, my brother's birthday is January 15. I didn't really mind because the tree made our house feel festive, and I loved the smell of a real tree.

Greg's family was the opposite of mine. They had a real tree when they were kids and then switched a fake tree as they got older. I think his parents tree is really nice. They have unique ornaments to mark special events that happened during the year. I really like that and plan to do the same thing for our tree. In fact, we bought a puau shell angel ornament from New Zealand for our yet-to-be-purchased tree!

Now that we're married and have our own home, should we get a real tree or a fake tree? I can see the pros and cons of both options. A real tree smells great and looks great, but it's not really environmentally friendly, is more maintenance and can be quite pricey. And since we don't have much space in our living/family room, it'd be hard to find a small-ish real tree that didn't look like the Charlie Brown Christmas tree. With a fake tree, it just doesn't smell like Christmas. But it is more environmentally friendly, easier to maintain, cheaper, and we could probably find one that will fit well in our living/family room.

So, after looking at a couple of real trees and fake trees, we bought a fake pre-lit tree. It's 4.5 ft tall and fits perfectly in our front bay window! It sits on top of an end table. There's no space to put gifts under the tree because the tree takes up most of the space on the table. We don't have a tree topper for it yet. It looks slightly sparse because we don't have a ton of ornaments, but we'll add an ornament every year. I'm really excited about our tree because it's our tree, and we'll create our own traditions for decorating it.

Back to Reality

We've been back for a little over a week and a half. The post-travel glow is slowly wearing off as our normal, day-to-day routine is now back in full swing. We're definitely happy to be back home with our family, friends and of course, Tachi, our dog. If we ever need a break from the routine, we can look at our pictures from New Zealand.

And so can you! We've finally finished sorting our New Zealand pictures and posting them online. We didn't process them, even though Cheryl really wanted to. Maybe she'll get around to processing some of them during the holidays. WARNING: There are a lot of pictures, and it's only a fraction of the pictures we actually took.

Parting Thoughts

We leave New Zealand today and will spend most of our time on planes and at the airport. We're flying from Queenstown to Auckland and will have a 4.5 hour layover in in Auckland before we depart for San Francisco. Thank goodness for the Air New Zealand lounge, wireless internet and duty-free shopping.

Quite a few people we've met have asked us what our favorite part of New Zealand is. And it's really hard to say because each place we visited was unique in its own way. But here's our list of our top 3 favorites.

Cheryl
1. Hiking Franz Josef glacier
2. Relaxing and wine tasting in Hawkes Bay
3. Blackwater rafting in Waitomo

Greg
1. Blackwater rafting in Waitomo
2. Kiwi Experience in Rotorua
3. Hiking Franz Josef glacier

Top Kiwi Sayings (in no particular order)
1. Cheers, mate: Not a toast, but seemed to be how folks generally said thanks.
2. How ya going?: Umm..by car? Nope, we soon discovered that this phrase basically means How are you? Or what's up?
3. Good on ya: Nope, not saying that the shirt looks good on you, but they're saying is good job or good for you.
4. Flash: Not the flash on your camera. Flash means fancy. Flash yoghurt, flash camera, flash car, flash house, flash restaurant.
5. Give it a go: Try it.
6. Oi, seal: This one is Greg's contribution.
7. Ki Ora: Maori word for hello, goodbye, thank you

We think the south island is much more scenic than the north. The Maori influence is much stronger on the north island. Agriculture/farming is still a big part of the culture and landscape. The pace of life is much slower in New Zealand. And the kiwi people are really friendly and helpful folks.

Relaxing in Queenstown

We did the 2 hour drive back to Queenstown this morning. It was another beautiful day, and Cheryl managed to stay awake for the entire drive back to Queenstown. We were a bit early to check into our last home, so we decided to check out Arrowtown, a small town about 20 minutes outside Queenstown.

Arrowtown was a booming gold mining town during the New Zealand gold rush in the mid-1800s. The town has maintained it's old western town feel with many original buildings. They held the Michael Hill NZ Open (golf tournament) in Arrowtown just a few days ago. Similar to the California gold rush, the NZ gold rush brought many Chinese from Quandong province to the area to mine for gold. We visited a restored Chinese settlement in Arrowtown and discovered that the Chinese gold miners in NZ experienced similar prejudice and discrimination that the Chinese in California experienced. However, it seemed less violent than the experiences of the Chinese in California.

From here we headed back to Queenstown to check into The Dairy, a private luxury hotel. It's was a very nice bed and breakfast, with a comfy lounge, library and honor bar. It's called The Dairy because part of the B&B used to be a corner store, which was known as a dairy. We lounged around, drinking tea and chatting with the folks who worked there. Then we headed into town to check out the shops and enjoyed a relaxing dinner at Amisfield Winery.

Exploring Fiordland by Sea and by Car

So we’ve spent the last two days living aboard the Fiordland Navigator while we explored Doubtful Sound.

It started with an hour cruise across Lake Manipouri, followed by a 45 minute bus ride across Wilmot Pass. Both were scenic enough to keep us interested…although Greg fell asleep on the bus.

Finally, we arrived at the cruise ship and we were off. We were shown to our room and settled in. Back on deck, we were immediately amazed by the steep canyon walls, numerous waterfalls, and the podocarp forest that our nature guide mentioned about 50 million times. Although the walls of the fiords are solid granite, they’re completely covered with plants and their roots can’t penetrate the granite. The roots spread out and grip the rock. Podocarp forest – got it? There are also big “scars” where trees have literally lost their grip and fallen off of the walls. This causes a land slide and basically takes out a bunch of plants under the initial tree.

One of the things we quickly learned about a cruise is that you just get fed until you are fat and in food induced coma. The food was decent and we had another bottle of wine while we chatted with a Swiss German couple. We met a lot of Swiss Germans and folks from the UK in New Zealand.

Once we were done eating (and drinking) we put on some warmer clothes and hung out on the top deck, just laying there, watching the clouds go by and listening. Other than the hum of the generators on the boats, the only things we heard were the waves and birds. Suddenly, we heard a shrill cry that I swear was a kiwi. We heard it multiple times. The only reason this is such a highlight is because our guide at Rainbow Springs who’s lived in New Zealand forever has only heard them once.

Oh, btw, the wind was howling all day. Good thing we weren’t in kayaks.

The next morning, we were served breakfast and explored more of the Doubtful Sound. We stopped in Hall Arm, where our nature guide explained that we’d be doing an exercise. Not a physical exercise, but a mental one: Listening to the Silence. The captain shut off the boats engine, and we just floated in Hall Arm listening to the waterfalls, birds and wind for about 5 minutes. Essentially, we were communing with nature. When I looked over at Greg, I could tell he was thinking, “How much longer is he going to make us do this stupid exercise?” I had to bite my tongue to keep myself from laughing outloud. I guess Greg’ll never be into meditation.

It was roughly noon when we got back to Te Anau. We checked into our hotel, grabbed a sandwich at Subway (we had to see if it was the same as in the US – pretty much was), and headed out on the 120 km drive towards the Milford Sound.

This was some of the most remarkable scenery that we’ve seen in New Zealand. Once we got into the foothills, we were treated to huge, snow topped cliffs, numerous waterfalls, and the rainforest. The pictures don’t do it justice…but it’s the best that we can do.

At one of our many stops, we came across two kea birds hopping about the pull out and posing for some close up pictures before they flew away. Kea’s are the world’s only non-tropical parrot, and as we found out, they like cars. We saw a description of them at Rainbow Springs that said they like to tear apart rubber (i.e. boots, windshield wipers, etc.). While waiting to go through a one-way tunnel, a kea hopped up on our hood. The light turned green and it hopped off again as we started to drive away. On the way back, we stopped at another pull out and another kea visited our car…starting on the side mirror and then onto the roof. It hopped onto the other side mirror and when I cracked the window open, it tried to gnaw on the glass and window seal. Of course, I took pictures of it while Cheryl told me not to taunt it. We had two more of these big green birds perch on our car at another pull out. It’s amazing how unafraid of humans they are!

As we wind down, we’re thinking about home. We miss our dog and are looking forward to kicking the Yamamoto’s butts in Guitar Hero. See everyone soon.

Ups and Downs

This morning, we had to leave the lap of luxury at the Heritage, Queenstown for the Top 10 Holiday Park in Te Anau (read: a KOA with ensuite units, dorms, and camp grounds). It’s actually not bad…kinda like camping in luxury. The plan: get settled in Te Anau for a night and prepare for a two day kayaking / camping trip in Doubtful Sound.

Before we hit the road, we had a few more things to check out in Queenstown. First, we took the Skyline Gondola (i.e. ski lift) to the top of a peak overlooking the area. From here, you get a great view of Queenstown, the Remarkables (a set of three mountains that also made an appearance in LOTR), and Lake Wakatipu.

Second, we made a stop at Queenstown’s oldest home, Williams Cottage. It was built in 1864 and remains very close to its original condition. The cottage and its garden are now the home of a neat boutique selling contemporary, made in NZ stuff. The displays provided an interesting contrast to the 1930s wallpaper (which was peeling). We grabbed something to eat and coffee before heading out to Te Anau. A few hours later, we pulled into our latest home. As we settled in, Greg went to call the kayaking company to ask about secured parking while we’re on the kayaking trip. About 10 minutes later, he comes back and throws our itinerary onto the ground, pouts, waves his arms around and jumps up and down like he’s having a fit. I’m thinking, “Uh oh, they screwed up our reservation or they don’t have overnight parking.”

Greg: “It’s canceled.”
Me: “Huh? What’s canceled? The kayaking trip?”
Greg: “Yes, the kayaking trip. The whole thing.”
Me: “Uh, how come?”
Greg: “They said tomorrow looked like it would be a great day, but the day after was going to be too windy to safely kayak.”
Greg looks really disappointed and sad.
Me: “Oh. Well, it’s probably better that we don’t attempt the trip then. Remember how sucky it was to paddle in the wind at Abel Tasman? It’s okay, we can’t control the weather. Maybe we can do an overnight cruise instead.”

So, we walk into town to investigate overnight cruises at the Information Center. Luckily there was a room left on the Doubtful Sound overnight cruise that leaves tomorrow at 12:30 PM. While a cruise is not the same as kayaking/camping, at least we’ll still be able to experience Doubtful Sound. The woman at the bookings counter said that there’ve been heaps of penguin sightings lately and a good probability that we’ll encounter wildlife. She also said that the food is really fabulous, and we wouldn’t need/want to eat for 2-days after the cruise.

Greg: “This’ll be a good test. I’ll see if I can handle a longer cruise on a bigger ship. Or I’ll discover that I’ll be completely bored out of my mind.”

What do 500 Horsepower, Wine and Ice have in Common?

Nothing that we can think of. But we experienced each of these today in Queenstown.

500 Horsepower? Those would be the engines of the jet boat we road on the Shotover River. If you think driving a boat in 4 inches of water, through narrow canyons and doing 360 degree spins is a bad idea, then you’re wrong. We did the Shotover Jet this morning, and it was a blast. Every time we thought we’d hit a rock, our jet boat driver would crank the wheel and we’d miss it by inches. There was family on holiday from the UK, and the youngest daughter asked, “What’s he (the driver) trying to do us?” After the Shotover Jet ride, Greg has some new ideas on how a boat should be driven.

Now that we had our adrenaline fix, it was time to get our alcohol fix. So, we headed off to a couple of wineries in the Queenstown area for some wine tasting. Our first stop was Amisfield Winery. They had some really good wine and the winery was nice as well. Pinot Noir is what this region specializes in, but many of the wineries also produce Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling and Pinot Gris.

We must’ve needed another adrenaline fix (either that or lunch) because we stopped at the AJ Hackett bungy jump at Kawarau Bridge. This is the place where bungy-jumping originated. We watched several folks bungy jump (some required coaxing), but didn’t jump ourselves. We already jumped out of an airplane at 15,000 feet and didn’t think bungy jumping could top that. From here, we headed to a couple more wineries: Chard Farm, Peregrine and Gibbston Valley. Chard Farm is up this windy, gravel one lane road with a cliff that drops into a gorge on one side. But the winery was very charming, and we really enjoyed chatting the folks at the winery. Peregrine had a modern, stark feel, but you could see their cellar with the barrels of wine aging. Gibbston Valley felt the most touristy of all the wineries we visited. They had an extensive store, a wine cave tour and a cheesery.

After soaking up the sun and sobering up a bit, we headed back to Queenstown to get ready for dinner. And what a dinner it was! We had a nine-course degustation with wine parings at Wai, which is right by the lake. The food was fabulous, and the portions were just right. The wine pairings were also generous pours, so we were pretty happy after dinner.

We visited the Minus 5 Bar for a drink. The Minus 5 Bar is a bar where everything is made of ice, including the bar, cups, chairs and tons of ice sculptures. Each visitor is only allowed to be in the bar for 30 minutes. They give you parkas and UGGs and gloves. It was definitely different from any bar either of us have been to before.

Franz Josef to Queenstown

We’re on the way to Queenstown today. It’s about 4 hours from Franz Josef township to Queenstown, but we decided to take a small detour to Jackson Bay. Both Robyn and Sally from the Arorere recommended it. Jackson Bay is basically at the end of the road and was once a special settlement that the NZ government tried to establish. However, it was very unsuccessful due to crop-rotting amounts of rain and difficulty building a port. Today, there’re only a couple of families that live Jackson Bay. If you wanted to survive in the early days (and even today), you had to be quite resourceful. It felt very remote and isolated, but it had amazing views of the Southern Alps.

Heading back toward civilization, we were on our way across the Southern Alps via the Haast Pass. The drive was beautiful with turquoise rivers, water falls and steep mountains. We stopped at the Blue Pools, which was a 30 min hike from the road. The Blue Pools is where two rivers met, where you were supposed to see huge rainbow and brown trout. We didn’t see any trout because it was the wrong time of the year. We did see some French guy splashing around in the cold water though. It was amazing how blue the water was. It’s almost unnatural, like someone put turquoise tiles in the rivers and lakes of NZ. The water is just very clear here.

Got Ice?

So the morning started off bright and early with cereal, yoghurt, and toast. Best of all, parting the curtains, we saw clear, bright, blue skies! The low front that was supposed to bring rain swept past in the night and we were left with an awesome day! Considering it rains 2 out of 3 days here, we were very happy.

After breakfast, we walked over to the Frans Josef Glacier Guides where we proceeded to get our Gortex pants, jackets, wool socks, hiking boots, crampons, beanie and gloves. The bus ride to the car park (for you Californians who don’t know what a car park is…read parking lot) was about 10 minutes and we were off. The first 45 minutes was a hike across rocks and dirt to the base of the glacier.

Once we were instructed on how to wear crampons and how to walk safely with them, we were off. Our guide, Tai, led us up the glacier. This thing moves roughly 1 meter each day, which is considered a very fast moving glacier. As we climbed, Tai used his pick-axe to fine tune the steps that these guys cut into the ice each day.

We walked onward and upward, crossing crevasses, glacial lakes, and lots and lots of ice. The first big obstacle was a crevasse that our guides had worked on for two days. Essentially, the guides sat on top of the crevasse and hacked away at the surrounding ice to plug up the lower part and create a bridge. Below the bridge, there was roughly 20 feet of nothing. We had to remove our packs, well Greg did since he was carrying everything, in order to slither sideways through this thing. Pretty cool. After a quick lunch break of sandwiches, we continued further up the glacier.

Eventually, we hit an optional section where we were climbing up a vertical ice face. It wasn’t that long, but it proved to be challenging enough. Another quick slither through a crevasse and we made a big loop back to the starting point for this section. After spending roughly 6 hours on the ice, we began our descent down the glacier and back to the car park.

Back in town, we were starving and craving beer. Even the health conscious Cheryl wanted a cheeseburger, fries and an ice cold beer. It must have been an intense day. Unfortunately, we found out that the entire Franz Josef township had a power outage. Damn it! So, we walked back to the grocery store, which had a generator, and picked up a rotisserie chicken and a six pack of Monteiths summer ale (it is summer here you know). Yum! Within an hour, 5 of the 6 beers were gone (you can guess who drank most of them) and the chicken was a pile of bones.

Pancakes Anyone?

Today was another travel day. We departed Abel Tasman and headed south for Franz Josef Glacier via the West Coast. We’d heard a great deal about the rugged beauty of the West Coast, and it lived up to its reputation. The terrain on the South Island is less pastoral and more dramatic: green valleys surrounded by lush mountain ranges, blue-green rivers carving out gorges, and beautiful coastline.

To break up the long drive, we stopped at Buller Gorge and walked across the New Zealand’s longest swing bridge (110m). There was a limit of 15 people at any time on the bridge. The bridge was surprisingly more bouncy than we expected, and we had deal with passing an elderly couple going the other way in 12 inches of space. After crossing the swing bridge, we took a short hike to the White Creek Faultline, epicenter of the 1929 earthquake. To get back across the gorge, we rode a tandem flying fox (zip-line). Fun!

Our next stop on the way to Franz Josef was the Pancake Rocks and blowholes at Punikaiki. It was really interesting. Pancake Rocks is a sedimentary rock formation that looks like a bunch of pancakes stacked on top of each other. Neither of us has seen rock formations like this. Even scientists aren’t sure how they formed that way. And the coastline was breathtaking too! It reminded us of Big Sur.

Kayaking Abel Tasman – Day 2

It was another beautiful, sunny day with no wind when we woke up. Sally made tea and toast, while Robyn made fruit salad and got the milk, cereal and yoghurt. (It’s not a typo, they spell it with an “h” here.) Rested and full, we were ready for day 2.

We met up with our guide and the rest of our group on the beach around 9am. To kill some time, we went for a walk down the beach. As we were walking, we found a starfish in the surf! It’s not like any of the other starfish that I’ve seen before. We think it’s a reef starfish.

Time to get back on the water, which was much calmer. We paddled around Boundary Bay, Frenchman Bay, Pinnacle Island, Sandfly Bay and stopped for lunch at Bark Bay. One of the bays we paddled past had a house on beach that sold for $14M (NZD). The owner had a helipad built so he could just helicopter there, rather than paddle. How nice.

The goal for today was to reach the marine reserve to paddle among the sea lions that lived there. After lunch, we crossed Tonga Roadstead to get to Tonga Island, where the sea lions live. We saw lots of sea lions and 1-year old sea lion pups sunning themselves on the rocks, swimming in the water and hanging upside down in the water with their butts and rear flippers sticking out. There was one sea lion that chased away another sea lion that tried to approach his rock. They swam right under our kayak! And boy are we glad they didn’t tip us over. After the marine reserve, we headed to Onetehuti Beach and caught a water taxi back to Marahau.

Kayaking Abel Tasman – Day 1

We spent the last 2 days kayaking Abel Tasman National Park with a guided group. The park is located on the northwest end of the South Island. It’s New Zealand’s smallest national park, but the most visited. There’re some great hikes in the park, but it also has many bays, coves and secluded golden sand beaches, which make it perfect for kayaking.

We started our trip at Sandy Beach in Marahau. Apparently the tides change a great deal here, about 5m on a full moon. We witnessed this change first hand since the tide was out when we arrived at Sandy Beach. We could see tractors with boat trailers attached to back driving the boats out to water deep enough so they could be launched. By the time we were done with safety briefing and loading the kayaks, the tide was in…right at the spot we were going to launch. Phew! We were worried we’d have to walk the kayaks out 500 ft just to get it into the water.

After paddling past Adele Island, we stopped for lunch at Watering Cove. There were several other kayak groups there as well. The water was a beautiful blue-green and very clear. It was also cold, too cold for us to swim in, even though our guide, Brad, was insisting that it wasn’t cold.

After lunch, we paddled the “Mad Mile.” The water was really choppy, and we were paddling into the wind. It felt like we were paddling, but not going anywhere. We stopped at Te Puketea Bay to rest and escape some of the wind for a bit. Then it was back out into the wind and waves. When we got to Torrent Bay, we rafted up (lined up all 4 kayaks parallel to each other with everyone holding on to the adjacent kayak) and broke out a sail. It was finally time to use the wind in our favor! We sailed into our final stop for the day, The Anchorage.

We stayed on a catamaran, Arorere (flying cloud), that evening. Robyn, the woman who owns and sails it, built it with her ex-husband. Very cool! It was a beautiful boat! We drank wine, ate and chatted with Robyn and Sally as the evening turned to night. Robyn and Sally were wonderful hosts and we enjoyed getting to know them. Robyn is a neat woman – a female pirate! Our cabin was in one end of one of the hulls. “The gentle rocking of the sea, rocked me to sleep,” says Greg. Me too! We really enjoyed our stay on Arorere and would highly recommend it to anyone else who’s planning to kayak Abel Tasman.

On the Road Again

This morning we started our journey to the South Island. We were on the road by 7:15 AM and had a 4 hour drive South to Wellington. The drive was easy; mostly 2-lane highway with rolling hills and more sheep and cows. Once in Wellington, we returned our rental car and caught an interisland ferry to cross Cooks Strait. The ferry ride was 3.5 hours and also uneventful. Upon arrival in Picton, we picked up a new rental car, a Holden Commodore and started our 2.5 hour drive to Abel Tasman National Park. We finally arrived at our destination at about 9:40 PM.

Bzzzzz’d

We spent the day tasting wine a several different wineries Chris and Kerrie recommended: Clearview, Craggy Range, Sileni, and Ngatarawa. They were all great! With the exception of Craggy Range, they all had a low-key feel to them. And everyone was very knowledgeable and friendly. Greg and I just faked our knowledge of wine and kept drinking whatever they poured in our glasses. By the end of the day, I (Cheryl) was pretty buzzed. Greg was a good designated driver and stopped before we got to the last winery.

We started a Clearview, which had a rustic feel and was right next to the ocean. From there we headed over to Craggy Range. The grounds were really impressive and beautiful. It reminded us of some of the wineries in Napa. The tasting room felt a bit more formal as well. We had lunch at the restaurant, and the food was yummy. After lunch, we went to the top of Te Mata, which provided excellent 360 degree views of the region. We were able to see all the way to Mt Ruanganui, a snow-covered volcano near Lake Tuapo. Our next stop was Seleni Winery, which had a modern look to it with interesting sculptures in the garden area. By this point in the day, I was having trouble remembering which wine was which, and was debating if we should head back to our B&B before dinner. But the guy at Seleni recommended one other winery that we really should check out. Okay, hold a gun to my head. So, our last winery for the day was Ngatarawa, which used to be race horse stable.

To cap of a relaxing day of wine tasting, we had dinner at the historic Mission Estate Winery. Mission is the first winery in New Zealand and was founded by some missionaries who were sent to New Zealand. The setting was really nice; the wine was excellent; the service was top-notch; the food was tasty.

Fat Dogs, Arsenic, and Art Deco

Today was another travel day…roughly 4 hours worth. We started our day back at the Fat Dog Café for breakfast where I (Greg) had spag, toast, and hashbrowns. What’s spag? Spaghetti…interesting. A lot like spaghetti-o’s.

After breakfast, we left the stinkiest city in the world (Rotorua) behind and headed south-east towards Wai-O-Tapu, the self proclaimed “thermal wonderland.” We arrived in time to witness the “Lady Knox” geyser spew off at 10:15 am. Pretty reliable? Sure…if you "help" Mother Nature by pouring 300 grams of “a biodegradable soap” down the neck of the geyser to set it off. It did spout water around 60 feet into the air, but the fact that it was induced by soap made it seem somewhat fake.

We then proceeded to do the 3 km walk through the park where we saw hot springs, sulfur deposits, steaming vents, collapsed volcanic craters and boiling mud. Everywhere you looked, there was something boiling or steaming. In Cheryl’s words, “this is probably what hell looks like.” One of the last things we saw was called the champagne pools. Of course, it’s another boiling hot spring, but the water is crystal clear. When you can see through all of the steam, the rim of rock at the edge is bright orange. Why? Apparently it’s caused by minerals: gold, silver, mercury, sulphur, arsenic, thallium, and antimony. Now…think about this. Of those, aren’t half of them poisonous? Isn’t this thing steaming? Haven’t we been breathing this stuff?! Great…time to go. I need the few brain cells I have left.

Back on the road, we stopped by the Prawn Park, where you can fish for prawns and play killer prawn golf. You might be asking yourself, what’s killer prawn golf? Basically, you tee off and if you can hit the golf ball into a target, you win cash! The problem – not even Tiger Woods could do this! The targets are at 50 100, and 200 meters and they’re the size of a life preserver. We couldn’t bring ourselves to spend $24 per person to get into the place, so we left.

We made a quick stop at Huka Falls, the Niagra Falls of of New Zealand. That was pretty impressive. The water was crystal clear, and Cheryl saw a fish trying to jump up the water fall. Honestly she did...or maybe it was the arsenic we inhaled at Wai-O-Tapu.

Once into Tuapo, we took a slight detour because of a bike race. Damn…wish we had our road bikes. Turns out the ride/race is a ride around Lake Tuapo. As we drove through Tuapo, we both commented that we'd need to come back and spend some time in this part of New Zealand. The lake was beautiful, and we're sure there was some good fun to be had here.

Two more hours on the road and we finally arrived in Hawke’s Bay where we checked into the Room@53 B&B. Awesome place! If you ever have the chance to visit this part of New Zealand and need a place to stay…go here. Chris and Kerrie are fantastic hosts. It’s like staying with friends.

After settling in, we headed into Napier, the Art Deco capital of New Zealand. It was a neat town with lots of buildings designed/built in the Art Deco style. Apparently the city was devastated by an earthquake in 1931, and the rebuilding efforts in the following years captured that era. In fact, the city has a huge Art Deco festival that happens once a year and the whole city gets dressed up in the styles of the 1930s and parties. It must be really interesting to be here for that event.

Human Hamsters

Growing up, I (Greg) had a hamster. Her name was Helen “The Hamster.” She ran around the house in a little plastic ball. Today, we got to experience what it must have been like to be Helen in her hamster ball. Some crazy Kiwi was trying to find a way to cross hot sand and invented a human size hamster ball called the Zorb. It’s basically a giant inflatable ball inside another inflatable ball with a tunnel for you to crawl into the “safety” of the inner ball.

On a calm day, you could opt for the standard Zorb where you’d be strapped into the inside of the ball. Today, there was a slight breeze, so the only Zorbing to be done was the Hydro-Zorb. If the breeze caught the Zorb, you could potentially end up being blown off course and end up in the thermal pools of Lake Rotorua (that’s hot enough to boil mud!). Unlike the normal Zorb, with the Hyrdo-Zorb you’re not strapped in and inner ball is filled with water. Think giant slip-n-slide.

Once we were dressed in our Zorbing outfits (board shorts and rash guard with swimsuits underneath), we hopped in a van for a quick ride up a hill. At the top of the hill, you can decide which track you want to take, straight down the hill or the zig-zag track. We both opted for the zig-zag track. We hop inside the Zorb. The Zorb guy pump in some warm water and zips it up. He gives the Zorb a couple of taps. You take a couple of steps forward and gravity takes over from there. Sliding and sloshing around, you eventually make your way down the course. Once you come to rest, the Zorb “gives birth” to you. It’s water breaks and you come sliding out…wet.

Kiwi’s are a strange people.

BTW, we were able to post pictures on some of our previous blogs. So check them out!

Old MacDonald Had a Farm

“E-I-E-I-O. And on this farm he had some…sheep! E-I-E-I-O. With a baa-baah here and baa-baa there. Here a baa; there a baaa; everywhere a baaa-baaa.” After lunch, we decided to visit the Agrodome and learn more about all the sheep we’d seen in New Zealand. The Agrodome puts on a daily shows about sheep and sheep farming. They had at least a dozen or more different types of sheep “on display.” Who knew there were so many types of sheep? In addition to learning about what the different types of sheep were used for, we watched a sheep sheering demonstration.

"And on this farm he had some…dogs! E-I-E-I-O. With a woof-woof here and woof-woof there. Here a woof; there a woof; everywhere a woof-woof.” To help herd the thousands of sheep grazing all over the hillsides, farmers use dogs. Actually, two types of dogs. One is similar to a border collie tha herds animals from behind, using only eye-contact. S/he doesn’t bark at all. The other dog they employ is some type of shepherd dog. S/he helps get the sheep moving by running along the backs of sheep and barking.

“And on this farm he had some…cows! E-I-E-I-O. With a moo-moo here and moo-moo there. Here a moo; there a moooo; everywhere a moo-mooo.” In addition to sheep farming, New Zealand also has a very large dairy industry, which means they have lots of cows. After the sheep, we were treated to a dairy cow milking demonstration. They invited volunteers to come on stage to milk a cow. So, I nudged Greg to go, but he had no interest In milking a cow. “I didn’t want to violate the cow’s private parts,” says Greg.

Mama Tang’s Gonna Be Mad!

So one of the things that Cheryl and I were told by Mama Tang when we left was to be careful. Those words of advice were thrown out the door today…at 15,000 feet.

The day started off early with a 7:00 am breakfast of eggs, toast, and fruit cooked by Chef Greg in the kitchen area of the hostel. Then we were off. 15 minutes down the road and we arrived at the Rotorua airfield. Cheryl’s photographer put it best by saying, “this is probably the only time you’ll take-off in a plane and not land in the same plane.” Yup…sky diving. For this jump, we needed to wear oxygen masks during the ride up because the air gets pretty thin above 12,000 feet. Cheryl looked fine at the beginning, but as the plane climbed higher and higher, she started to look more and more nervous. She was the first one out of the plane. Finally, once at altitude, the door slid open, the camera man / videographer slipped out the door and Cheryl inched her way towards the door. Feet hanging off, one good lean and she was off…plummeting towards the earth at ~110 mph for 65 seconds.

Greg was the last one out of the plane, which was a single prop plane that only held 3 tandem jumpers (plus the camera man). Once the chutes opened, he was able to spot the other two jumpers and zero’d in on Cheryl because of her bright, turquoise shoes! He could tell that Matt (her “guide”) was having fun, spinning her around, diving, and swooping. “It was fun, until I started to get dizzy and nauseous and had to close my eyes,” said Cheryl. Greg, on the other hand, has a new opinion about French Canadians – boring. His guide was build like Lurch from the Adam’s family and was about as talkative. Free fall, open chute, land safely. The views were amazing as we looked down on Lake Rotorua, the stinkiest lake on the planet, and even saw a snow covered Mount Doom out in the distance.

Back on solid ground, we packed up and headed back for some food at the Fat Dog Café. More later…but I’d like to leave you with this quote written on the café wall: “The bulldog is a funny dog. Both ends look the same. This end is his bottom and that end is his brain. Hold on. NO, I’ve got it wrong, or have I just forgotten? That end is his head and that end is the bottom.”

Kia Ora!

We spent our Thanksgiving dinner taking in some Maori culture – a concert and hangi. Upon arriving at the Marae, the Maori village, the host tribe sends out a challenge of peace. Several warriors greeted us with intimidating gestures, including bulging eyes and tongues sticking out, and displays of weapons before placing a peace offering on the ground for our designated chief. Only after we accepted the peace offering were we allowed into the Marae.

Once inside the Marae, we were treated to a performance of native songs, dances and haka. Of course, our chief had to perform the “hongi” (pressing of the noses) to seal the friendship between the different cultures. After the cultural performance we partook in a traditional Maori dinner prepared in the hangi, an earthen oven similar to the imu used for Hawaiian luaus. We had lamb, chicken, fish, stuffing, kumara, carrots, steamed pudding and pavlova.

We came to the conclusion that the Maori people are basically aggressive Hawaiians. Rather than the open arms of the luau, they intimidate you before opening their arms. Interesting considering that the kiwi’s are some of the friendliest people that we’ve met while traveling…although Greg hasn’t been to many places other than China and Vietnam and we all know how much he likes those people.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Save the Kiwis (the Bird, Not the Fruit)

This morning we visited the Mamaku Blueberry Winery on the outskirts of Rotorua. You might be thinking the morning is a bit early for wine tasting, and you’d probably be right. But we heard the café served tasty breakfasts. And they do! After a hearty breakfast of blueberry pancakes, blueberry crepes and tea for two, we sampled blueberry and gooseberry chutney, jam and chili sauce and tasted some blueberry wine and liqueur. They grow the blueberries and gooseberries at the winery and make everything there too. Yummy!

Now that our bellies were full of blueberries, we visited Rainbow Springs Nature Park and Kiwi Encounter. Normally, Greg refuses to visit anyplace that resembles a zoo. But Rainbow Springs isn’t your typical zoo. It has a number of natural springs that lead to the Lake Rotorua. The springs are filled with the largest rainbow trout we’ve ever seen, easily over 15lbs and over 25 inches long. And no they don’t give out fishing poles as you walk in. They also have several aviaries featuring native birds like the tui.

The highlight of the nature park is the kiwi conservation project. Because the kiwi bird is endangered, the nature park works with local park rangers to bring kiwi eggs from the wild to the safety of the park. In the wild, the eggs / baby kiwis have a 5% survival rate. The kiwis hatched at the park have an 80% survival rate. When the kiwi birds are old enough to fend for themselves, they’re released back where the eggs were found. We learned that kiwi eggs are very large. They’re about 20% of the kiwi’s body weight and laying the egg is equivalent to giving birth to a 35lb baby. Yikes! We think kiwis are cute in a funny-looking kinda way.

Did Everyone in Rotorua Just Fart at the Same Time?

We arrived in Rotorua yesterday afternoon, and boy does it stink. Rotorua is New Zealand’s most dynamic thermal area with hot springs, bubbling mud and geysers. It also has the ubiquitous odor of rotten-eggs, caused by sulfur. The closer to the water, the smellier it gets.

Despite the sulfur smell, we checked out the Polynesian Spa. The spa offers thermally-heated baths right by the lake. They have several spa areas (e.g. family spa, adult only spa, lake view spa, private spas), and we opted for the lake view spa. The lake view spa had 4 spas of different temperatures, ranging from 36°C to 42°C (roughly 100°F to 110°F). We managed to get into the 40°C pool. It was like sitting in a giant hot tub, only the water is heated naturally and it smelled like everyone at the spa farted at the same time, constantly.

Black Water Rafting

The adventure part of our trip started today! We booked a five-hour black water rafting trip, called the Black Abyss. What’s black water rafting? Basically you float in an inner tube down an underground river through Ruakuri Cave. What’s so adventurous about that? For starters, we repelled 30m (90ft) through a small, dark hole to get underground. Once underground, we zip-lined in the dark into a cave full of glowworms (very cool!). After a short break and snack of hot tea and cave cookies, we jumped off of a 20 foot ledge into the ice-cold river to begin our float down a long, glowworm-covered passage. Floating and looking up at the glowworms was like stargazing. Mother Nature is really impressive. After the tranquility of the glowworms, it was time for more adventure -- walking / crawling / swimming through the cave, sliding down a slide (face first), and climbing up a few waterfalls to get back above ground. We had a great time and came out with only a few minor scrapes. Our guides, Hop and Shannon, were awesome!

Glow, Little Glowworm, Glow

We arrived in Waitomo this afternoon and checked out the Glowworm Cave and the Arauni Cave. The glowworms are unlike any insect we've ever seen before. After walking through some pretty amazing caves of stalactites and stalagmites, we boarded a boat and floated down an underground river. Above us were thousands of tiny, green lights that looked like stars in the night sky. Those little lights were the glowworms! It was an amazing site. Unfortunately photography was not allowed in this cave. You’ll just have to use your imagination. =)

The next cave we explored was the Aranui Cave. This cave didn’t have any water running through it. So there were no glowworms. But there were lots of colorful stalactites hanging from the cathedral-like ceiling. If you use your imagination, you can see a village of little people, a bunch of carrots and one parsnip in the picture. Can you see them?