Anniversary Trip to Blenheim

To celebrate our first wedding anniversary, Rob and I headed to Blenheim, which is a small town on the South Island right in the middle of the Marlborough wine region. This may sound familiar to those of you who are big Savignon Blanc fans, as it's the source for some of the best Sav Blanc in the world - including Kim Crawford, Cloudy Bay and Oyster Bay. 

Saturday was our actual anniversary, and to be honest, it was kind of a crappy day. We flew straight from Auckland to Blenheim on Saturday morning, and our plane (to the left) was so tiny it didn't even have a bathroom. I am not a great flyer in the best circumstances, and when I saw our plane I nearly turned around to head back home. As we were going to land, the captain made an announcement - the weather in Blenheim had taken a turn for the worse, and no other planes had been able to land because of it, but we were going to "give it a go." Yikes! After a lot of bumps and dips, our plane landed intact. The same cannot be said of my nerves.

The place we stayed was beautiful - it's a sheep farm surrounded by vineyards, with some of the old buildings turned into cottages (we stayed in the old stables). We had such a lovely time at Spannocchia just after our wedding that I thought it would be a nice way to celebrate our anniversary. Unfortunately, Saturday just was not our day, and while the cottage was lovely, the experience was.... slightly traumatic.

As the owner was showing us around our cottage, she pointed to a sheep just outside the back door and told us it was due to give birth any day. I love sheep because I love knitting with wool, so I was pretty enthused by this prospect. We headed off to lunch at Rock Ferry (which was really good), and as we were pulling back up to the house, the sheep was giving birth! I ran through the cottage and into the back yard to watch it all happen. I've never seen anything being born in real life before (except maybe an egg hatching), and was impressed at the speed with which it all happened. One moment the sheep was baa-ing and braying, and the next minute an entire lamb just fell out of it - and without any human assistance!  We watched the lamb kick around a bit, but I was sick with some kind of cold/plague/death (it was really not my day), and was wiped out by all the excitement, and needed a nap. So I laid down, looking forward to the prospect of seeing a new baby lamb stumbling around when I woke.

That did not happen. I woke up, but the baby lamb did not. Ever.  It died shortly after being born. And the owners left it there overnight, outside our cottage. 

From top left: our Stables cottage; Rob befriending a sheep; a sheep about to give birth (nothing is dead in this picture - yet); the deer in the next lemon grove over - they raise them for meat; the view from our cottage back yard

Saturday night we went to dinner at the Herzog Estate Bistro, had an absolutely perfect beef tenderloin, and declared that Sunday would be a re-do on our anniversary. After all - it was still the 21st in Italy.

Sunday I surprised Rob with tickets (paper anniversary) to a wine tour with Bubbly Grape. It ended up being even better than expected. We went to seven different wineries - Lawson's Dry Hills, Drylands (who makes Kim Crawford), Cloudy Bay, Forrest, Giesen, Hunter's and Wither Hills - plus a chocolate factory. We tasted dozens of wines (each place had 3-7 available), and I discovered that I love oaked Savignon Blancs (including Te Koko from Cloudy Bay, which you should be able to get in the States). It was a great day, and much better than our original plan to bike from winery to winery - especially since I was sick and it was raining!  Another bonus - the dead lamb had been removed from our yard by the time we got home! We had our favorite meal of meats and cheese and bread and olive oil and toasted to our first year of marriage - and what a year it's been!

From top left: Selection at Lawson's; Lawson's award winning Sav Blanc; Kim Crawford; our tour van

Cloudy Bay Winery - I want to live here and spend all day sitting in the tree swings and drinking Te Koko and Pelorus, their bubbly.

From top: Forrest (run by two doctors); lunch at Giesen (complete with rooster); the entire group at Wither Hills

Monday we woke up to a beautiful day - possibly the best weather we've had since arriving in New Zealand. We drove over to Picton to check out the Marlborough Sounds. Once there, we got a map from the tourist center and headed off on a short hike. It was only about 2 hours, but the views were breathtaking. We took a short drive along the coast on our way back to Blenheim - the roads were so windy and so narrow that it took us an hour to go 50 km. 

We had a late lunch in Blenheim and headed to the tiny, one-room airport to fly back home to Auckland. We don't have any plans to go out of town for the next month or so, but look forward to having many adventures in the area!

All Blacks vs. South Africa rugby match

I am not really a sports person, but even I love going to games to soak up the atmosphere/drink beer outside. When we told people we were moving to New Zealand, we had a couple people tell us that we had to be sure to go to an All Blacks game, which google told me was New Zealand's national rugby team.  Apparently there are different leagues and unions and whatnots, but all I absorbed was that the Tri-Wizard Tri-Nations games are the best and that something called a Haka happens. Also, the All Blacks play all around the country, so there are only a few matches in Auckland each year - one of which happened to be about a month after our arrival.

So we bought our tickets and picked up some All Blacks gear and headed to Eden Park to watch some rugby! Eden Park can hold a little over 47,000 fans, which doesn't sound like a lot by American standards, but that's over 1% of the population of the entire country!

Rugby is a strange hybrid between American football and soccer - all the tackling and none of the padding. All Blacks fans told us that it was one of the most brutal games they've seen in years, but it left us wondering how many original teeth/fingers/toes professional rugby players have.

Here is everything I know about rugby:

- A match has two halves that are 40 minutes each

- The clock only stops if someone gets injured, which happened a lot more than expected

- A goal is called a "try" and is worth 5 points. You get it by crossing into the endzone.

- There are also field goals - no idea how much these are worth

- Players can only pass the ball backwards, but can kick it forwards

- Most players do not wear a cup!!

Our seats weren't bad, and I was able to get a pretty good video of the Haka. For some reason I was expecting some kind of pre-show with people in traditional Maori costume, but it's performed by the players themselves. It's a traditional Maori war dance the All Blacks perform before Tri-Nation games to intimidate the other team.

Hobbiton and Waiheke Wine Tour

As promised, here is our slideshow from Rob's 30th birthday weekend. Rob really wanted to spend his birthday in Hobbiton, but it's a one-day activity, so we decided to do a wine tour on Waiheke Island near Auckland as well. This album is a bit more image-heavy than the last one, but one does not simply walk into Hobbiton and have fewer than 100 pictures to show for it.

PS - As a reminder, these slideshows don't work on mobile devices.

A Birthday Trip There and Back Again

I know it's hard to believe, but somehow we managed to wait an entire month in New Zealand before visiting Middle Earth. For my birthday weekend, we rented a car and headed out to Matamata ('Matt-ah matt-ah'), official home of Hobbiton! When location scouting for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Peter Jackson and team stumbled upon the Alexander family's beautiful sheep and dairy farm, complete with rolling hills and scenic vistas. As Megan and I (the only passengers on our bus from downtown) approached the farm, it was easy to be taken with the natural beauty of the place, and the way in which it perfectly fits my mental image of the Shire while reading Tolkien's words.

Although the tour group before us must have had 20+ people, somehow the 11 am tour we took had only 7. According to our tour guide, in the summer there are hundreds of people at any given time, so it was very fortunate to be with such a small group. Amazingly enough, apparently roughly 30 percent of the visitors to Hobbiton have never seen the movies!!! 

We were able to take a TON of pictures and wander around without being swamped with rabid fans. Note: a proper slide show will follow soon!!

I was very surprised to see just how large Hobbiton, as it exists, really is. It features a grand total of 44(!) Hobbit holes, in addition to the party clearing, mill, and, of course, the Green Dragon Inn. The tour was approximately 1.5 hrs, lots of time to soak in all the hobbity goodness. At the tail end of the tour, we visited the Green Dragon for a pint of their finest ale (they brew 3 special drafts -- only available on site). Although we had hoped to hang out there all day, the unfortunate policy is that they shout you one beer and you must be on the road again. Don't worry Green Dragon, we'll be back!!

The Doors of Hobbiton

To top off the already fantastic day, Megan surprised me with an early birthday present!! (See if you can spot the finished product in the above collage.)

All said, if you're a Tolkien fan and visit New Zealand, Hobbiton is not to be missed. Next up: Mount Doom!!

One Month Down!*

*Yes, I know today also marks Rob's 30th birthday, but that will get its own post, complete with a birthday weekend slideshow of our trips to Hobbiton and Waiheke Island. Happy birthday husband!!!

It’s hard to believe that we have been living in New Zealand for a month. The majority of our initial “to dos” are complete. We have local cell phone numbers, bank accounts, tax ID numbers, library cards, steady paychecks, a place to live (complete with internet), and some small things to make our apartment feel a bit more like home.

We have walked across the city, been running in the Waitakeres (well – Rob has), walked along Piha Beach, had a pint at the Green Dragon Inn in Hobbiton, tasted wines on Waiheke Island, climbed multiple volcanoes and made a few friends.

Most importantly, we are finally starting to feel as though we are not living out of suitcases or in temporary housing. I’m not sure that it has completely set in for either of us that we are here for the long haul, but we’re both pretty pleased about that prospect.

For now, here are some quick first impressions of our new home:

New Zealand: This country lives up to the hype. We live in the middle of a big city, but within a couple of hours there are beaches, mountains, wineries, lakes, thermal springs, rainforests and even a desert. We haven’t been many places, but what we have seen has been pretty stunning.  Things are much more expensive here than in the States (especially toiletries!!), but our apartment is so small that we don’t have room for anything extra anyway.

Auckland:  More international than expected. We assumed there would be a heavy British influence (which there is), and we knew that there was a large Asian population, but we are surprised by the number of Europeans here – especially Italians. Why would anyone leave Italy – even for New Zealand?

The People: The people also live up to the hype. Everyone has been extremely friendly and welcoming. Most are obsessed with sports (did you know that NZ and the US are competing in a big sailing competition this week? Neither did I before I moved here), and no one seems to mind that the internet is a joke. Everyone seems to be very well travelled, and most people our age have spent some time living overseas (especially in London or Australia).

The Food:  The only bad things anyone had to say about New Zealand were food-related, and I kind of understand where they’re coming from. We have had some excellent food since we got here, but we’ve also had meals that are not so great. The ingredients here are all super fresh and tasty, but Kiwis combine them in strange ways.  I guess that’s just more motivation to cook so I can combine them myself (also – food is expensive here).

Auckland from Coast to Coast

After seeing a sign about it in Viaduct Harbour, Rob and I decided that the Coast to Coast Auckland walk seemed like a pretty good way to get to know the city.  For those of you too lazy to click on the link – the walk is a 16km walk across Auckland – from Onehunga Beach off the Tasman Sea in the south up to the Viaduct Harbour off the Pacific Ocean in the north.  The path crosses five volcanoes, some breathtaking parks, and takes you through multiple Auckland neighbourhoods.  Rather than overwhelm this page with photo collages, I have created a separate slideshow of our journey across our new home. We’ll probably end up doing these for more photo-intensive things such as trips or other special occasions.  Enjoy!

PS - it looks like slideshows don't work on the mobile website, so if you're on your phone, you'll just have to wait for a computer.