Monthly Archives: October 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to Australia!  And Happy Halloween!

After a short 3 1/2 hour flight from Christchurch, NZ we arrived in Brisbane, Australia on October 20th.  A large business-focused city with a lovely river area and a botanic garden.  The jacaranda trees were in full bloom and so beautiful, although not native to Australia.     Gary loves visiting cathedrals and so we popped into St. John’s Cathedral and we were shown around by either a volunteer or employee there, and it was magnificent – I’ve never found church history so fascinating and he was such a compassionate person, that it truly was a spiritual experience.  The church was completed in stages over 100 years, but you would never know it as each stage blended in to the other beautifully.  I loved how inclusive the church was:  there were ESL classes going on right in the entrance; and they made sure that they opened up the dialogue so that their patrons could question things.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We spent a couple of days wondering around Brisbane and then met up with Gary’s brother, Bill.  The three of us drove up to the Sunshine Coast and spent four days being guided and chauffeured by Bill (commentary included – sometimes welcome, and sometimes with a little eye rolling from me – but always appreciated).  He was an excellent guide!  Here’s how the itinerary went (loosely, don’t want to bore everyone with all of the details):

Day 1

Lunch at The Spirit House – an absolutely sublime experience.  Not only was the rain forest setting magnificent, but each and every bite was exquisite, and the dishes were presented beautifully – have a look at the whole fish – so yummy I wanted to lick each plate but Bill wouldn’t let me; lucky for me he had to visit the restroom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We got to see Bill and Moira’s old haunts (they lived for a short period of time on the east coast for a few years) – one of their homes had been right in the rain forest and completely off the grid.  We stayed in the town of Coolum just north of Brisbane in a lovely apartment.  The ocean was just across the street and it was beautiful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 2

Went to Saturday Eumundi Markets in the quaint and lovely town of Eumundi – AMAZING!  It was a combination of handmade artisan crafts, local fruit/veg and food stalls all in the centre of town; it felt like the entire town was part of the market.  We picked up some lovely cheese, chorizo, bread and olives for dinner.  But prior to that we had lunch at Gusto, a fabulous cafe in the town of Noosa.

 

Day 3

Walked on the amazing beach.  Visited the Macadamia nut factory and then across the street to the Ginger factory.   Drove up to a lovely rain forest and did a short hike, then lunch of course at a great organic grocery store.  Drove to another rain forest and a beautiful hike with a waterfall, and then a view of the Glasshouse Mountains before heading home to plan our own itinerary after leaving Bill.  Bill found it extremely painful watching us book our hotel and car rental as we used most of the mega bites that we were entitled to in our apartment, and went back and forth, and back and forth from car rental agency to car rental agency, from hotel to hotel………..we’ll be flying to Cairns, picking up a car and using Port Douglas as our base for the Great Barrier Reef and other excursions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 4

Another great hike in the rain forest (Bill’s keeping us busy), and another lovely lunch looking out into the ocean.  The temperature was perfect, the water sparkling and the food delicious.  Laundry day (yes, we still have a few domestic things to do while traveling).

 

After spending four days together with Bill he still said “it was fun” – that’s good since we’re going to be spending some more time together later when we get to Perth and staying with him and Moira.

 

And thank you Bill for upgrading us to Business class from Brisbane to Cairns – we could certainly get used to that.

 

Headed towards Dunedin (eastern coast) after leaving the Queenstown area on October 16.  Once again, ever-changing scenery and terrain and this time I swear I saw hobbits around all the rocks in the landscape.  Unfortunately we did not stop to take any pictures.

We only spent a night in Dunedin but it was an interesting city with a definite Scottish influence and great architecture.  The railway station was quite beautiful.   The small hotel we stayed at was called The Brothers Boutique Hotel, and used to be the residence of the Christian Brothers, of the Catholic Church.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heading further up the east coast we stopped off at KoeKohe Beach to see the Moeraki Boulders.  They were beautiful, and they looked like they had been shot off a cannon from far off sea.  And the broken up one looked like a smashed up honey dew melon.  You can’t tell from looking at them in the photos but some were encrusted with all kinds of teeny tiny shells and some had lovely green moss hanging from them.  See where your imagination takes you.  Here’s a video if you would like more information:  http://www.moerakiboulders.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We then stopped off at a small village called Oamaru with great old buildings that are slowly starting to get bought up by a trust group and slowly getting refurbished, so lots of independent shop keepers.  We couldn’t believe all of the used book stores and how a small town could support so many.  And Gary just can’t walk by a great old book store, so we had to buy a book each even though we promised we wouldn’t buy anything and that we would just read with our e-reader.  The bookstore we bought our books at was called Slightly Foxed and they even wrapped our books up in the old-fashioned way.  We love supporting independent book stores!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We booked two days in Christchurch and everyone told us not to bother since most of the buildings were ruined during the major earthquake 5 years ago and still haven’t been rebuilt – apparently one big insurance claim headache after another, and then a bit of red tape and politics to go with that.  Any New Zealander we spoke with told us either not to bother or to just spend half a day or as little as possible.  One of the hotel owners of where we stayed prior to arriving in ChCh described it as ‘Earthquake Tourism’, which we both thought was rather negative and grim.  So, because we are who we are we decided to stay two full days and see for ourselves.  Well, we both thought it was a great city – not a beautiful city, but with great beauty – although sad with all of the ruined buildings and empty lots.  Apparently even if some of the historical building were left standing they still had to be taken down due to the uncertainty of the structure.  What I saw in the people was an innovativeness, creativity and a perseverance.  Sure, many people moved away from the city, I’m sure with frustration as well as from having lost their homes or places of work, and some just plain frightened (they had 2 major quakes within a 5 month period, and then constant tremors for 18 months after); but others decided to make a go of it, and I’d say they’ve done a pretty darn good job of it.  If you thought I was excited about shipping containers before, you were mistaken.  I think we have our next house designed now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, over 4000 km worth of driving, with just over 4 weeks in the country and a sense of the NZ culture and landscape, we say farewell, so long, and au revoir!  Although it was a lot of driving and we’re glad to be done with that part, we will miss all the fantastic things we saw, people we met and every single little experience and surprise that came our way.  And although all of the mountains and other beautiful landscape made an impact on me, I think it was Christchurch that made the most impact as far as not being afraid of change and challenges.

See you on the other side of the Tasman Sea.  Thanks for following us through NZ.

Hello from the South Island!  SENSORY OVERLOAD!  It is so beautiful.  I can’t say it’s more beautiful than the North Island but it is jaw-dropping, mind-blowing, and just plain awesome (not a word I use often).

Crossed over from Wellington to Picton.  The crossing takes 3 hours and is AMAZING.  Fabulous views but not for the faint of heart – it was, as the captain put it, “strong”.  It went from strong, stormy waters to calm, serene waters, with a prevailing wind.

A seal welcomed us in Picton Harbour, showing off a bit.

   

 

 

 

 

Spent a night in Picton and then drove to a little cottage that we had pre-booked for 3 nights.  It was rustic and sweet on an estuary with lots of bird life and mountains in the distance.  Very quiet, except for the birds.  Most of the property on the peninsula used to belong to the owners of the cottages.  At one time her parents ran an apple orchard but as they got older they severed the land.  The wee cottage that we stayed in used to be one of the workers’ cottages.  The owners now run an organic farm and they hire workers from all over the world to work on the farm, for food and board – the organization is called WWOOF – check it out if you’re interested:  http://www.wwoof.net/.  We didn’t work on the farm ourselves and there didn’t appear to be any serious farming being done (I think it’s early in the season still).

At first when we drove out of Picton the scenery appeared to be similar to the North Island but all of a sudden we could see lots of big, high mountains with white peaks – BEAUTIFUL!  NZ certainly awakens all of our senses: visually, of course – colours, textures, mountains, lakes, green pastures- as every turn of the head shows us something different; smells – just walking through a wooded area or even someone’s garden provides you with such a variety of smells from the amazing assortment of trees and bushes.  Sounds:  the birds are the most obvious of all the sounds, especially the time that we spent in the cottage the first few nights in the South Island and on our hikes.  Also, depending where we are, the waves and the wind.  And then taste:  wine, wine and more wine, and in Gary’s case, beer as well!  And I can’t remember if I mentioned the oysters when we were in the North Island.  My nephew, Marco, encouraged us to try oysters about 5 years ago when we went to visit him and his family in New Jersey and I was really hesitant, but when I finally agreed to try them, I was hooked!  So I couldn’t wait to try some NZ oysters when I got here and when I finally did – YUCK!  No offense to their oysters but they were HUGE and way too briny for me, so no more oysters unless they have some small ones hiding somewhere.  But for the most part, the food has been great.  Oh, and one more thing I’m not having any more:  whitebait.  Look it up.

Going back to the visual, we went on a coastal hike in Abel Tasman National Park (NZ has a LOT of national parks).  This was a pretty easy hike, about 1.5 hours long each way, and it was beautiful!  It had a little bit of everything – ocean, beach, mountains in the distance, bush (forest).  NZ sometimes reminds me of Costa Rica meets West Coast Canada, without the bears or monkeys.  I’m especially happy about that since I don’t care to meet either of them on a hike.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After leaving our wee cottage we headed south along the west coast.  It is so wild and rugged.  The sky and sea are so dramatic here.  We stopped off at a place called Cape Foulwind (VERY windy, but not foul at all), where there was a seal colony.  And then down to Punakaiki which has an amazing rock formation called Pancake Rocks, with blow holes as well.  A highlight for sure.

We then continued south to Franz Joseph Glacier.  We were quite excited to get here since we’d heard so much, but the rain and more rain and a little more rain, and low cloud cover prevented us from seeing anything.  Could not see Mt. Cook which is the biggie here.  And if we hadn’t seen pictures we would have sworn that everyone was lying about the mountains. Here’s a photo of me holding a photo of what should have been behind me where I’m standing (Fox Glacier area).

We did however manage to get a short hike in the next morning while still in Franz Joseph and saw the glacier.  So………..definitely not like the glaciers in Alberta, Canada – these ones are receding by the year and the pictures we saw of how they are receding were quite scary.  But nonetheless, it was great.  Mother Nature is  strong and determined!  Here is a link about Franz Joseph Glacier if you would like to read about it:  http://www.newzealand.com/us/feature/west-coast-glaciers/.

We were going to spend more time in the area but due to the visibility factor decided to move south and inland, towards Queenstown.

We were initially going to make our way to Milford Sound, which was highly recommended and we were very pumped to go there, but we kept our eye on the weather radar and it wasn’t very promising and we knew it would be a big tourist attraction (bus loads, finding a place to stay), so both of those factors made our decision to move on. However it was a VERY long drive; not too much between Glacier Country and Queenstown.  But visually, no regrets – have a look:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We stayed for a few nights just outside of Queenstown in a hotel called Nugget Point Hotel to relax for a bit.  The food in this area is great and so many restaurants.  This is Otago wine region, known for the Pinots and Chardonnays.  The other little town, Arrowtown, just 15 minutes drive from where we’re staying is so quaint with fantastic restaurants.  It’s an old gold mining town.  Definitely worth a stop.  We had some of our best meals here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Drove the short drive into Queenstown and took the gondola up to the top for the great view.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’re winding down in our stint in NZ and gearing up for Australia.  We’re meeting Gary’s brother, Bill (who lives in Perth), in Brisbane and he will show us around the area for a few days.  Excited about that as we are going just north to the Sunshine Coast and Bill knows of a fantastic Thai restaurant – woo hoo!  Bill, you know our soft spot – food!  He’s also got us booked into a few great places.  See you soon, Bill!

And while we’re on family:  Sue, we hope you aren’t working too hard, and remember, you’re suppose to meet us somewhere so start asking for that raise.

Happy belated Thanksgiving to all of our Canadian friends!  Hard to believe we’re into week 5 of our journey.  Some days it feels like we just left Canada and other days it feels like we’ve been traveling for a long time.  Loving it!

And just when we’re nearing our end in NZ I’m just getting used to driving here – left side and all.  Gary’s gotten very good at it, minus the few reminders from me to stay left……..

Until next time.

Headed south from Napier to Wellington but couldn’t get a hotel in Wellington the first night due to the Wearable Arts Festival and October Fest, so spent the night at a B&B, Konini Cottage & Homestead, about an hour north of Wellington.  We stayed in the suite – it was a lovely, self-contained space with a sitting room.  The owners, Maggie and Bob were wonderful hosts, with interesting travel stories to share as well.  Bob made every bit of furniture in their home, and we both agreed that he was one fine cabinetmaker.  The home was in what we would call a suburb, but the amazing beach was a two minute walk straight out their door, and they had two of the best restaurants about a 10 minute walk away.  A great relaxing evening.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then it was down to Wellington where we dropped the car off and will pick up another when we get to the South Island.  Wellington is where we catch the ferry to cross over to Picton.  It’s a great, funky (my favourite adjective), beautiful city.  They’re known as the coffee capital of NZ, although I think they think it’s the world.  Lots of restaurants, especially on Cuba Street.  The street was named after a settler ship of the same name, not the country.  But the folks here have played on the name and many of the shops have something or other related to Cuba.  Lots of fun in and around Cuba Street.  I could live here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We took Wellington’s cable car up to the top with wonderful views of the harbour and city, and then walked back down through the botanical gardens.  Gary and I love botanical gardens and this one was truly fabulous.  It was so extensive and felt like we were walking through a conservation area.  And since it’s NZ’s spring the tulips were out.   It’s cold – only 13C and it’s a VERY windy city, so back on went the layers just as we felt that we were starting to take them off.  We’re holding off buying any of the amazing NZ merino/possum blend clothing since we know we’ll be warm soon, especially when we get to certain parts of Australia.  And yes, I said possum.  Well, they have to make use of the over abundance that they have.  Wish we could do the same with our racoons (sorry, hope I didn’t offend anyone).  Here are some photos from and of the gardens; check out the serious fiddleheads.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our hotel in Wellington is the Grand Mercure Apartments – our room has a mini kitchenette and sitting area with a little balcony; although it’s small at least we can have breakfast and a snack if we choose – most handy.  And free WiFi!

Wellington has a great museum with a current exhibit by Peter Jackon (director of Lord of the Rings).   Although the exhibit was very local – the wars that NZ fought and didn’t really have that much meaning for either of us, especially given our feeling on war, but it was quite impressive and I could understand why it was described as an emotional display.  There is a lot of information and many displays about the Maori people.  Lots of similarities to the native people of Canada (similar struggles and spirituality and connection with the land).  We also went to the art gallery with a great photographic exhibit by NZ artist, Fiona Pardington.  We particularly enjoyed her latest work which reminded me Rembrandt’s still lifes – have a look at the interesting objects in this painting:  citygallery.org.nz.  And the museum and gallery are FREE!  And then off to the planetarium and observatory via the cable car again.  Today was truly a cultural day.

Here are a few more pictures within the city of Wellington:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hard to tell how impressive the above building is from this photo but the tiles on the floor alone were extraordinary.  It’s now a shopping area with cafes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A number of cafes had bean bag chairs outside of their premises.  How comfy is that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the first day on our journey so far that the sky has been completely blue – not one cloud, hurray, hurray.  But still cool at a high of 16C.  We’ve been keeping an eye on the weather in the South Island since it usually gets cooler as you go south in the southern hemisphere, but the temperature has been in the 20’s.  Very much looking forward to that.

See you in the South Island.

 

I’ve held off writing about food for a couple of reasons: 1) outside of Auckland it hasn’t been that interesting, and 2) I didn’t want to bore everyone to death. Some of you know how much Gary and I love food, so I could probably go on forever, normally.

One of the things that’s different in NZ is that you don’t tip your server unless the service was exemplary, and so far what we have found is that it hasn’t been exemplary. Although in proper restaurants (instead of cafes) we have been tipping a bit, sometimes; hard to break old habits. The wages for servers are higher than back home, and so my feeling is that they are a bit more laid back when it comes to service especially if they are not working for tips. I’ve been thinking about this a lot – which way is best – getting a better wage (in principal I like this best) or getting a lot in tips (you could possibly make a lot more – I can’t help but like that too), OR should employers just pay really well? Food for thought…….

All this to say, that we haven’t had a lot to say about food until the last few days, which I’ll get to later. We do love however how amazing the coffee is. No matter where you go for a coffee – even a roadside diner – it’s fabulous. It’s all espresso based. We learned that the equivalent of a cappuccino is called a flat white (maybe it is back home too?), and I’ve been having a long black – that’s standard. The flavour is never bitter but strong and tasty just like I like it.

The wine is also very tasty – love the sauvignon blancs. Although a lot of them are similar to what we get back home there are others that are quite different – not as perfume or flowery. If you normally don’t like suav blanc (trying to talk like the locals) you would probably find one you like here. I also really love Pinot Noirs, and they do that really well here too. The unfortunate part is that their good wines are fairly expensive to buy at the store. The cheap stuff is a bit plonky, kind of like cheap, tinny Niagara wines. I’ll talk a little more about wine later on as well.

We bought Kerikeri oranges straight from the town of Kerikeri. Has anyone heard of it, or the oranges (I can’t recall if I saw them in Toronto once)? Tim, were you in Kerikeri? Yummy juicy oranges! Straight off the tree and not sprayed – how good is that! Avocados seem to be in season here as well.  We also tried what I think may be a kumquat – we were walking by a tree and decided to try one, probably not a good idea when you don’t know what it is.  It was really yummy – does anyone know if this photo is of kumquats?

There is lots of Asian influence here – an Indian, Japanese or Thai restaurant at every corner and in between, even in the smaller towns. We are holding ourselves back until we get to Thailand and maybe India.  I lied – I had an amazing Thai noodle/soup dish in our Napier Art Deco Hotel restaurant.

Restaurants are very generous with their portions – way too generous. I’m embarrassed to post this photo, but Gary thought it was a good idea. I have to allow some contribution from him LOL. I can’t just make him drive all day long with no rewards. The one consolation was that it was gluten-free bread!

 

And here’s another light meal……

We stopped off in a place called Rotorua, famous for their thermal baths – sulphur everywhere! If you don’t like that smell you may not want to visit this town. Gary could smell it in our room but I couln’t (Gary has a much more sensitive nose than I do, though – mine is attuned to the fine bouquet of a good wine instead. Gary believes that I can smell the sulphur too but that it just doesn’t bother me. Maybe.). We were planning on staying here for a couple of days but it’s SO touristy that neither of us can stand it, and we had a bit of an experience with hotwire.com this time around, so ended up in a very crappy hotel (it felt like time stood still from the ’60’s and nothing has been done to it since, not in a good way). The hotel didn’t have us booked due to a hotwire.com error( amazingly enough Hotwire fully refunded us due to the circumstances – I’m sure this is very rare for them), so we rambled on…….to wine region, yeah! If you’re familiar with NZ wines you may know Hawkes Bay.

But before further talk about wine/food, and while I’m on the subject of crappy, here’s a sign that I just loved – this is typical NZ humour.

Heading a little further south of the stinky town, we stayed in Napier which is right on the bay and known for it’s Art Deco architecture – apparently in has the highest concentration in a city in the southern hemisphere. Any guesses as to who has the highest concentration in the northern hemisphere? We’ve booked ourselves in to a lovely Art Deco (of course) hotel called The Masonic Art Deco Hotel; a splurge after the previous hotel.

A young Queen Elizabeth (and Prince Philip) stayed here and waved from the exact spot that I’m standing at.  Maybe we stayed in the same room.

They know their food and wine here in Napier – love cities like this. We had lunch at The Mission Estate Winery on our first day here – probably the best meal yet, and NOT the most expensive. Did I mention that things are expensive here in NZ?  And lunch at the Black Barn Winery the next day – YUM.  Here’s a thumbs-up photo of my venison dish (the carrots have their thumbs up too – oh, so good, can you tell?

 

We’ll be heading to the southern end of the North Island shortly and spending a couple of days in Wellington (supposedly a pretty funky town) before taking the ferry over to the South Island. Apparently Wellington has quite the coffee scene going on, although I was told that Melbourne, Australia is really the spot for coffee culture. This has truly been a road trip, no stopping too long anywhere. But it’s been fantastic and we wouldn’t change how we’ve done it.

Off food topic now, we came across NZ’s known largest and oldest tree. It was truly a spiritual moment; it was SO beautiful and grand. I think it was bigger than some of the really big trees in BC, but you can’t tell from the photo since we couldn’t get close enough to get some perspective.  I think you’ll still get a sense of it.

And a few scenery photos during our driving.

 

And just some quirky photos:

 

Well, all that talk about food has me hungry – until next time…….