Stardome, White, Circus and more

It's been a busy last few days for us down here in Kiwi land. On Thursday night Erin planned a great evening out at the Stardome here in Auckland. Over an hour and 1/2 we learned about the different constellations in the southern sky and then went out side and spotted a number of them through telescopes. We also talked about the various solar systems, subplanets and the sad story of how Pluto was demoted from being considered a Planet.

Friday night was the last night for one of Erin's co-workers Joe who is headed back to the UK and month end drinks for my work. We ended up at the same bar, Dakota, and had a fun night out.


Saturday was filled with a stop at Wendy's to get a burger, fries, coke, (for Jeremy) and a baked potato (for Erin). Then we headed to the ASB Showgrounds for the Travel Expo. We were very excited and had hoped to purchase our flights for our travels through Asia on the way home. Unfortunately after 2 hours of sitting with a Flight Centre agent, the cost of the flight they gave us didn't seem like a very good deal and had us going to Hong Kong 6 times...very strange.

At night we hung out with Gareth and Claire who are winding down their time here in NZ before heading back to Manchester. We went to White which is a fancy restaurant in the Hilton Hotel. It was great food, service and company. During the night we noted many words which are pronounced differently between the UK and the US. One example is the word Tuna. Everyone in the US knows how we pronounce it, but people from the UK pronounce it Ch-una. Interesting.


Sunday was a day spent trying to work on our travel plans and at night we went to see Le Grande Cirque with James and Caroline. It was an absolutely amazing and jaw dropping acrobatic show and we enjoyed it very much.

Now all eyes turn to the big day tomorrow...GO STEELERS!!!

Fishin'

Our friend Steve is a huge fan of fly fishing. We’ve never tried it before, but NZ is a great place for fishing, so Steve offered to teach Jeremy on Sunday. We hit the road after breakfast in search of the perfect fishing spot.

We planned to fish along the Retaruke River , but had to gain a local farmer’s permission to do so. We didn’t have much luck with that. We either couldn’t find a farmer, or ran into unfriendly people who didn’t want to share their part of the river with strangers. Finally we came across a farmer who owned 1600 acres around the river. He said he didn’t know much about fishing, but directed us to a spot that he knows is popular for fishing.

The spot turned out to be perfect! Deon and I sat in the shade under a bridge. (The sun was scorching on Sunday.) We set up blankets and chatted away while the boys headed upstream. About two hours later some more of our friends arrived with a BBQ and lots of food. They started grilling some burgers and hot dogs and when the “fishermen” returned we enjoyed a delicious feast. The fishing, swimming and fun continued late into the afternoon, until the bugs were biting too much for us to handle. Some fish were spotted, but none were actually caught, unfortunately. The day was nice and relaxing – which was just what we needed after the long hike on Saturday.

Tongariro Crossing

What do Frodo Baggins and Jeremy Ciaccia have in common?

That's right, they have both climbed Mount Doom! (Mount Ngauruhoe in Jeremy's case.)

Still confused? Mount Ngauruhoe is Mount Doom in The Lord of the Rings. This site is part of New Zealand's Tongariro National Park and on Saturday we completed the 19.4 km Tongariro Alpine crossing. This spectacular trek took us over steep volcanic terrain, past steaming craters and Emerald Lakes.

Our group of 14 started our early Saturday morning and finished, in mostly one piece late Saturday afternoon. Six brave souls - Jeremy, James, Jacco, Nate, Paul and Michelle decided to hike the very steep Mount Ngauruhoe, a 2287 uphill climb that takes about 1.5 hours and a steep slide (30 minutes) through rocks and gravel, back to the bottom.

We were prepared for any sort of weather but were very lucky to have sun and clear skies the entire time. By mid-afternoon a few clouds rolled in, which was a relief to our sun burnt bodies.

Jeremy and I are happy to have finally completed the Tongariro Crossing as it has been on our "to-do" list since arriving in New Zealand. As this was a three day weekend (we celebrated Auckland Anniversary day today), our weekend was certainly not complete with just the walk. On Sunday our friend Steve was taking us to learn how to fly fish. Stay tuned for more details!

Breakers Game

Tonight we attended our first NBL (National Basketball Game) game. We went with our friends Jacqui and Jerry and had two coupons from the Entertainment Book which each entitled us to a buy 1 get 1 free (what a deal). The tickets were $20 each and we had great seats.

This was an important game because the New Zealand Breakers (only New Zealand team in the league) was in 2nd place and if they won tonight would clinch 2nd place for the season going into the playoffs.

The game started out great and the first half was very entertaining. Unfortunately as we got into the 2nd half the play became very sloppy and the Breakers were not played well. The Melbourne Tigers won the game which was a bummer but we had a great time.

We're off for a weekend of fun and hiking with a bunch of friends. Stay tuned for what will hopefully be some good stories and even better pictures come next week. Monday's a holiday for us as it's Auckland Anniversary Day!!

Final Days

For the last two days that Jackie and Tim were here, we decided to show them a few of the Auckland beaches. On Friday we packed a picnic lunch and took them to Piha, one of our favorite beaches on the west coast. The weather was great, sun with a few clouds (protection), the sand was hot and overall it was a great day. Everyone (but me) enjoyed a swim in the ocean and Tim and Jeremy hiked to the top of Lion Rock to have a look at the Tasman Sea from high above the water.

On our way back to the city we stopped at a fruit and veggie shop. We picked up loads of fresh food for very little money, which we were excited about. For dinner we hosted some of our NZ friends for a BBQ - so Tim and Jackie got to meet some more PwC people.

Saturday morning we were up early for a little road trip. Jeremy drove us 2.5 hours to the Coromandel Peninsula on NZ's east coast. We were in search of Hot Water Beach. Its name comes from underground hot springs which filter up through the sand between the high and low water tidal reaches. Within two hours either side of low tide, it is possible to dig into the sand allowing hot water to escape to the surface forming a hot water pool. The water temperature which can be as hot as 64ºC (147ºF). Visitors often dig large holes and relax and soak in the thermal water, so we attempted to do just that.

We rented a shovel (spade here) and found hot water spots without a problem. The problem for us was the waves kept coming in and overflowing our warm "tub". After about ten attempts, we had enough, snapped some photos and hit the road for our next destination.

We wanted to have a picnic lunch at Cathedral Cove, which is a beautiful beach - 45 minutes walking from the road. We enjoyed another picnic and the weather was almost as nice as the day before (just a few more clouds). The water and waves were so great that everyone, including me, swam for a while.
We wrapped up our amazing vacation with a few drinks in Auckland's Viaduct by our apartment. Tim and Jackie packed up for their trip home (via one week in Sydney) and we dropped them off at the airport at 4:30 Sunday morning. We were sad to see them go, but knew that all good things must come to an end. It was back to work for us on Monday but as you know, we always have more adventures up our sleeves!!!

Paragliding Adventure

To finish off our crazy adventure-filled trip to the South Island, we decided to try paragliding. We booked the first trip of the day and prayed that the winds would be perfect. Good news, we were all set for the flight! We met our pilots at the base of the cliff that we were jumping from. It was a quick drive to the top and without thinking, they took us away individually to suit up and jump - it was literally that fast. Too fast to even get nervous! I was the first to go as my guy was the owner of the company. We soared upwards pretty quickly, but he had trouble really catching any breeze, so we drifted down to the ground below pretty quickly, followed by the rest of the group. We all thought it was an interesting experience.

Everyone got packed into the van and they took us back to the cliff. We weren't sure what was going on until they yelled "come on, let's try jump number 2!" This one was definitely better. We knew what to expect, how to take off and how to land. They snapped some photos and videos of us, which made for a much more memorable experience.

After our flights we stopped for lunch in town. I tried a hot stone meal where I cooked my steak on a really really hot piece of stone:
After lunch we ran through some of the souvenir shops trying on the crazy hats. They were all nice and warm, but it's hard to make a winter purchase on a hot summer day.

On our final morning in Queenstown, we visited Arrowtown for breakfast before our flight. The flight to Auckland wasn't bad at all. We got upgraded to first class! (It was just nice seats - no fancy drinks or food since it's a quick flight)The flight also took us over the Abel Tasman where we had kayaked. You can see the path we took in the photo, starting on the left side following the coast all the way down past the beach on the right side.

We got back to Auckland in the mid-afternoon. It was nice to relax! Tim and Jackie cooked a delicious meal to thank us for letting them stay at our house. We played a couple of games (no Canasta) and then enjoyed a picture show featuring the hundreds of photos from our trip.

But wait! It's not over yet - we still have two days to tell you about - check back again!

B-Day

Some of you may be wondering what Tim meant by his comment on yesterday's post. Well before Erin and I came to NZ, Tim and Jackie bought us some travels gifts including travel pillows, and some games. One of the games is Canasta. We were so happy to have gotten the gifts, but when we opened Canasta to play here in NZ, the rule book was too big and we passed. Low and behold, Tim decided to give Jackie Canasta for Christmas this year. In the end all Tim talked about was playing Canasta, but the 3 of us who actually owned the game weren't interested. It became the running joke. Hopefully when we get back to Boston, we can have a few games.

While the drive to Queenstown was long, it was also scenic. We stopped for dinner in Wanaka, a town that’s about an hour in Queenstown. We settled into our hotel quickly and pondered over the next day over a glass of wine (in the hotel lobby as the walls were thin and we got in trouble for talking too loud!)

The next day started early with breakfast at a tasty café. We then rode the gondola up to take in the views of Queenstown. We of course took in a few rides on, my favorite, the luge. Jeremy and Tim seemed pretty quiet as we got closer to lunch, but that’s because they had signed up for a BUNGEE JUMP!

We grabbed a quick lunch before heading off to the Kawaru Bridge. This bridge is the site of the first commercial bungy jump 20 years ago. It's 43 metre's in height which is much smaller than the Nevis jump which I had done last year during our travels with Jochen and Susanne. There were lots of spectators, but we didn’t have to wait long for the boys to jump! They both did a great job, had a nice water touch, and enjoyed the experience.

Jeremy pre-jump, he's jumped before so he was only half nervous

Jeremy jumping...what form

Water touchTim jumping - Go Tim Go! He did a great job too!

After the jumps, we headed back into Queenstown and drove up the Remarkables. This is one of the ski fields in Queenstown and the drive is rather scary as it's 13km on a curvy dirt road with no barriers. We finally made it to the top, took some pictures and then started our slow decent down.

Since we had got our bungy out of the way, the night was filled with drinks in Queenstown. We did our best to find some happy hours to get some cheap drinks and were successful at a few bars. One of them we got steak sandwiches and a Speights for $12...WHAT A DEAL!

We didn't stay out too late as we needed our strength for a big day tomorrow.

Glacier Heli-Hike

We were very excited about our heli-hike as we tried to do one last year, but it was cancelled because of thick fog. With clear skies and not a cloud in sight, we were pretty sure we were going to fly today.

Our group of 11 outfitted in jackets and warm gear before splitting up for the helicopter ride. Jeremy and I were picked to ride up first with a family of 3. We eagerly jumped into the helicopter with our guide, Julia, popped on our headsets and held on tight. The flight was about 10 minutes long and our pilot gave us some good views of the glacier before popping us down to the ice.

Once we landed, we were given axes and crampons for our boots, which made it much easier to walk around. Once the second group arrived, we set off on our two hour hike. Julia worked with a bigger axe to chop away a clear path in the ice (we were the first trip of the day). She tested spots to make sure we were safe and cut away steps when we had to climb up and over larger pieces of ice. We ventured through ice tunnels, into caves and even had to slide through tiny holes to make it back to the helipad for our pickup.

To give you an idea of the size of the glacier, the ice above the black spot behind us is more than 50 meters thick. We were like tiny little ants out there:

The glacier is constantly moving and while we were there we heard a very loud ice slip. Huge chunks of ice (bigger than cars) just fell straight down. It's very dangerous there. The day after we left, two guys were crushed to death by falling ice. Our flight back was just as amazing as the trip there. As we said goodbye to the glacier, we thought about how lucky we were to have experienced something so awesome.

We relaxed over lunch and browsed some shops before meeting up with Tim and Jackie. They did a full day hike and were finished in the late afternoon. Our next stop, Queenstown was about a 5 hour drive from there, so we wanted to get on the road as fast as possible. We certainly were keeping to our schedule until this farmer and his sheep got in our way. It didn't take them long to get out of the way, but we've never seen a sight like this - even in NZ!

Quad Biking

Just outside of Westport was a seal colony we visited on our way out of town. We couldn't get too close to the seals but there were lots of little babies that were really cute. There were also some spectacular views from the ocean cliffs. We also spotted a World Traveler's sign that told us we were 12, 749 km (7,922 miles) from New York City! Too bad they don't show how far away Boston is, but I guess we could do the math if we really needed to.

We decided to stop an show Tim and Jackie Pancake Rocks which we had visited on our trip south last year. They were just as amazing as they were on our first trip: Day 8 Last Year


By the time we finished our walk through the Pancake Rocks, we were getting pretty hungy for lunch. We decided to continue on our way and hoped to find something to eat relatively soon. We were very excited when we saw a sign for a cafe, but not only that, they advertised 4x4 adventures. We knew then that our next stop was going to be a long one.

After enjoying a lunch of french fries, corn dogs, and fish sticks (they didn't really sell anything else) we hopped on some wheels for a one hour adventure through the Hokitika countryside. The trip was great. Tim got in trouble only a few times for breaking the rules, and I only crashed once, in a creek (I claim that was my only opportunity to try riding in "Reverse", but I'm not sure anyone believed me.) We travelled through the woods, up and down steep hills, and even through a deep river.

Our day ended in Franz Josef Glacier. Tim was really excited to try a restaurant Jeremy and I had eaten at the year before. We couldn't remember if we liked it or not and it looked fun from the outside, so we decided to try it again. Bad decision. The food was pretty average. The guys wanted to try the Mixed Grill special. What arrived wasn't so yummy: Venison Sausage (the best meat was made into a sausage - we should have known better!), Goat Chop and Rabbit (very dry). The best part of the meal was the enormous garlic bread we had as an appetizer. If only we had stuck to that!

Wine O'Clock

We enjoyed a bit of a sleep in and reorganized/repacked all of our gear before heading out of Havelock. We grabbed a bite to eat for brunch in Picton, another town along the Marlborough Sounds.

Our journey continued to Marlborough, which is a wine making region of New Zealand. We stopped for tastings at five vineyards – Whither Hills, Villa Maria, Highfield Estate, Isabel Estate and Te Whare Ra. Our favorites were definitely the Sauvignon Blancs and the Pinot Noirs. We purchased a couple bottles of “Sav” to share during the remainder of our trip.
Our next destination was about 3 hours away so we got back on the road towards Westport. Along the way we spotted a sign for the longest swing bridge in New Zealand. I’m certainly not a fan of swing bridges, but when we saw another sign for a flying fox ride back we decided to take in a little adventure. A flying fox is essentially a harness ride across a cable. It was lots of fun but we were attacked by mosquitoes (it was becoming a regular occurrence) which wasn’t so enjoyable. Once we arrived in Westport we checked into our motel and drove to a restaurant that the motel owned recommended. The restaurant was called Porto Bella and the meal was certainly the best that any of us had enjoyed at that point.

Stay tuned – coming up soon is our adventures at Franz Josef Glacier!

Green Lipped Mussels

As soon as our kayaks were unloaded we left Marahau en route to Motueka, where we had spent our first night. This part was a bit of a back-track as our next destination was in the Marlborough Sounds, towards the east (we were currently in the west.) We stopped by a craft fair in Motueka to browse for souvenirs. Jackie and Tim were lucky enough to find a beautiful platter, while Jeremy and I left empty-handed.

The rest of our drive was rather uneventful. The road took us along the beautiful coast and then through the mountains, right into our next stop, Havelock.

Havelock is a very small town, but is known as the Green Shelled Mussel Capitol of the World. Perhaps this is why I chose a motel in this town? Once we had checked into our room, the boys explored town and picked up some beer and wine, while the girls got showered and ready for dinner.

When everyone was sparkling clean (showers after three days of no showers can be pretty long) we walked to Slip Inn, a restaurant on the water to try some mussels. We found the food delicious, but the service was sub-par, so we decided to try another restaurant for round two. On the way to our second stop, Jeremy noticed a bus with Bedford written on the front parked in a trailer park. The owner was very friendly and invited us inside to see his home. It was amazing to see how much stuff they fit into such a unique space. Outfitted with a new flat screen TV, I think Jeremy would have stayed for much longer but our stomachs were rumbling so it was time to press on. The Mussel Pot was certainly the better option of restaurants. In the relaxed atmosphere, we enjoyed mussels in garlic butter, in blue cheese sauce, in sweet chili sauces, and even baked with cheese and bacon bits. By the end of stop #2 we were stuffed, the mozzies were biting and it was time to head home. Jeremy, Tim and I stayed up chatting for a couple of hours, while Jackie (who won the I Can Sleep ANYWHERE award on the trip) curled up in a little ball and caught some zzz’s.