Visitors from Australia or America?

On Monday night Erin and I headed to the airport to pick up Craig and Lisa who were arriving in NZ for the 3rd month of their honeymoon. Yes that's right, they are on a 4 month honeymoon, pretty good deal if you ask me. For those who don't know Craig is from Bedford (my hometown).

We picked them up at the airport around midnight and then brought them back to our place, caught up for a bit, but Erin and I had to get to bed as we had work the next day. Craig and Lisa had been travelling for 2 months in Australia prior to arriving in New Zealand and were living out of a van as typical backpackers and were very excited to be staying indoors. On Tuesday, they hung around, watched TV, read some books, and did laundry. We went out to dinner on Monday night to an Irish pub O'Hagans right down the road from our place.

On Wednesday night, Lisa put her Giada chef skills into action and pulled together a wonderful baked ziti meal along with salad. Craig was responsible for picking out the desert at the supermarket and got what looked like a massive whoopie pie (the meal was GREAT!).

It's been great to have some visitors and tomorrow they will be heading off to do a scuba dive up north. They may be coming back on Saturday for another visit, so we will hopefully see and get to hang out with them again when we don't have to go to work.

It's been raining since they arrived, so hopefully the weather will get a little better as they start to travel.

Weekend Wrap-Up

This week was a busy one for me. I had a work dinner on Tuesday night and then team building events on Thursday and Friday nights. Jeremy was busy as well with work drinks on a few nights. This weekend we stayed inside and braced ourselves for the biggest storm to hit New Zealand in the past decade. The storm was a mix of high wind and rain and knocked out power across Auckland. We were lucky not to lose power, but some of our friends did. We spent today cleaning the house and preparing for our second house guests - Craig and Lisa who are on a super long honeymoon with a stop in New Zealand!

Road Rally?

Erin and I are very sad that we will not be able to participate in the Road Rally and the Part at the Pond this year. Unfortunately I couldn't convince PwC to fly us back this time. (Party/Road Rally Blog)

Last night my work put together a "rally" of sorts. It was called a Wild Goose Chase and involved going all over the city finding places with clues, taking pictures, doing wild things, etc. There were 35 clues/locations that we had to find and take pictures with our team. It was a little different than the rally to VT as there was only 1 list and it only took us 2 hours.

I wasn't overly excited about the work event, but I rallied our team together and as soon as I got my hands on the envelope with the clues and rules, my instinct took over and it was GAME ON!

I'm sure you're all wondering how the event ended...There were 23 teams entered into the race and when all the scores were tabulated...MY TEAM WON!!

Honestly it wasn't the level of excitement that I had along with Erin and Andy when Isosceles won our first Road Rally title, but it's always good to win.

Good luck to all the rally teams and have a great party in VT!

All Blacks Rugby

A few weeks ago we went to see the All Blacks play England. We've become All Blacks fans since moving to New Zealand and are a little sad that we won't have rugby to watch when we get home. (I'm sure we'll be okay when we get back home and have the Red Sox, Celtics and Patriots!) Jeremy has taken up a good understanding of the sport while I have a new favorite hot athlete to watch. It's really not bad at all. Here is a photo of us at the recent game.

Final Day in Queenstown

On our final day in Queenstown we thought we would take in some final thrills, so we drove to the Kawarau River Bridge bungy jump to watch a few jumps. Erin did the unthinkable - she bought yet another A.J. Hacket Bungy shirt and has still yet to bungy. Cute shirt though, so worth the money. When we returned to the car we noticed what looked like a clump of grass stuck to the the grill of our car. Upon further investigation we realised that it wasn't grass but a beautiful smooshed bird! We felt terrible but didn't have anything to remove it with, so we left it there and continued on our way.
(Click on the picture to enlarge and see Mr. Bird)

The next adventure for the three of us was to attempt a drive to the top of The Remarkables, one of the mountain ranges in the area. After 30 minutes of windy, cliff-hanging roads we reached snow! The roads were slippery and we still had a least another 15 minutes to drive. We didn't really trust our little rental car, so we decided to stop there to take some photos.

By the time we got back to Queenstown it was time to grab some lunch and catch our flight back to Auckland. We were sad to end our vacation but look forward to visiting Queenstown again this coming summer!

Day Four - Queenstown

We were so excited to be back in Queenstown after the amazing time we had there with Jochen and Susanne in the summer. We started our day just like the last time with a few luge rides down the mountain. This time it was much colder so the wind was really cold on our faces. We were definitely happy to be bundled up!

Next stop was lunch at Fergburger where we feasted on the famous Queenstown burgers and fries. When our bellies were stuffed, we went for a drive to explore the area around Queenstown. We drove to, Coronet Peak, one of the ski fields in the area, to see what the view was like from the top. It exceeded our expectations! There wasn’t a ton of snow but the views were spectacular. Everything was so peaceful looking. Once we returned to the bottom we took a walk to explore Arrowtown, an old gold mining town. We came across a Chinese village that was built by Chinese miners in 1868.

By the end of our walk the sun was going down, so it was time to head back to Queenstown. We took the scenic route (one of many!) and came across some interesting animals along the way.

For dinner we enjoyed Sushi and Sake (Erin’s first taste) and then enjoyed dessert by the hotel fireplace. It was a great way to celebrate the last night of yet another great Ciaccia vacation! And of course, we sipped the champagne left by Petrina and Simon :)

Day Three – Bluff Oysters

We arrived in Bluff nice and early on Sunday morning. Our main purpose for visiting Bluff was to have some famous Bluff Oysters. However, we didn’t want them for breakfast, so we decided to go for a nice hike and enjoy some more amazing views of the Southern Ocean. The hike took us along Stirling Point which is the end of New Zealand’s State Highway 1.
The route runs from Cape Reinga in the north (which we visits in February) all the way south to Bluff. For our oyster lunch we stopped in a nice restaurant overlooking the sea. Jeremy had his oysters raw, while I opted for some cooked ones.
Soon after lunch we were back on the road for our drive to Queenstown. The drive is only about 2.5 hours through some beautiful farmland. After the farms, we reached Lake Wakatipu and the Remarkables Range which had a bit of snow on them. The snowfall hasn’t been great this winter, so there wasn’t as much as we had hoped for, but it was still pretty…and cold!

When we finally arrived in town, we checked into the hotel and were greeted by a Happy Birthday bottle of champagne waiting for Jeremy. This surprise was a nice gift from my colleague Petrina and her husband Simon. The rest of the night we relaxed and explored Queenstown – happy to be finished driving for a little while!

Day Two – On the Road

Our prayers for sunshine weren’t answered on Saturday morning as we were greeted with fog and cold temperatures. Our first stop was to visit New Zealand’s only castle, Larnach Castle on the Otago Peninsula. The mansion was built in 1871 by William Larnach for his wife Eliza. It is now owned by the Barker family who restored it for visitors to enjoy. Usually amazing views can be seen from the mansion, but the fog made that hard for us to enjoy. As you can see from the car park, we were the only visitors that morning! After our tour, we enjoyed a quick breakfast of scone, coffee and tea at the castle before continuing on our journey.
The next stop was a visit to the Royal Albatross Colony. The site is the only mainland breeding colony for any Albatross species found in the Southern Hemisphere. Royal Albatross are the third largest birds in the world with a wing span of over 9 feet. They can fly at speeds of 115mph. These are some serious birds! This time of year the babies are growing and if you are lucky enough, a parent might swoop in for a feeding every one to three days. Sadly, we weren’t lucky enough to see that! (The white thing in this picture is a baby Albatross)
By lunch it was time for us to say goodbye to Dunedin and start the drive to Invercargill. We decided to take the scenic route across the southern coast of New Zealand, through the Catlins. We impressed so with the spectacular and breath-taking views. Not only that but the mix of sun (it finally came out!) and rain provided us with several rainbows. A few of the stops included Nugget Point, which is home to more seals, penguins, and sea lions, Curio Bay which is fossilized remains of a forest from the Jurassic Period, Porpoise Bay where dolphins play, an Waipapa Point, the site of New Zealand’s worst shipping disaster where in 1881 a ship hit a reef and 131 lives were lost.

We arrived in Invercargill around dinner time, checked into the hotel (they left Jeremy some Happy Birthday beers in the fridge!) and then feasted on Blue Cod and Oysters at HMS King’s Restaurant which had been recommended to us by two co-workers. Then it was back to the hotel to prepare for our next adventure, a trip to Bluff, New Zealand’s southern-most town.

South Island Trip - Day 1

We are back from Jeremy’s birthday trip to the South Island. We kept very busy and will post all about our adventures over the next few days.

Day One – Dunedin

Our vacation started in Dunedin, which is the second largest city on New Zealand’s South Island. After landing in Dunedin on Friday morning, we decided to head north of the city to visit the Moeraki Boulders. Along the way we stopped at Shag Point which is a haven for penguins, seals and shags. I’m not why but this place was deserted! We were the only people freezing our bums off to hang out with the seals and birds.

The boulders were really neat as well. They are huge rock spheres that lie along the beach. Unfortunately, we didn’t get there at low tide, so some of them were covered by water. Jeremy also got trapped on one when a wave came in to shore. His soggy socks weren’t his favorite part of the day.

Once in Dunedin, we drove through around for a bit and found the Steepest Street in the World, Baldwin Street (seriously, it won a Guinness World Record). The pictures do nothing to show how steep the road it. We tried to drive up it, but really thought the car might flip over backwards and quickly reversed back down to safety!

We then took a stroll through the city to visit Otago University (New Zealand’s big Science University), popped into the Cadbury Chocolate Factory and then went on a Speight’s Brewery tour. Speight’s is “The Pride of the South.” The tour was very informative and the tasting was, well, tasty! During the tour we met Larry and Eliza who are visiting New Zealand from San Francisco. We ended up grabbing an early dinner with them in the Brewery restaurant before losing a bit of money at the Dunedin Casino.

After a day full of adventure, we tucked in (and tried to keep warm) for the night! We also hoped and prayed the Saturday would bring some sunshine as vacation just isn’t as much fun with freezing rain.