Hello everyone!  After the glacier we continued our northern trek up the West Coast.

This was about a 2 or 3 hour ride.  Not so bad but it would have been shorter if they didn’t have to close the whole route down to do work on a bridge.  There is basically one road that goes North and South along the coast so this would be akin to something like shutting down 95N and 95S for about 4 hours.  Luckily, the south island of NZ has a population of only about 1 million people so after the 4 hours, there were only about 40 cars waiting to get by. Keep in mind again that the bridges are one lane.  We just got out and enjoyed some of the beautiful scenery of the West Coast and chatted some nice folks up from the Marlborough region.

This isn't due to whizzing by in the car. These trees look like this because they are coastal. So cool!

Mike with our favorite ginger beer

From where we stopped to wait for the bridge to be repaired.

This is after we got back on the road. It was starting to get close to sunset.  Such a beautiful area and in total contrast to both Queenstown and Franz Josef.

This was our place we stayed at while in Punakaiki.  It was a really nice two floor villa with all the fixin’s.

This area of NZ is home to the Weka bird.  A cheeky little flightless bird about the size of a large chicken that isn’t afraid of people at all.  This little guy walked right into the driveway and made himself at home.

This is me forging a hand-made knife.  WHAT?  !!!

That's me in the back workin' the belt sander.

Okay, a little background.  In Mike’s web searching, he found this guy in Barrytown (the next town over from Punakaiki) that teaches a hand-forged knife making class.  This sounds weird, right?  Well, we were in the mood for some off-the-beaten-path type activity and this really hit the mark.  Yes, I was skeptical.  Who knows what sort of people make knives in the NZ bush?

When all was said in done, however, it was honestly one of the most fun things we did on the trip. Also, I have a cool knife.   The class was an all day affair starting at 9AM and going until about 4PM.  First, we took a piece of regular old steel and heated up to an orange glow in the forge.  Then we beat the thing with a mallet for awhile.  Then there were multiple sanding steps.  Then, we made the handle out of wood and brass and glued it all together.  Then multiple more sanding steps, some polishing, and staining, and whallaaah!  A hand-made knife.  Ha!  The best thing about this whole process was the guy who ran the show.  He was like if Mike Myers worked on an old New Zealand guy character.  The guy was hilariously funny and had supreme knife-making ability as well as a healthy obsession with the electric eel.

Here are some pics from this crazy day.

Tiff -this one's for you. Me walking a mini-horse like a dog. Awesome.

Mike on the huge adult sized swing! So fun!

Steven - master knife maker

Our entire class! Who knew that 8 people would do this on one day? USA, NZ, Germany, Ireland all represented

Well this was a really fun day but we had to head back to pack up.  We took in the sunset from our semi-private beach.  There was nobody on these beaches, ever really.

We woke up pretty early the next day to check out the whole reason for coming!  The Punakaiki pancake rocks and blowholes.  This is a not fully understood geological formation having something to do with bacterial deposits in the limestone once covered by the ocean in this spot. The limestone looks as if it is stacked, layer upon layer, creating this “pancake” effect.

Pretty dramatic. This was one of the nicest walks we took.  NZ really knows how to care for their natural resources and provides excellent walking tracks for tourism, which is a main source of income for them.

A good representation of what ALL these rocks looked like.

After these amazing sights, we got back on the road and continued northward towards the Tasman area at the very tip of the South Island.  Our trip was coming to an end but we still had a couple more awesome things to see!

On the road again.  Here is the trek to Franz Josef Glacier.  Mike and I were just remarking about how glad we are that we decided to drive across this beautiful country.  We really feel like we didn’t miss a thing here on the South Island.  Here is the ride we took (about 4.5 hours) full of lakes and mountains.

Once we reached the West Coast, the scenery went from mountains to lush wet forest, palm trees, and oceans.  All this on the way to a glacier!  Since we left a little later than expected, we hit sunset at the right time near the water.  Once it got dark, we came back inland and got a dose of what everyone was talking about with the “possum” problem.  We hadn’t done much night driving so we didn’t know what to expect.  As we headed into the bush country, we started seeing them…everywhere. They are the size of a large cat and just hang out on the side of the road.  The funny thing is that since they have become such a nuisance, being an introduced species, people started trapping them and using their fur to make clothing.  Now, it is the most expensive fabric around!  Imagine if we made sweaters out of squirrels and skunks?  This is the equivalent, except that possum fur is super soft and great to the touch. Anyway, enough about NZ possum.  I think they are kind of cute but the locals absolutely HATE them:

Here are some high points from the ride to Franz Josef Glacier:

When we got to Franz Josef Glacier, it was dark out and we were exhausted from the ride. I was pretty terrified on the ride not being able to see what was on either side of me…huge gorge?  lake?  cliff?  So instead of going out to eat, we just scarfed some PB&Js and sat down for some tube.  We really got into this documentary on Yellowstone National Park.  Next trip perhaps???

So the next day, we headed out for our glacier hike.  Franz Josef Glacier was named after the Austrian emporer of the same name by the explorer Hasst.  It was about a 45 minute hike which is pretty short. It started in a jungley parking lot and into the trees and bush!  It is incredible that a glacier can be within a mile of really dense rain forest.  ???

When we came out on the other side, there was a huge river bed where the glacier once stood, crushing the rocks beneath it and creating a river.

As we walked the riverbed towards the glacier, the walls of the valley spilled gorgeous waterfalls.

And the remnants of a wild rushing river pushing through rock over time were all around us:

The glacier has receded quite a bit over time but above the line, where you can’t really see, it still fills entire valleys. This is called the “tongue” of the Franz Josef Glacier.

We got on the road after this to get to our next destination.  Punakaiki Pancake Rocks!  Huh? You’ll see!

So after the crazy awesome day in Queenstown and surrounding area, we came to the excursion we were most looking forward to.  A scenic flight over the mountains to the West Coast to view Milford Sound. There is a bus that can take you too but it takes 5 hours to get there!  The flight was about 40 mins. We really didn’t have time so we decided to go with the flying option.  Here is the flight path:

Milford Sound is an amazing place.  Formed by glaciers in the fjiordlands of NZ, this beautiful area is like the 8th wonder of the world.   We were excited because the weather finally cleared and we could take off the morning we were scheduled to leave the Queenstown area.  The weather was a stroke of luck though because previous to this day, there was no snow on the mountains.  The snow made everything so much more dramatic, if that is even possible.  Here is the plane we went up in…eeek!  It was so small and scary.  I still can’t even believe we did this!

The flight started off great.  The views of this region from the air were so amazing.  I wish I could post all the pictures but we literally have hundreds.  Here are a representative few from on the way to Milford Sound:

The wind kicked up a bit more than they expected that day.  Mike and I were essentially white knuckling the seats the whole time.  It is one thing to have turbulence in a 747, quite another in a tiny little cessna.  Yikes.  But we lived to tell the story even if our underwear didn’t.    haha!  (jkjktk?)

This is when it was too windy in the sound to land the first time and it appeared we would crash into the mountain. Good times.

Milford Sound

Our flight came with a cruise around the sound so when we landed (thankfully), we headed over to the cruise wharf and set out!  This place is so cool, I don’t even know what to say.  You really feel your human insignificance in a place like this.  Everything was so impossibly huge!

Mike posing it up in front of the sound

Rainbow on Double Waterfall...all the way.

Here is a picture from the Tasman Sea.  Something interesting about Milford Sound is that the first explorers sailed right by it thinking it was one continuous wall of lush mountain and forest with a little inlet.  They didn’t realize that the sound even existed until much later!  You can really see why though, its just a wall of green from the water.

It was amazing overall.  As much as Mike and I didn’t want to, we had to get back into the little plane to ride home.  We went a slightly different way back and avoided some of the turbulence we experienced on the way there.  Here are some shots of the ride back.  It is like another world up there.  You wouldn’t believe all the crazy mountain top lakes and clouds.  Ugh, breathtaking.

Cloud land

Back to Queenstown

So we landed!  It was a magical experience to say the least.  As soon as we got back we got on the road to Franz Josef Glacier. It was going to be a long ride and we were late already!  Wooohooo!

The ride from Lake Tekapo to Queenstown was probably a few hours.

It was a bit stormy on and off but because of this, I have come to call this leg “the rainbow leg.” We saw about twenty amazingly huge rainbows on this ride alone here.  But before the rain, we stumbled, quite accidentally on a sheep shearing show, held at a farm cafe on the side of the road we had stopped at.  I had been saying that we couldn’t leave NZ without seeing a sheep get sheared so it was our good fortune that one just happened to be starting when we stopped into the cafe for a leg stretch.  The show was quite amusing.  Here are a couple of shots from the show:

The gentleman man-handling the sheep was an expert, don't worry.

Baaaaaa Hahahaha!

The terrain changed quickly and frequently along this long drive but again, as we traveled in a southerly direction, autumn crept in even more. Here are some things we saw on the way:

We finally made it to Queenstown amidst a pretty tough rain on a treacherous mountain road that sloped off into a seemingly endless gorge. This area of NZ gets a good amount of rain so it wasn’t too surprising. We dropped our stuff and headed out to the town to look for a rain jacket for Mike and a spot for dinner.   Once we were appropriately fed and clothed, we headed back to the hotel for a snooze.  We had lined up a bunch of activities for the following day so we knew we needed our rest.

The next day we headed down to Queenstown, about a 5 minute drive from our hotel.  Queenstown is like a huge Newburyport but with a ski-bum mentality.  It has a lot of charm with tons of shops and eateries, and is of course, set in the middle of a gorgeous valley with stunning Lake Wakitpu and a mountain range known as “The Remarkables.”  Indeed they were.

After a DELICIOUS breakfast at The Earnhardt House, we rolled over to the Skyline Gondola for a ride.  The gondola goes up 450 vertical meters in about 5 minutes.  It was crazy high!  But the views were amazing.

After this, we headed over to the “Below Zero” ice bar for a drink and to experience an entire bar made from ice.  Tables, chairs, artwork all sculpted out of ice.  Even the drink glasses were ice molds!  This was a fun place to visit but indeed it was quite cold so we only stayed to have one drink!  Thank goodness they outfitted us with gloves and heavy winter coats!

Mike in an ice gondola!

Me on an ice polar bear

After the ice bar, we needed to warm up so we made our way to “The New Zealand Wine Experience.”  This place was really cool.  It was a large room filled with all NZ wines.  Their gimmick is that they have wine dispensing machines that are activated with a prepaid card.  You can taste a lot of different wines for a relatively small fee.  It was really fun to get to taste the more expensive vintages since there is no way we would spend that much on a bottle!  The wine specialist there was a USA native and so we hit him up for info while there.  It was a really good time!

After the wine tasting, we hopped in the car and headed over to Arrowtown for a  look around.  This is a cute little village of shops and restaurants nestled right into the Remarkables.  The views from this area were beautiful.

That was a long day, but it wasn’t over yet!  From Arrowtown, we went over to the Onsen Hot Pools.  This place was the coolest idea.  The had six private hot tubs that overlooked the mountains.  Each room had a shower and an electronic door that opened the room to the outside (pretty much like a garage door opening).  It was awesome and relaxing after such a long day!  Anyone wanna open one of these up with me?

View from the hot tub.

After this, we hit up dinner at the Fishbone, a great little place on Beach St.  Well, that was about all we could handle for one night.  We went back to the room and passed out!!!  The next day was a very big day.  Milford Sound and off to Franz Josef Glacier!!!

Hello all!  Sorry I have been lax in getting these out to you.  I am clearly a bunch of days behind but there has been so much going on, we have been exhausted and too tired to work on the blog.  SO – when I left last you, we were leaving Kaikoura and heading towards Lake Tekapo .  This was a pretty long drive – took us about 6 hours but Mike is a champ and we powered through.  Here is the map of how we went:

We saw some amazing stuff on the way.  As we drove inland, the wonderful views never ceased.  I had heard that the color of the rivers and lakes was amazing but nothing could have prepared me for this.  Here was the first view of the blue water (more to come on that) of the Canterbury region.

Some else interesting about the driving in NZ is that 90% of the bridges are one ways.  One side always has the right of way and you must wait for the car to pass if you are on the other side.  A little scary at first but we got the hang of it!  Here’s another shot of the Canterbury region.  The land was green and lush but we could tell as we traveled south that autumn was starting to influence the region.

Here is the view from our room in Lake Tekapo, pronounced “Tik-a-poe.”  The reason why the water is such an interesting blue color is because the grinding of rock from glacier caused a very fine “rock flour” to be produced.  This “flour” is suspended in the water and it’s particulates react with sunlight so that this amazing and beautiful hue is seen by the human eye.

Here we are at the Church of the Good Shepherd.  A cute little stone building on the shores of the lake.  Very picturesque in this setting.  Beyond this, was a monument to the sheep herding dog, the collie, without which the Mackenzie hills could not have been grazed.  They rely on the dogs heavily to move the sheep in and out of areas.

After this, we went on a short hike around the north side of the lake and then drove up to the top of Mt. John, a mountain that abuts Lake Tekapo.  This was  a crazy ride as there were many switchbacks that allowed you to “climb” to the top in your car in a relatively short time (about 10 minutes).  With basically cliffs on either side and only enough for one car in spots, it made for an interesting ride.  When we reached the top, however, we knew it was totally worth it.  From the height of Mt. John, we could see more than an entire valley.  There is even a cafe on the top of this mountain.  We had the BEST CHEESECAKE EVER here.  Here are a couple of shots of us with the incredibly expansive views:

After a day of sightseeing, hiking, and mountain climbing, we decided we needed to kick back.  So we went on over to Tekapo Springs Hot Pools.  This place was about a 3 minute drive from our hotel.  The area had an ice-skating rink and spa, but most importantly, lake fed pool-sized hot tubs at varying temperatures, for your comfort.  You can see below that the heat of the pools causes steam to rise up into the cold air. Great experience. They also had a great sauna and steam room with a plunge pool (kept at lake temp, so basically freezing) for you to jump into after the sauna. SHOCKING but INVIGORATING!

Here are a couple shots of the hot pools, again, with amazing views of the Mackenzie country:

It was pretty cool outside, probably around 60 degrees so it felt pretty great to be out in the warm water in those conditions.  We even got a return pass and came back in the night so we could enjoy it under the stars.  After this, we were super relaxed, so we went back to the hotel room and crashed.  We had to get on the road at a decent time because we had a couple hour ride to get to Queenstown in the morning.

Leaving the Marlborough region was tough but we knew our next destination would be just as magical as the last so that made it a little easier.  It’s just how New Zealand works apparently.  Here is the route we took from Bleinheim to Kaikoura.  It was about 1.5 hours to Kaikoura and the trip was amazing.

This is the tip of the south island for reference

Leg stretcher

Another shot out the window of the car...

That's 50 km/hr

Kaikoura means “Eat Crayfish” in the Maori language and “crayfish” means lobster (in the Pacific Ocean sense of the word). Here is a crayfish.  We snapped this pic at a cute little aquarium in walking distance from our hotel.

Almost a lobster, right?

This place had it all!  Whales, dolphins, seals, baby seals, sheep, wool products and of course, ridiculously amazing views; a mainstay of New Zealand country.

We stayed at the Boutique Hotel (below) which was really a B&B.  The host and hostess (Peter and Robin) were just lovely people and Peter gave us SO many great recommendations on what to do and where to eat while in Kaikoura.  This place overlooked an amazing inlet just before the peninsular area of Kaikoura.

Here’s the view at sunrise:

The first thing we did while in Kaikoura was check out “baby seals playing in a waterfall.”  So, let’s begin by saying I saw a picture of this online in someone’s review of Kaikoura and I knew I HAD to see this for myself and we had to get it out of the way right quick.  It was a 20 minute drive to the regular adult seal lookout. Then, as we were told, on the other side of the road, with a hiking path that leads to a waterfall.  Apparently, while the Momma seals are out fishing for their young, the babies “swim,” more like flop up the rocky stream to a waterfall where they swim and play to their little hearts delight.  We weren’t disappointed.  As we walked up the stream-side path, we started seeing baby seals hidden in the jungle around us. I’m not kidding.  They were just poking out of the weirdest places.

Baby jungle seal

Then as the stream widened, there was a majestic waterfall and the baby seals became more numerous.

Hard to see from this pic but the water is PACKED with seal pups jumping and playing.  We have awesome video of this that I will upload to youtube when I get more bandwidth.   Someone else’s video but this is what actually happens here. Prepare to be amazed.

Here is a little ham seal that just couldn’t get enough of the camera.  This guy was like 2 feet away from us just loving the limelight.  If I could have (and I probably would have if Mike didn’t stop me), I would have reached out and hugged this cute little thing.  Seriously, this thing was striking poses like Madonna.

This was one of his fave poses.

So, this was me after that experience.

A bit out of my tree over what we had just seen

After the baby seal experience, we hit a cafe and then walked around on the beach.  Here is what the beach sand is made up of here in Kaikoura.  Of course, it isn’t normal sand.  Nothing is normal here, it’s all just a lot cooler.  This is an up close shot but each of these pebbles were like a cm large (and or quarter inch).  I took some with me before I left to show you all.

Amazing and unexpected "sand"

Sue – here is us on the beach and not in a cemetery.  We are trying to get more pics of us together not around dead people for you.  It’s working out okay.  This is the view from the beach down the street from our hotel.

We had an amazing dinner at the White Morph with GREAT wine and dessert wine! Yum!  The next morning, we decided to hit up a walk that Peter suggested that goes out onto the peninsula.  It was a really long (like 6 mile hike) but totally worth the exhaustion.  Basically, it was outrageous ocean, seals, views, etc. on the left and amazing farm views on the right for the whole 6 miles. Here are some pics from the hike.  We also almost got caught in a cow stampede too on the way but we only have video of that. Ha!

Pied Shag Bird

Me at the first seal look out of the walk

I swear this guy's not dead, he's just sleeping. There were HEAPS of seals here.

Mike at a high point!

Beautiful farmland

Ocean left, farm right.

We finished up the day at the Green Dolphin, a great restaurant with magnificent views.  Again – fantastic food and the freshest fish you can get!  Delicious.  We called it a night after that great day and packed it up for our next destination.  Lake Tekapo (pronounced “Tik-a-poe”), here we come!!!

Hello all!  Mike and I had just a fabulous day today in wine country.  I didn’t really know what to expect, never having even been to a wine tasting before but boy were Mike and I in for a treat.  We started the day walking downtown Blenheim to grab a light breakfast.  We ended up at Cafe Raupo and had some delicious croissants with tea and coffee.  Here is the view from our cafe.

After breakfast, we headed out to Wither Hills Farm for a nice walk; a working farm and nature walk.  This “farm park” is in the grassy hills in Blenheim (pronounced ‘Blenum’).  The views from the hills were stunning.  They were just so magnificent.  It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm with a cool breeze. Perfect for a hike.  Here are some shots of this magical place.

In the middle of our hike, we came upon some farmers handling a dead cow situation (died of natural causes).  They were hauling a huge dead cow out of the brush and dragging it back to the farm (I have no idea why).  Anyway, the guy informed us that we might not want to be around when they dragged it out, so naturally, we stuck around and took a picture.

Unfortunately, the real reason why we shouldn’t have stuck around smacked us in the face when the cow was pulled out.  The stench of the dead rotting cow literally had us running in the opposite direction into the hills.  It was foul. haha!  But we were laughing hysterically at the ridiculousness of the situation.

When we got back to the hotel, we changed and got ready to tackle wine country.  There are about 50 places in a concentrated area of the upper south island known as the Marlborough region. We had no idea what we were in for.  The vineyards stretch out everywhere and are amazing to drive through, especially with the crazy backdrop of  adjacent mountain ranges. Our first stop was to Cloudy Bay, a vineyard about 10 minutes away.  This place totally blew us away.  This place mostly specialized in white wines, pinot gris, sparkling whites, and chardonnay. We sampled 5 wines each here. It was fantastic!  We could have spent the whole day here. Here are some pics of this tranquil place.

ahhhhh, where we sipped our wine

They were kind enough to let us into the cask room to see all the wine barrels.  So cool!

Next, we headed over to the Hans Herzog winery.  This place was crazy beautiful as well.  We sampled 5 more types of wine, mostly reds.  We chatted up the sommelier who was quite knowledgeable.  After the delicious wines, we stayed for lunch as they are known to have some of the best food in the area at their garden bistro on site.  I had the lamb and Mike tried the salmon, all locally farmed/caught.

Here are a couple pics of this beautiful vineyard.

This is where we ate lunch. Relaxarific!

This was definitely after a two tastings. hehe

We made one more stop at the Moa brewery but they were closed.  Tomorrow we head to Kaikoura for some fun by the sea.  Can’t wait to see what this ocean side city has in store for us!  Sad to be moving on from this amazing place but so excited too for what is to come!

Hi everyone!  After a relaxing final morning at our hotel, we headed on over to the Interislander, the big ferry that would take us across the Cook Straight to the South Island.  Here is the path we took.

We left Wellington and docked in Picton on the other side.  The ferry was pretty big and the trip took about 3 hours total. It was very cozy and they even had refreshments and a movie theater on board!  But who needed a movie theater?  There were stunningly beautiful views of the North and South Island from the boat.

Here we are relaxing in the lounge!

Here are a couple views from the top deck.   The landscape is so amazing.

As we sailed into Picton, it was about sunset.  Here is Picton harbor from the boat.

When we got into Picton, it was dark out and we still had to find the car rental place and drive to Blenheim (Marlborough area).  We got the car but they didn’t have any Tom Toms left so we went old school navigation and used maps to get to Blenheim which was about a 20 minute ride.  Mike did an awesome job driving on the left side of the road in the dark for the first time.  Something we didn’t notice until today is that they don’t have traffic lights.  Everything is handled using our good old friend, the rotary.  Which, under normal circumstances would be okay but it is a little trickier when you are going the opposite direction you are used to.  We checked into our hotel, grabbed some food, and hit the bed.  WINE COUNTRY TOMORROW!

Today, we woke up at our latest yet, 7AM!  We decided to grab some breakfast in the hotel because it is home to Artisan, a fancy restaurant serving only the freshest local foods.  We wanted to fuel up before heading down to the museum Te Papa. We got the french toast with wild boar ham and eggs florentine.  So delicious.  After breakfast, we put on our walking shoes and made the trek down to the bay side walkway towards the museum.  It is Sunday here, so there were “heaps” of people out and about and lots going on.

Here is some cool stuff we saw on the way to Te Papa.  There was a guy down by the water making these huge bubbles, just for fun I guess???  Either way, it was cool.

Water color and sea weed

Weird craggy bridge

Sunday farmer's market

Mac's Brewery - Local Beer

Te Papa is a huge museum and is all New Zealand related.  It holds 6 floors of the art, science, and history of New Zealand.  Te Papa means “the earth” in the native people’s (The Maori) language.

There was a lot of history of the Maori people and basically how the Brits came, stole their land, and deforested large areas of New Zealand.  Sound familiar?  Another interesting tidbit is that the Maori language has similarities to native Hawaiian peoples and other islands in the south Pacific suggesting that these people were all once part of a larger group that divided.  It was said that they used primitive boats to travel long distances to get from one island to another.  Here is a primitive Maori hut.  I shall steal this design when I try out for Survivor.

Natalie and Stella will love these next two!  These next two photos are pretty cool.  The first is a blue whale skeleton.  This whale was huge!  Blue whales are native to this area of the world, as are MANY other types of whales, dolphins, and sharks.   We are hoping to see some live ones in Kaikoura in a few days!

This next image is of a preserved “colossal squid,” the largest squid known to man. Only females have ever been captured.  This one was snacking on a fish but didn’t realize that the fish was already hooked on a  line and attached to a boat.  As they hauled the line in to get their catch, the fisherman were surprised to see a 16 foot squid hanging onto their line.  The squid never let go and so they hauled it aboard and donated it to Te Papa.  This is the only colossal squid on display in the world.  Kind of tough to see but you get the drift.

Colossal Squid

We were exhausted when we left the museum but we walked around this other area a little bit more and checked out a movie theater that Brandon recommended to us.  It was our last night in Wellington so we decided to do one of our favorite things!  MOVIE NIGHT!

After a quick rest and refresh (sauna and hot tub) back at the hotel, we got dressed and headed down to the Reading Cinema.  This place was really cool because on the second level, they housed their “Golden Lounge.”  This place is like Wellington’s answer to “Chunky’s,” except way better.  We were able to order a bottle of wine and hang out in the lounge sitting area before the movie, then we could bring the wine into the theater.  The theater is two levels and we were on the top.  The second level seating is made from really comfortable reclining leather chairs, so we were right at home!  We watched “Battleship” for lack of a better movie.  About 15 minutes into the movie, they delivered the food we ordered.  We snacked the night away!  It was a really cool experience.

Tomorrow is our last day in Wellington.  We leave for the South Island on the ferry at 2:30PM! So excited! Got to go, Mike is making me breakfast!

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Hi everyone! Today is our 3rd day in Wellington.  So far it has been amazing.  Yesterday, I went for a nice run through the Botanic Gardens (more on that later) while Mike was visiting Weta (animation studio).  When he returned, we went on a proper walk through the city.  Our hotel is situated nicely in the heart of the city in between Parliament and the HUGE botanic garden.

Here is a picture of “The Beehive.”  This is the common name for the Executive Wing of the New Zealand Parliament Buildings, also featured below to the left.  These were just a few steps outside of our hotel.  Very cool architecture.

The Beehive and Parliament Buildings

Later in the evening, we met up with one of Mike’s former students, Francois and his wife Ellie.  What a great couple!  We had a nice dinner and they explained some other ‘need to knows’ about New Zealand, like there are no letter ‘F’s in New Zealand (they use “wh”??) and we should definitely check out the meat pies before we leave.

We did a little better than the previous night and stayed up until about 9:30PM.  We were up at 5AM but still, this was an improvement on yesterday. hehe.

This morning, we woke up, made breakfast in the room, and then headed out to really dig into the Botanic Garden.  On the way, we walked through The Bolton Street Memorial Park, a cemetery built into the hillsides behind our hotel. SO beautiful.  Here are a few pics from the park.

As we continued up the path, we came upon the Lady Norwood Rose Garden.  SO many roses!  It reminded me of my Nana Rose.   There was also a beautiful waterfall.  Ducks galore!  Such a peaceful place.

Here are some shots from the rose garden:

From here, we walked inside the Begonia exhibit, an indoor greenhouse filled with some of the most beautiful and strange plants I have ever seen.

This was a really weird plant....eeek

We walked further and finally reached the botanic garden.  I know!  We hadn’t even reached it yet!

I am going to upload a video of a crazy bird in the park.  First we only had the sound and then the thing flew right over our heads.  Jen – you will love this. I am totally Patreeeesha-ing out!  Just call me Mrs. Evans.  I think it was a Tui bird.

Here is the link to the  bird noises, hehe, I am such a nerd.  http://youtu.be/13xQI9EFQz8

Below is the view from one of the lookouts in the garden.

Something great about the botanic garden is that once you get to the top, there is a Cable Car that will take you back home!  You can also take the cable car up and walk down through the garden but we thought we could get some good exercise in by walking up to the top!  We were pretty knackered by the time we got up there.  So down we went!

This is Mike riding down!

We are heading out to meet Mike’s friend Brandon, who is going to show us around some.  Cheers!

When we got back to the hotel, we had some time to relax before Mike’s friend Brandon picked us up for more sightseeing. Brandon is an LA native who works at Weta.  He and his wife have been here for about a year so he had some good insight from the American perspective.  He brought us down town to see the happening stuff at Courtney Place and then to some Weta buildings in Miramar, including the Weta Cave, a small touristy place that has a small museum of all the movies Weta has worked on. It was pretty cool.  Life-sized Orcs and Avatar stuff and many other films I didn’t even know Weta was involved in.  We also drove nearby one of the sets for filming “The Hobbit.”  It was pretty cool to see.  We didn’t get pics of this because we were a little far away but we could see that they had built actual “hobbity” buildings and set up HUGE 4 or 5 story green screens behind them for filming. It was intense!

From here, Brandon took us to a cafe near the beautiful seaside in Miramar.  As we pulled up to the beach, surfers were enjoying the calm waves but Brandon told us that this particular inlet could see huge 15 foot waves at times.  It is pretty amazing since there are homes and buildings all around and nothing gets damaged.

Here is a pic of the inside of the cafe. It was a very funky place that served up some very tasty items. We had some midday pancakes and bacon with bananas and maple syrup.  They were delicious and really hit the spot.  I am starting to realize also that people don’t just order “coffee” in New Zealand.  I think everything is made from espresso so you need to order a “latte” (lots of foam) or “flat-white” (minimal foam), or  “flat black” (black). It seems complicated to us who typically just order regular and decaf.  Mike is really throwing everyone the decaf curve-ball. hehe.

A big thank you to Brandon for showing us around and giving us more tips on how to fit in here!

We relaxed the rest of the day but it was definitely a good one.  This place just gets better and better!  Stay tuned for our next venture to Te Papa – museum of New Zealand.

Hello everyone!  We have arrived in New Zealand!  The trip was long with three separate flights and one lasting over 13 hours straight.  Luckily, this was an overnight trip so we slept for a portion of it.  Those of you who have flown a  red-eye know that trying to sleep on a plane can be a frustrating thing.  Alas, with the help of Tylenol PM, we got a good 4 or 5 hours straight.

Our first view of NZ came when flying into the Aukland airport where we would grab our connecting flight to Wellington.  The landscape can only be described as “majestic.”  Wonderous rolling hillsides and strange craggy mountains, a volcano, fantastic greenery.  This place is like where God came up with the ideas for everywhere else in the world.  So many geological wonders in one place!  We can’t wait to get out to the bay and explore.  This place kind of seems like a real-life version of Settlers of Catan or maybe I’m just being super nerdy, but seriously, I have seen sheep, wheat, rocks, and wood thus far…

Here are some pics from our hotel room. We are staying at the Bolton Hotel, right in the center of Wellington.  Wellington is like a jungley San Francisco and/or Cinque Terra, Italy.  I cannot make rhyme or reason out of how the streets work because in addition to being like the roads in Boston (one ways, rotaries, etc.), they drive on the opposite side of the road! It is  extremely hilly and lush as you can see from below.  We took a walk to find dinner last night and got a few lessons in the NZ way.  For example, they don’t tip here!  And they don’t bring the check to you.  hehe.  We’re hoping to get more tips and tricks from Mike’s friends today and tomorrow so we can better assimilate.  We definitely felt weird not leaving a gratuity.  More exploration today, of course.  The botanical gardens are right behind our hotel (in the direction of the images below). Last night we crashed out at 7:30PM.  eeek!  Sorry we don’t have more but we didn’t have time to do much yesterday with all the tiredness. We will post more tomorrow.

Views from our window! Left

Middle

Right

After the sun came out!

Small church and cemetery below.

So that’s it for now.  We are going to get out there and see what Wellington has to offer!

Be back soon!  Oh and if you want to post a reply, just click on the title of the post and follow the instructions.

XOXO

Candice & Mike