After the beautiful ferry ride to the South Island I stayed in Picton for a few days, which was gorgeous. On one of the days I went down to Blenheim for the Marlborough Wine Festival. Unfortunately it was cloudy and sprinkling all day, but it was fun to be there. There was live music, ok food, and lots of wine to taste. Buses back to Picton ran from 3-7 and I got on one at about 5:30. There were maybe 15 other people on the little bus, 11 of which were from the same family. The matriarch took the bus microphone and did some announcing for the rest of us. This included introducing everyone, so I had to admit that I was traveling alone from California. She thought it was a shame that I was all alone so she informed me that I would be coming back with their family for a beer and lasagna, which normally I might not do but the family was big and they all seemed nice (especially the step-daughter that was talking to me assuring me everything was ok even though her stepmom was a little crazy), so I said ok. They had an amazing property that I had driven by the day before and gawked at, so I was even more excited to spend a little time with them. They had recently bought it and were in the middle of renovations. I didn't get any great photos, but here is one that gives a limited sense of the view:
After Picton I went down to Kaikoura, which has deep pools right off shore that makes it a great place for whales and dolphins to live and hang out. There were also pretty good ocean views:
I camped by the water one night and woke up and saw multiple pods of probably at least 30 dolphins each swimming around, doing flips, showing off. This is the best photo I got of them since I caught one jumping:
This was also Valentine's Day, so I took myself out to breakfast and then stopped at a town down south where I got a facial (felt amazing after camping and hostels for 3 weeks!). And this was my Valentine's Day evening in a nutshell:
A glass of wine, a cup of instant noodles with an added carrot, and a book while camping.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Monday, February 6, 2012
Wellington
First of all another fitting piece of hostel wall art (I’m
seriously meant to be here):
After New Plymouth I stayed in Wanganui, which is a boring little town, especially in the rain, but my hostel had a nice view of this river:
I also had my first rugby-watching experience here. The sevens, a modified version of the full game that the All Blacks always win the world cup in, were going on in Wellington while I was up the road in Wanganui. In addition to the games, it was entertaining to watch the cameras scroll across the crowd, because everyone dresses up in crazy costumes! I guess it's their version of Halloween too. And NZ won the tournament, so they did a Haka - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqnimvUMCAk&feature=related - there are plenty on youtube, I didn't know how to choose but this one is fine. I guess it's a Maori war dance, and so it has to be led by a Maori member of the team. It is always really intense, and usually at the end they stick their tongues way out, which might be where Pitbull got his signature move, Ally!
From Wanganui I went to Wellington, where I met up with a
sister of a friend of a friend, her husband two kids (very cute little boys,
one of which responded to an introduction to me with “plums,” .. “plums?” “plums are like nectarines!”). We walked around and came across a car show that was displaying the chitty chitty bang bang car! It was pretty cool:
We had lunch, then they took
me to another sister’s house, where I’m staying for the next couple days. A real house!
Very cute with a nice living room and my own bedroom!
When left by myself with a fully equipped kitchen this is what I choose for dinner:
I started out at the grocery store picking up a small
zucchini and a carrot but decided I needed a little more, so I found a small
serving of peppered steak that I figured I could cook up pretty easily. But then I went back by the veggies and decided to pick up a potato.
Then an onion looked good, and a bell pepper (which by the way is called
a capsicum here; very strange). So with
all those things that sounded/looked so delicious, I decided I didn’t need the
steak anymore.
Monday was Waitangi Day, the day the treaty was signed
giving rule to England. I learned that,
despite what they tell you at Waitangi, things are not so peaceful regarding
the treaty. The translation of the
treaty was not perfect from English to Maori, and the Maoris didn’t really know
what they were agreeing to. Apparently
it turned out that they lost some rights, and have held annual protests about
it ever since.
It was also Superbowl Monday, so when I came across a sports
bar downtown that had the game on I decided to stop in and watch. It is slightly less enjoyable here, since
they just play New Zealand commercials rather than the hyped-up famous
superbowl commercials of the US. But it
was still fun, and a good game, and of course everyone in the bar was
friendly. Not as many Americans as I
would have expected, so most people who were rooting for a team were doing so
somewhat arbitrarily, which was good since that’s what I was doing too. But my team won!
Then I came back to the house I’m staying at and Anna had
started cooking dinner! So nice to have
a delicious home-cooked meal half way around the world. I’m going to cook for her Wednesday… probably
either chicken parmesan or lasagna. Today I'm going in to explore Wellington a bit more, and maybe stop in at the museum.
I had dinner with Anna and her sister and sister's family one night. Her littlest boy (3 yrs old) took a liking to me, I think because I was wearing an orange shirt which is his favorite color (and mine!). He was talking to me and saying the cutest things, the most memorable of which was asking why my hair was so long, and if I watered it to make it grow like that.
I had dinner with Anna and her sister and sister's family one night. Her littlest boy (3 yrs old) took a liking to me, I think because I was wearing an orange shirt which is his favorite color (and mine!). He was talking to me and saying the cutest things, the most memorable of which was asking why my hair was so long, and if I watered it to make it grow like that.
Friday, February 3, 2012
New Plymouth
What better thing to do on a miserably rainy day than update
my blog?
And it’s been a few days.
A few cloudy, rainy days. Most of
one of them was spent driving, so that wasn’t too bad, and it’s still a
beautiful country in the rain. Speed
limit:
Don’t worry, it’s in kilometers. It’s also about how many dollars it takes to
fill up my tank with gas. And don't worry, I didn't take the picture... it's difficult to work a camera while driving on the wrong side of the road. I am getting
better every day at backwards driving though.
Every once in a while when I’ve been the only visible car on the road
for a ways and then I see one coming at me from the other direction, I get
scared for a second because I think they are in my lane, but then I remember I’m
on the other side and everything is ok.
I learned a lot about the locksmith business when I took my
dreaded key that took ten minutes to get my car to start in to Kiwi Cuts. It must be a booming business in Northland
because I had to go in 4 times before I caught the locksmith when he wasn’t out
on a job! He took my key and decoded it,
based on 8 different spacing levels and 4 different depth levels, occasionally using a little magnifier. He then entered this code into a database,
along with my car year, make, and country of origin. Unfortunately, no matches were found. But I mentioned I had another key and he lit
up, examined it compared to the first one, immediately determined there were slight spacing
differences, and found a match with that one!
So he made me two brand new keys that work like a charm. No more stress over that!
I’m still debating about whether the drive up to Cape Reigna
was worth it… it was definitely cool to see the top end of the country, and
where the spirits of dead Maori step down the roots of this little tree and
into the ocean, and where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean meet… ok it was
worth it. A family asked me to take a
picture of them and of course I obliged, then they asked if I wanted a picture
of myself and I tried to say no, but they insisted and we agreed it would make
mom happy. They proceeded to take about
8 pictures, from every angle, with the lighthouse and ocean in the background, etc. Here’s one:
Close up of the sign so you can tell how really in the middle of nowhere I am:
Camped in Uretiti again on my way back down, and caught this
cool picture of the moon (top left corner) and clouds around sunset:
Yesterday in New Plymouth I walked around town and then
found a park with some really cool plants and it was so green! Since it was raining it felt like a huge
rainforest. My friend compared it to
Jurassic Park.
In one section was this cool gazebo:
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