Whunky Whreaky Whitianga

Whor the last whive months, we've been whootloose and whancy whree, whloating whrom one whine wheature to the whollowing, whree to whind the whairest whate to whall bewhore our whervent whingertips. Whirst and whoremost, we wheel whully whortunate whor the whantastic whrivolity we've whelt thus whar....Whorgive us; we recently learned a whonetic Kiwi quirk: they pronounce their "wh" with an "f" sound (not all "wh" words are pronounced this way, just the ones used in Maori place names). So the coastal town Whakatane would be pronounced "Fah-kuh-tah-nee." Now give that first paragraph another try!

On a recent weekend, we took a long-awaited trip to the Coromandel Peninsula just a few hours north of Rotorua. We'd been looking into taking a trip up there ever since we arrived on the North Island, as the area boasts lots of forest park land and small coastal towns. It seemed like the kind of place to enjoy some nice scenery and coastal relaxation. We certainly found that, and a few more fun surprises...

Our phonetic lesson came from an unplanned stop to a winery/pizzeria that we learned about in the way that most great discoveries are made whilst traveling: a flier placed on a bulletin board by a ladybug tack. The winery was on the road between Hahei, where we were staying, and Whitianga (Feet-ee-ahn-gah), where we were going for dinner, so we figured we could at least check it out on the way. Well, honestly, we didn't think much of it at first sight. Actually, it looked terrifying from the road, and even more so from the parking lot. But we figured, “Hey, we already drove from the road to the parking lot, we can't turn back now.”

We approached the run-down, enormous log structure like we had been planning on visiting the place for months: few of the raucous youths cavorting around the entrance could sense our trepidation. We walked in, greeted the proprietor, and without uttering five words ourselves, we were given a full introduction to everyone on the premises, had a pizza order placed on our behalf, were shown into the tasting room where a barrage of wine and fruit liquors were laid out in front of us, and, finally, heard an impressively rehearsed monologue from our host, a Dutch/Chinese New Zealander, listing each of the forty or so North Island towns where feijoas are grown, all of which start with the kiwi "Wh." After several rounds of his family's various home brewed beverages, delivered over a horticultural and ethnobotanical lecture on feijoas, he informed us that our pizza (which he had ordered for us) was ready, and that we could proceed with our private tasting after our meal. Naturally, the wood fired pizza was the best we've had in New Zealand (pizza is slightly weird here), and the bizarre evening of unexpected camaraderie was one of the most surprisingly enjoyable evenings we've stumbled upon. The lesson in all of this is that we should all structure our lives around bulletin board flyers.

But we didn't drive all the way up this peninsula for a social experience. According to our guidebooks, we had sights to see. First on the agenda was Cathedral Cove, a beautiful beach and cave near Hahei, which is reached via a 30 minute walk along oceanside cliffs. We quickly figured out that we weren't the only tourists with guidebooks, as the trail-head parking lot was pretty full. Fortunately, we caught the majority of a great sunset, found our pizzeria/winery flyer, and decided that we would pack a breakfast picnic and come back in the morning for sunrise. Our early-rise plan was handsomely rewarded, as we had a beautiful morning and the beach to ourselves.

Our next point of interest was the famous Hot Water Beach, just 15 minutes away from where we staying in Hahei. The beach sits on top of a hot spring, which is heated by volcanic rocks hundreds of meters underground that are still cooling off from an eruption that occurred many, many millennia before the last Moa was battered and deep fried. The hot water filters up through the sand, and if you come out at low tide with a shovel, you can dig your own hot tub right in the middle of the beach.

In an attempt to avoid the crowds, we once again planned to make our excursion during an odd hour of the day, this for the late low tide, around 11:15 at night. Since the moon was nearly full and the nights were getting cold, this would be the perfect opportunity. However, we didn't count on the fifty odd 20-somethings who decided to hijack our idea to film an episode of MTV's The Grind (that show still comes on, right?). Well, you can't win 'em all. Even though the party crowd took over all of the "Hot Water" portion of Hot Water Beach, we were able to enjoy a bright night in a beautiful corner of our temporary home.

After so many years in the mountains, we've pretty easily transitioned to being beach bums. But that couldn't keep up forever.

 Next time, we make a long awaited trip to the mountains, and journey through the North Island's volcano country!

Grape Juice Goodness

After what must have been one of the smoothest crossings of the Cook Straight in the history of Cook Straight Crossings, we decided to take a few days to relax and enjoy the city where are journey began. Nothing much had changed in Wellington, except the weather was nicer. Also, a rugby team was selling hot sausages as a fundraiser on Tory St., and their work apparently drew the attention of the same disapproving lady who haunted the dreams of Buttercup in the days leading up to her forced marriage to Prince Humperdink. Surely we don't need to explain this reference.

Sausage Sizzle!!! Boooooo!!!

Other than that, all was well in Wellington, and our sorrow over leaving the South Island was lifting quickly. After all, we had a whole new island to explore, and we still had a few days before we had to arrive at our new place of employ, so we planned one last splurge of a trip to the most Art Deco-tastic city in the eastern hemisphere: Napier!

Now, you're probably wondering "Why Napier?" Well, if you'll cool your jets, we'll get to that. As some of you may know, New Zealand has a booming wine industry. As far as wine-producing nations go, it's still pretty new to the game, but the country has made a big name for itself in a short amount of time. Also, as some of you may know, Kelcy & Matt enjoy their beverages. We are still fairly young in our wine expertise, but since we quit smoking, our taste buds have recovered enough that we can tell they put some grapes and stuff in there, and that's all we need to consider ourselves sommeliers. Napier lies in Hawke's Bay, a terroir of growing distinction that is producing some of the finest wines in the world. And if you show up to the cellar doors with a proper shirt and shoes, you can get it free, and you ain't gotta spit it out or nothin!

So after a few relaxing days in Wellington, we began our journey up the much more crowded North Island. On the South Island, you regularly go an hour between tiny towns and villages with little but farmland in between. On the North Island, many stretches feel like you never leave some sort of populated area. Or at least that was the case for the first few hours. As we neared the east coast, the sprawl thinned out a little bit as we entered the beginnings of wine country, until finally, like the green light at the end of Daisy Buchanan's dock, Napier appeared as a beacon in the distance, heralding a promising era (or weekend) of free wine and 30's architecture.

On a quick historical side note, Napier is dubbed the Art Deco capital of New Zealand. This is not, as we originally thought, because Napier used to be in Miami, but because in 1931, the city was leveled by an earthquake, and when the time came to rebuild, Art Deco was the hot new style, and if you drive by the McDonalds in modern-day Napier, it still is.

On to the free wine. We picked up a handy map from the local information site that mapped out the bountiful array of local wineries and set out to take our taste buds on a fantastic voyage. Our first stop was at one of the larger New Zealand wineries. We drove up to a large estate house that wasn't very clearly marked as to where you were supposed to go, so we just uncomfortably strolled through the biggest doors we could find. Being our first foray into the classy world of free booze, we weren't exactly sure of the decorum. Were we supposed to sign up somewhere? Did we have to pass a breathalyzer first? If we tried something we didn't like, could we ask for a free sample of something better? Was it tacky to ask if there was any free beer available as well?

We quickly discovered that cellar door wine tastings are not as similar to Señor Frogs as we had imagined. The bartender doesn't line up shots of Viognier, you aren't given a funnel at the door that'll later be used to pour Marzemino down your gullet, and nothing you imbibe is set ablaze before it is served to you. What does happen is you have to do a lot of listening and nodding along and saying things like, "Yes, I do detect the coriander," or "Mmmmmmm, tangy!" If you're particularly bold, you may occasionally make an assertion, such as "I'm picking up a waft of broccoli casserole," to which at least one person in the group will adamantly agree: "Yes yes yes yes, I was just noticing rapini on the back of the tongue." "Yeah, whatever."

But enough poking fun at the wine tasting experience. We really had a fantastic time. Our favorite winery was a very small operation which was run out of a barn by a couple with a beautiful yellow lab that hung out at our picnic table while the owners brought wines to us one at a time. We were the only people there for a good portion of our visit, and they were happy to spend time talking with us and telling us all about their business.

We ended up visiting four wineries, and after buying several bottles of our favorites, our free wine-tasting tour quickly became quite expensive. But, we thought it was well worth it. Now we've got enough 2008 broccoli casserole in the cellar to last us all winter!

South Island Pong: Part III

After bouncing aimlessly back into Oamaru for a few days, we put together plans for one last surge to the south, with two destinations in mind: the Otago Peninsula and the Catlins Coast. We had been eyeing both of these areas for a while, and the opportunity was closing as we approached the autumn, so we embarked one final southern voyage!

The Otago Peninsula extends into the Pacific Ocean east of Dunedin, the vibrant southern city dubbed the Edinburgh of New Zealand, where we once stranded following the second breakdown of Smaug. We decided to plan a stopover there on the way down to the Catlins. Through one of our ever-helpful guidebooks and also through word-of-mouth of a backpacker we met in Oamaru, we found a place called Billy Brown's that sounded like one of those great hidden treasures that we've been so pleasantly surprised by in the past. We gave Billy a ring, and he let us know that  he was just coming back from vacation, so the place had been closed for a bit, but he'd be happy to host us for the evening. He gave us directions on how to punch it up the tricky steep gravel driveway, and told to us let ourselves in and make ourselves at home.

We made it up the driveway with no incident, although later, when we met Billy, he recounted the tale of a Japanese backpacker whose car battery bounced out of place as she was trying to floor it up the drive. Minutes later, she watched helplessly as the last of her tires melted while her vehicle went up in flames. So when we say we made it up the hill with no incident, we did so with no knowledge of what could have been.

As if we haven't so many times before, we won't bore everyone with details of yet another cool place we found to sleep. We'll just say that if you ever find yourself in the south of New Zealand, pay Billy a visit. He's a great guy who will talk to you for hours, build you a fire and let you pick through his record collection. We had a beautiful house overlooking the ocean to ourselves, and once again we had found yet another place where we wished we could have spent an entire week.

The next morning, after a few more lengthy conversations with Billy about rock concerts and American automobiles, we began our short journey to Owaka, a tiny town that sits on the north-east corner of the Catlins. After a short stop-off for supplies in Balclutha, we left civilization behind for a few days as we headed for our first stop, Purakaunui Bay. After several miles of driving and wondering where we were, if we were driving in the right direction and at what point the car would break down, the windy dirt road opened up to an indescribably beautiful beach resting in a bay formed by steep cliffs rising out of the ocean. The campground was perfectly situated a few hundred feet from the surf, just far enough away to keep everything from being covered with sand. As peaceful and lovely as it was, the campground was a little bit crowded, so we decided to see where the road continued to and if we couldn't find a spot where we could have more than a few feet between us and the next tent. Our exploratory spirit was rewarded with one of the most spectacular campsites we're likely to discover.

The next morning we saw the entirety of the sunrise from its beginning as a tiny speck of light on the horizon until its full mass was hovering just above the South Pacific Ocean. It was the perfect start to a day full of hiking and sight seeing.

First we set out on a moderate walk to see the Cathedral Caves, a large U-shaped cavern formed in the ocean cliffsides of Waipati Beach that can only be accessed at low tide. After that, we went on a short walk to the famous Purakaunui Falls, which was more of a trickle after a few months of drought in New Zealand. Finally, after driving past it a few times, we had to see what the Lost Gypsy Gallery was all about. Located in the barely-noticeable village of Papatowai, this funky bus-turned-gallery is an incredible collection of machines and automatons created by New Zealand artist Blair, who sits in the corner and works on his latest creation while you explore his innovative collection of works. Extraordinary talent hides in unexpected places.

And this sums up our roundabout tour of the south South Island. Before the Catlins, we had been exploring a revolutionary new labor concept where you move in with strangers that you meet on the internet and work for them for free. We managed to line up one such lucrative gig while we were staying at Billy's, and finalized plans to do some housesitting/gardening/landscaping in Sawyer's Bay, just outside of Dunedin, for a few days after our Catlins exploration. We were planning on lining up a few weeks of this type of work (known as WWOOF-ing, and it really is an excellent way to travel), but we had also been in contact with a work opportunity way up on the middle of the north island, and during our weekend of housesitting, we accepted new jobs in Rotorua. We had about 10 days to get there, so it was a bit of a rush, but we had a little time to check out a few more sites on the way.

On the South Island, with all of our ponging around, a few segments remained to be explored, so before we crossed back over to the north, we mapped out our route to do a little bit more bouncing around to Mt Cook Village, Hanmer Springs and Kaikoura. Of course, we could spend months exploring and enjoying the many corners and hidden treasures of the South Island that we hadn't yet uncovered, but this whirlwind tour afforded us the opportunity to check a few more highlights off of our must-do list.

Our final week on the South Island (for now) flew by, and before we knew it, April 5th had arrived, our four month anniversary in New Zealand, and we were driving back onto the ferry to Wellington. We were sad to be leaving the South behind, but calm seas and a beautiful sunset over the Marlborough Sounds eased our bittersweet recollections and sparked our optimism at the promise of new places and people to encounter.

Obviously, April 5th was a while ago at this point, but writing a blog is pretty hard work, okay? Yes, plenty has happened since then that needs to be recounted, but as the Ents say, there's no need to be hasty!