Back To Sydney For One Day!

January 8th, 2010

Kangaroo: it tastes like beef

Today Sarah and I said good-bye to New Zealand and left on an early flight back to Sydney. In case you have never travelled to NZ, they have a very strict policy on weight limits for both checked luggage and carry on. Well, Delta had a 50 lb limit on my checked baggage, so I clocked in around 49.5 when i was wearing jeans and a sweater and my backpack was pretty light. Well, between Australia and NZ, the limit is 20 kg checked and 7kg carry on. So, somehow I had to ditch 6 lbs of my checked luggage and stick it into my backpack. It was also about 80 degrees in Sydney so the option of putting on all of my clothes was the last resort. Luckily the airport has scales in the check-in line so i managed to get my suitcase up there and then started unpacking the heaviest crap. I hid my 348245 lb backpack from the attendant so she wouldn't weigh it and then ran once she gave me my boarding pass. Needless to say, whenever Sarah and I looked for souveniers to bring back to friends and family, we thought outloud "I love this! but it looks heavy" or "Hey Sarah, we should bring this back! "No McQueen, we can't, it sounds heavy"

Other weird things about traveling into or out of NZ:

1) The entry card you show to customs agents has the usual questions like passport number, nationality, did you bring any food, etc. But on the back page there is a box for visitors that asks "are you coming to New Zealand to give birth?" apparently they have a problem with pregnant ladies coming to give birth so that they can become citizens and don't have to leave!!

2) When passing through customs, they have a very thorough inspection of tents, shoes, and anything that may have soil on them. So I unpacked my hiking shoes which I had worn once, walking around the park in Atlanta. So the guy said "oh these are definitely dirty" and so he took them to a washing station and scrubbed the hell out of them! When he gave them back I jokingly said "It was just Georgia clay" to which he gave a quick, not joking remark "we don't want it!!!" followed by an under the breath "we should charge an extra fee to do this"! WHAT!

3) When you enter the country you must provide proof of exit. They need to be sure you have a set date to leave. We were required to show our actual departure tickets!

4) When you are finally ready to leave, and they are ready for you to leave, and you have taken NZ soil with you, they charge you. what? Yep, after you check in for your flight you are instructed to walk over to the currency exchange booth where you pay $20 or so in order to leave! Some exit fee thing. I guess they do charge for cleaning my boots!

So, we arrived in Sydney around lunch and checked into Wake Up! Sydney which was a really great hostel south of Darling Harbour. Now I know what you're thinking, a "really great hostel"??! The only reason I allowed Sarah to drag me back into a hostel was because i knew we had a private room and a private bathroom. So I figured I would take a chance. Turns out Wake Up! is really a cool place to stay! The hostel was in a 9 story really old building on the corner of an X intersection with great views and close to lots of transportation. The lobby was huge and full of computers, big screen TV and couches, then there was a cafe and bar. We stayed on the 2nd floor and our room had HUGE windows over looking the main intersection. Our room is on the 3rd floor on the right with the arch window!

Our big plans for the last day in Sydney consisted of a walk across the Harbour Bridge, drinks with Sarah's friend Francis and a show at the Opera House. It was really hot, so after we walked across the bridge, we wanted some ice cream. SHWEBACOOTIE!!! Unfortunately the only place serving cones was inside Luna Park, an amusement show right under the bridge on the North side of Sydney. the sign was really freaky!

We got our ice cream, and then headed back to Wake Up! to get cleaned up. We met up with Francis and his friend Bill for drinks and then headed to a tapas place that we never would have found without locals. The only way in was through a super small door in the middle of a wall on some dark street. But it was so great! We ordered kangaroo carpaccio and a couple pizzas. The kangaroo was actually really good! It was drizzled with balsamic vinegar and it tasted like steak.

After dinner we cabbed it to the Opera House to see the Tom Tom Crew, which was showing in the Playhouse. It was wonderful! There were 4 acrobats, a DJ, a drummer and a beat boxer Tom Thumb. Everyone was absolutely unreal. Especially Tom Thumb! Such a fun show to see in the Opera House. After the show we headed back home because we tried to go meet up with the boys again, but it ended up taking an hour to get close and we gave up!

Off to bed early for our 6am wake up for the airport. Sad for vacation to be over, but we had an unforgettable time and have 500+ photos and videos to remember the wonderful adventure we went on. I can't believe a simple shot in the dark question back in July "McQueen, do you want to go to New Zealand over Christmas break?" turned into a reality. I am very blessed to be able to explore like I have and with such great friends.

THANKS SARAH!!!

New Zealand Day 6: Waipara Valley and Christchurch

January 7th, 2010

is 12 different wines too many to taste?

For our last day in New Zealad, Sarah and I wanted to explore the Waipara Valley for some wine tasting and touring. We had an idea of a few places we wanted to see, based on recommendations from people down there and some research we had done before the trip. The Valley is only about 50km north of where we were staying, so it was a very easy drive. Once we got there we realized how close all of the vineyards really were! One after another all off of the main road. So per the recommendation of several people, our first stop at 11am was the Mud House. This was a fantastic building that had a gift shop, wine tasting room, dining areas and offered a tour of the vineyard and the winery. We had missed the 11am tour, so we booked ourselves on the 2pm tour and headed up the road. Our next stop was Waipara Springs Winery where we had a reservation for lunch.

This was recommended as a great place to have lunch, but we were dissapointed by the overall experience of the visit. The eating area was mostly outside and our table was nestled amongst the trees, set off from the road, however that was about all there was to enjoy. They offered no vineyard or winery tours, as the facility and acreage were both quite small. Instead we started drinking!

There was a family with two girls tasting when we arrived and it was pretty obvious where they were from . Jersey. Not Jersey Shore, but definitely looked like a Jersey crowd. They moved along and we started tasting as many as possible. The area is known for Whites, especially Rieslings so we tasted a Riesling, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris and a Pinot Noir.

Izel came up with baby Daniel to join us for lunch which was actually quite yummy. It was after lunch that we found out that in New Zealand, you don't tip. wait what? you don't tip?!

Apparently GST and gratuity are included in the menu price of the item, so if you order $24 worth of food, the bill is $24 and thats all you leave! When Izel told us this, as we took our tip off of the table I thought back to the other meals we have had since being in this country...(dream sequence begin)

Queenstown pub lunch and dinner: The menu said 'order at bar' and we had to pick up drinks at the bar. All the wait staff did was deliver the meal when it was ready.

Lake Tekapo dinner - I paid with a credit card and there was no room for gratuity on the receipt

So, in reality we did not lose too much money tipping, but when Sarah and I got back into the car, I immediately reached for my guide book and flipped to the "getting around New Zealand" section. Sure enough there is a sentence or two on tipping and it says in more words, tipping is not customary, unless it is exceptional service and in such a case, 10% is more than sufficient.

Our next stop was back to the Mud House where Sarah and I began our tasting before the tour. This was a very strategic and well planned move, because we had been pretty tipsy after Waipara Springs, so lunch sobered us up, and we justified the Mud House tasting with the 45 minute tour afterwards that should do the trick! The wine was very good, and we tasted everything from Riesling to Chardonnay to Pinot Noir and Merlot. We tasted several of the Mud House wines, but also Waipara Valley wines which are made elsewhere in the region.

After tasting we went into the Vineyards for what ended up being a private tour. We saw the grape vines and then moved into the winery. It was my second trip to a winery, with the first and only being at Mont Redon in the Chateau-Neuf-du Pape region in southern France. In memory of the Mud House I purchased a set of 5 X 7 post cards from original watercolors that a local artist painted depicting the Mud House. They are paintings of pigs going through the wine making process from harvesting to pressing to tasting! So cute!! Ill have to find a good place to display the series of 6 post cards.

We drove back into Christchurch to return our car and then took Izel, Russell and Daniel out for an early dinner (so baby could join). We posed in front of the Art Center with Daniel for some photos while he was still smiling and awake! For my last dinner in New Zealand I chose lamb shank and lamb chops and a local beer. The lamb chops were really good, but the shank was a little too lamby for me. After dinner Russell drove Sarah and I to the beach for a good view, and then we got ice cream on the way home. Quite night in was just the way to spend the last night. Oh, and of course I asked for a glass of Amarula. damn that stuff is goooood!!

New Zealand Day 5: Christchurch

January 6th, 2010

we would like the triple deal: Punting, Gondola and Tram

Sarah and I decided that today would be our full day in Christchurch, so we drove into town early in the morning and looked for a place to purchase a triple deal so that we could experience the three great deals of the city. We were not able to reserve a punt until later in the day so we signed up and then voted to find the gondola first. Somehow, Sarah and I find ways to make things more complicated than they should be, and the start of the day ended up being a little more stressful than we planned for.

What had happened was...

The first issue was we were not properly equipped to handle a driving excursion. We had an inner city map and a driving route map but what we needed was a map that had street names on it that extended past 1 square kilometer and showed us how to get to the base of the gondola. Anyways, we started out of town per the instructions of one of the driving routes (which did have "Gondola" as stop 7 of 13 or so). The first sign that we were doing something wrong was the huge mountain we started to drive up. It was most definitely a scenic drive, but how does a gondola start at the top of a mountain? I figured we must be going over a mountain and would find the basin on the other side. Nope. Sure enough, after 40 km up a mountain that had no guard rail and was barely wide enough for a truck we saw the gondola station at the top of the mountain. I was getting tired of keeping my eyes on the road, gripping the wheel so tightly so as to prevent us flying down the side of the mountain that I was probably driving too fast. I did kind of feel like a race car driver, maybe Lightning McQueen! vrrrrrrrrrrroooom!

We pulled off the road and sat staring at it. We discussed how on earth we would get to it, perhaps there was a pathway from the road up the 100m or so to the building. Should we start walking, and take the gondola down and then back up? At this point I was very hungry and it was almost not worth the gondola ride, but we had already paid for it!

So Sarah and I got back into the car and tried to find our way down the mountain to where the start of the gondola was. Somehow we made it down the mountain and ended up having a nice drive by the beach! We took the gondola back up the mountain and had a little lunch. From the top of the mountain we were able to see Lyttelton Harbour, a sea-filled crater of a volcano that erupted more than 11 million years ago. Additionally, it is the place Ernie Shackleton came to port before his trip of true "endurance" down to Antarctica. Lots of history I didnt know about!

After the gondola, adventure we headed back into Christchurch and took the tram around the inner square (about a 2mile track). The historic trams were built during the 20's and 30's and are more of a tourist attraction than local transportation vehicle. The hop on, hop off trams go in circles and pass most of the key spots in Christchurch. Sarah and I were entertained in the city square by Maori dancers as well as a market of sorts which offered paintings, clothing, sculpture and more from local artists.

We finished the day with a 30 minute punt ride through the botanical gardens. A traditional English punt hold 6-10 people and has a man with a pole standing on the back! We took the front seats and he pushed the boat up and back and gave us some history of the gardens. I admit, however, it would have been substantially more fun if he had sung to us, but instead of being a really hot Italian or Kiwi, he was an expat from Quebec! Boring.

Izel and Russell hosted a BBQ for us that evening with friends who were also from South Africa. The meal was pretty traditional for them, and of course I cannot remember the names of everything, but we had a lot of meat (beef sausage, steak and kebabs) and pap, which is basically loose polenta topped with a thick marinaira-like sauce. It was very very yummy! We finished the meal with a glass of Amarula which is a South African liquor which Russell served over a bit of ice. It was so good I had some more the next night, and secretly wanted to bathe in it every day of my life, and eat it on everything! It's made from the fruit of the marula tree - aka the Elephant Tree which is why the bottle has an elephant on it - native to the plains of South Africa.

mmmmm I want some right now!!!

New Zealand Day 4: Akaroa and Christchurch

January 5th, 2010

Akaroa: we've been mispronouncing it wrong for 6 months!?

Sarah and I made our way east towards Christchurch this morning and because we cut our Tekapo trip short, we decided to stop by Akaroa today instead of making a day trip tomorrow. It is only 45 minutes from Christchurch so it was a great change of plans.

We thought it was A-kar-oh-ah but as usual, we cannot speak Kiwi, and it is pronounced A-kah-roh-ah. Woops. On the way to Akaroa, we're driving along, driving along, same scenery over and over and then out of no where there is a sign, beckoning to me. What does it say? "McQueens Valley" and as we sped by it wondering if it was real or just a mirage, we came up to a bridge that was over..."McQueens Creek"! On the drive back later in the day we pulled off the road for a quick photo op.

Akaroa is a french settlement formed by two volcanos, so it rests upon hills overlooking a very calm secluded bay, full of sailboats. There is not much of a beach, but the weekend and summer crowds use the bay for water sports, eat at the plentiful cafes and bistros on the water and browse the little homes that have been turned into art stops, libraries, ice cream parlors, and the like.

Such a cute town, but we decided not to take advantage of the tours which take tourists to swim with the famous Akaroa dolphins, so we stayed only about 2 hours. Just long enough for the best chicken sandwich of my life, and a very very good mint chocolate chip ice cream cone. Akaroa was shielded from the wind we had experienced in the valley so Sarah and I were very peaceful sitting on a park bench just relaxing and enjoying our ice cream :-)

As we headed out of town, I noticed the gas gauge was headed towards E, so we stopped at a Shell and were reminded fairly quickly how expensive gas is outside of the U.S.! We filled up almost 3/4 of the tank and it cost $70NZD, roughly $52USD. For a small sedan! And not even a full tank! I remember doing the conversions in my head, and estimated about 4 liters in a gallon (its really 3.79 per gallon) and the price was $1.55 per liter. Woah. I went up to the gas attendant and said $6 a gallon!!! And then proceeded to tell him about when the Southeast ran out of gas. He lost interest quickly, so i took the cue, paid and went along my merry way, never to complain about the price of gasoline at the Exxon around the corner!

We stopped briefly in Christchurch and then headed to see the Wordsworth family, Izel, Russell and baby Daniel! We had a lovely visit and then went to bed early - in our own bedroom, with our own bathroom, and such a wonderful feeling of being back in a home!

New Zealand Day 3: Lake Tekapo

January 4th, 2010

Sheep Poop: It's Everywhere!!!

Today Sarah and I hauled our luggage to Hertz and picked up our shiny Toyota Corolla, grabbed a few maps, bought extra insurance and got ready to drive 3 or so hours north to Lake Tekapo. Sarah turned out to be a great driving coach, as she helped me carefully maneuver down a one way street, then the big challenge: a roundabout!

Luckily I am good at following signs and simply went towards the left and "gave way" to oncoming cars. I did have some issues keeping in the middle of the lane, as my natural instinct was to pull to the left. At least three times we heard that loud sound that means "you're running off the road and onto the shoulder!" but i assured Sarah that we were safe (secretly thinking that my confidence was dropping every time i heard that sound, but what was my other option? hugging the center line? i was too scared to do that because i closed my eyes every time i passed an oncoming car!!).

We successfully made it out of Queenstown and began our journey up and down mountains, through valleys and past lakes up to Lake Tekapo. Sarah seemed to enjoy the view, and i tried to look around but kept thinking I would fall off the cliff if I took my eyes off the road. I've never been such a safe driver!!

There were so many bikers on the roads, and I felt so bad for these fools who thought it would be a good idea to bike up a mountain! Luckily I didn't hit one, but those suckers were everywhere and in the middle of the road! Kiwis have a weird thing about passing, and because most of the roads are only 2 lanes, they never let one drive slow the rest of the pack down. So, if a car came up behind me and was close for more than 20 seconds, it would fly around me ASAP. If I got within 100 yards of a car, they would pull off the road if I didn't pass them quickly enough! Also, when turning across traffic, the turning car has the right of way, not the car minding his own business driving along straight in his lane. Weird, i know. I kept wondering why cars would just stop and let me turn :-)

So Sarah and I arrived at Lake Tekapo early afternoon and I'm pretty sure we both immediately though to ourselves "this is it?" Don't get me wrong, it was absolutely breathtaking. What was a shocker was that based on travel books, we figured we could spend at least a day there with things to do. Not so much. We checked into the Godley Resort (please use a loose interpretation of the word resort here) and then went into town, essentially 100 yards of shops, a gas station, 5 restaurants and some other hotels.

We decided to take an afternoon hike up to Mt. John's Observatory which was a great place to stargaze at night, and offered great panoramas of the South Canterbury region. It was very windy and a little chilly at the lake, so we assumed it would be colder 700M higher up. When we embarked we had many layers on, and after about 15 minutes of straight up hill climbing we started to strip! I had to take off my pant legs!

You will notice in the pictures, that I found a hiking stick at the base of the path, and it was the most fantastic hiking stick I have ever had. If only I could have taken it back to Nashville!

Anyways, we emerged out of the forrest and as we got close to the top of the 1,000M high Observatory, we looked up and found ourselves standing in a field of sheep. And what do sheep do a lot? POOP! There were little poop pellets everywhere! Sarah and I considered this the perfect opportunity to get a little closer to our newest friends and engage them in talks of wool and grilled rosemary lamb chops. Yum. They wanted none of it, and instead ran away to huddle and talk smack about us. oh, and to poop more.

The 360 degree views from the top were unbelievable and it was 6pm before we knew it so we headed back down the mountain to clean up. After a late dinner we settled on a plan to go looking at stars on our own. Armed with towels to sit on, a flashlight, lots of warm layers, a map of the southern hemisphere constellations and a tripod, we were ready to do some stargazing in front of the Church of the Good Shepherd. We successfully got some shots of the stars and the church, but our masterpieces were the light writing photos! I quickly found out my camera only had up to a 30'' exposure and the bulb setting was manual, so I could not hold the shutter button down long enough for a clear shot. Sooooo I set the exposure to 30" and i ran out in front of the church and said "Sarah press the shutter!" 30 seconds later my name was in lights!

We called it quits around 12:30 and went to bed knowing we had pretty much seen everything Lake Tekapo had to offer, and planned for an early departure.

New Zealand Day 2: Milford Sound

January 3rd, 2010

rain rain go away!

Sarah and I were picked up at 7:15am on a very raining Sunday morning but were told that when going to Milford Sound, its best after a big rain storm because the waterfalls are spectacular. So we were grateful for the water, but hoped it would clear up very soon. Unfortunately, no one heard this wish for about 7 hours. Instead, we drove in a bus full of 10 people through the mountains and plains of southern New Zealand and didn't see much. We did, however, have a great tour guide/driver who told us more than I will ever remember about the history of New Zealand from its indigenous mammals, plants, insects, etc to random trivia.

Things I do remember:

1) There are only 2 native mammals to the island. Sheep is not one of them. There are several species of bats and dolphins.

2) There are no snakes in New Zealand. This is great news for backpackers, who now only have to worry about the ever changing weather that has been known to bring hail in summer unexpectedly. They do have reptiles such as lizards and geckos.

3) When Captain Cook explored New Zealand, there was very little plant life, only a few native plants amidst the rocky terrain. One of these grows 30 cm a year and the ones we saw were hundreds of years old because they were a few feet high.

4) Most everything else (plants, land species, marine species) were brought to the island for profit reasons - i.e. Wool, fish, etc.

5) Milford Sound is not technically a sound. It's in Fiordland National Park and is actually a fjord. What is the difference you ask? Well, a fjord is made from volcanic activity and is the pool of glacier water bordered by steep cliffs. A sound on the other hand is just an ocean inlet, much wider than a fjord. duh.

6) It took several ice ages to form Milford Sound

So back to the day...We stopped a couple times along the way to see the waterfalls but could never see the tops of the mountains! We saw Mirror Lakes, which are supposed to be a reflecting pool, instead it was rainy and foggy and very unclimactic.

We finally got to Milford Sound and boarded the boat for a 2pm cruise. There are 2 permanent waterfalls, and they were both exploding with water. Due to the heavy rain, there were at least 300 more waterfalls which was magnificent to see.

We were not going to come all the way to the older end of the world and go to one of the most photographed tourism spots in the entire country just to sit inside the boat and drink tea! We braved the elements and were cold and wet, but golly did we have some great photos!!

After an hour or so the Gods heard our cries and the sun came out! Sarah and I were grateful to take off our rain gear for a shot of clear skies! We ended up taking many duplicate photos of cloudy and then sunny!

The drive back was supposed to be sleepy time, but the sky was crystal clear, so we were finally able to see all of the mountains, waterfalls and valleys that we missed in the morning. We arrived back in Queenstown around 8pm and had dinner overlooking the Lake, just in time for another great 10pm sunset. We returned to our new room and found that our three new roommates, all from Sweeden or Germany, were already in their PJ's ready for bed! Yay!

We both slept pretty well night #2 and got ready for our driving adventure across the south island!