White Island

On Saturday we boarded a luxury launch for the hour and a half ride to White Island. Thankfully we took our seasickness pills as most of the people on the boat got pretty ill from the ride. After we arrived at White Island we hopped onto a small raft that took us to shore. We were equipped with hard hats and gas masks and began the tour.




White Island is estimated to be 150,000 to 200,000 years old. The tour took us all over the island, past bubbling mud, hissing steam, sulfur chimneys, and up to the edge of the crater lake. We felt like we were on another planet. The end of the tour took us to the remains of an old mining factory and back onto the boat for the trip back home.

The experience is definitely something that we recommend. However, the seasickness pills did make us very sleepy. We took a "nap" at 5:30pm and didn't wake up again until 12:30am, so we missed out on the entire night!

On another note, it saddens us that it has been determined for the best that Maxwell (Erin's dog) is put to sleep. He has lived a great life and brought plenty of joy to Erin and her family.

Driver's License

Jeremy was thrilled when I brought the mail as his official New Zealand Driver's License arrived today. I'll be applying for mine in a month when I don't have to sit for the exam. The licenses are good until 2018 and I reminded Jeremy so kindly that he would be 40 then! :o)

Kiwi Country

On Friday we took the day off of work to enjoy an extended weekend. We started the day off nice and slow - Jeremy did some work from home while I slept and then did a little bit of cleaning. We packed some sandwiches and hit the road around mid-day for the Bay of Plenty. The Bay of Plenty has a mild climate year round, so we were really looking forward to a nice sunny (and warm) get-away!

Our first stop on Friday afternoon was the town of Te Puke which is home to Kiwi 360. Kiwi fruit is one of New Zealand's main exports and is grown in the Bay of Plenty. We climbed aboard a kiwi cart and went on a tour of the kiwi orchards. Not only do they grown kiwis, but also a variety of other things such as avocados, macadamia nuts, apples, and lemonade lemons - which we got to taste on the tour. We also enjoyed some samples of kiwi wine and liqueur before buying some kiwi jam to take home.
We then hopped back into the car to head towards our final destination, Ohope Beach; one of New Zealand's best beaches. (We can't say we've really seen a bad beach yet!) We checked into the holiday park and quickly put our stuff into our cute little hut before heading out for dinner.

We decided to stop for some "take-aways" (the kiwi term for takeout) at a fish and chips shop down the street. There was so much to choose from, and our tummies were rumbling so we settled for fish burgers, chips, and a mussel fritter. The food was delicious. We were stuffed, but very satisfied. We finished the night off with a few games of Yahtzee before tucking in for the night. We had an early boat ride awaiting us on Saturday morning as we had booked a trip to White Island, New Zealand's most active volcano.

Erin Point

For the past couple of days we have been in full weekend mode. On Friday night, we settled in early with some pizza to watch the Warriors beat the Roosters in a Rugby League playoff game. On Saturday and Sunday mornings we were up early and at the gym...getting in beach body mode as the beach is just a few weeks away. Saturday afternoon found us shopping in the city. We stopped into Borders to pick out some travel books for our trip to Asia in 2009. We felt completely overwhelmed and decided to start with a advice from a travel shop instead. We have a tiny plan in place and will attack that over the coming months. We also ran into a few Australian Netball players during our shopping spree. They were in town for the NZ/Australia game. Once again, NZ dominated the court. We met up with Sander and Mirjam (from the Netherlands) for some coffee in the afternoon.

After our session at the gym today we relaxed for a while in the sun. By 2pm we were stir crazy and decided to go for a walk around the block. 2 hours and many steps later, we were back home. Our walk took us from Viaduct Harbour, where we live to the Auckland Harbour Bridge, up a big hill into Herne Bay and a place called Erin Point. We explored the point before stopping for a snack in Ponsonby and returning home for a homemade feast of slow cooker Curry Chicken.





We both have a busy week ahead and we'll be heading off to the Bay of Plenty next weekend to see New Zealand's most active volcano, White Island.

One More Work Conference

Jeremy arrived home from Florida very early on Monday morning. He brought back a few American treats like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (have we really gone 18 months without them?) and some face creams for me that are literally half the price at home. He quickly got back into the swing of things, returning to work Monday afternoon and has been going strong ever since. We did have a few early nights as he adjusted to the jet lag.

Yesterday we decided to check out a French market in Parnell, which is the town next to ours. The market was great! We enjoyed samples of cheese, bread, dips and wine and then purchased some fresh veggies, hummus and bread. We enjoyed that while I cooked up a new recipe (Oven Roasted Salmon with Pesto) from the You Are What You Eat cookbook I got a the book sale a few months ago. To my excitement, after many kitchen disasters, the recipe worked and looked just like it did in the book!

We finished off the night watching the All Blacks beat the Wallabies, yay!

Jeremy left early this morning for another work conference. The one is for PwC New Zealand's managers and partners, so we'll at least be in the same country this time around!

Busy week

I have been in the US for the past week at a conference in Orlando. The conference was very well done and had 1900 people attending. The Marriott which we stayed at is the largest in the world with 2004 rooms. I arrived on Monday night after 25 hours of travelling and had a few Bud Lights with Dennis and Eric. The next day we actually went to Blizzard Beach for some fun in the sun/water and the conference began that evening.

It was a great time reconnecting with all of my US colleagues during the various sessions during the day as well as over some beers and drinks at night. The B52's performed at the hotel for us 1 night which was pretty cool.
One night, my break-out group rented the House of Blues out and we had dinner and a show there. The nights were long and the hours of sleep which I was able to pull over were very few (ranging from 3-4 hours a night).

The conference ended on Friday afternoon and Dennis was nice enough to extend his stay and hang out with me on Friday. We went to Disney Quest as well as saw a Cirque Du Soleil show (La Nouba). I'm currently sitting in LA waiting for my next flight to take me back to Auckland. It was a great week and great to catch up with everyone.

Erin had a good week in Auckland (despite me not around). This included going to the gym, hanging out with our friend Diane and her son Matthew, going for a massage, and doing research for our trip to Australia in October.

Hope everyone is well and let the Football season begin!!

Devonport

Today was the last day of Winter, but we were lucky to have a really nice spring-like day! We decided to take a ten minute ferry ride to Devonport and explore the town; something we have been hoping to do for the last 18 months but the weather just never seems to be right.

After catching the ferry we followed a 5 km tour route through Devonport. We hiked to the top of Mount Victoria and North Head, which are Devonport's volcanic peaks. Mount Victoria is the higher of the two and provided us with great views of Auckland. It is also home to a some old military bunkers and a disappearing gun.





Jeremy has been busy today preparing for his trip back to the US. He'll be in Orlando for work for a week. I'll find something here to keep myself busy!

Happy 2nd Anniversary!

We celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary today and can't believe that it has been just two years since we got married! We have shared so many fun and exciting adventures together.

We celebrated over a delicious dinner at Number 5 in Auckland. Number 5 is famous for its New Zealand food and huge selection of boutique New Zealand wines. Upon being seated we were quickly greeted by the Sommelier who probed our wine preference and convinced us that the Felton Road Pinot Noir would change our lives forever. It was DELICIOUS! If my wallet was bigger, I'd let her choose wine for me forever - I guess life really is too short to drink bad wine.

Jeremy started off with a serving of cauliflower soup with bleu cheese (which I enjoyed my fair share of). The name does nothing for it as the soup was divine - move over Cream of Broccoli! For our mains, Jeremy had the Venison while I enjoyed the Lamb Fillet. Lamb isn't something I would usually eat but since we were in a restaurant that specialized in New Zealand cuisine, I couldn't resist. We agreed that the Venison was good but the Lamb was GREAT. While we finished our bottle of wine we pondered over what dessert to order. Our top choices were Vanilla Bean Brulee, Lemoncello Bavarian or the NZ classic - Sticky Date Pudding. We went with the Lemoncello which literally was a melt in your mouth lemon essence with white chocolate chunks...mmm mmm goood!

I'm stuffed and can't type anymore. Have a great night!

Snowboarding

On Friday, Erin and I left the city around 3pm to head south towards Tongariro National Park. This was the first national park in New Zealand (the fourth in the world) and is also the home to Mt. Ruapehu. If you remember, last winter, we headed down here and went skiing on an active volcano. This volcano also had an eruption in September of last year.

It took us 4 hours to get there and we arrived at the bach (holiday home) around 7pm and hung out with the various friends that we were meeting down there. In total there were 10 of us, but we only knew 4 of them prior (Gareth, Clare, David, and Katy).

On Saturday we headed to Whakapapa ski field which is on one side of the mountain. We both decided to try snowboarding since the rest of the people we were with are snowboarders. Erin has never done it before, but I have gone snowboarding 1 time with Kevin Baker back in 1990 (I believe). I didn't like it at all then, but Erin and I both had a blast and really enjoyed ourselves. We both did really well and will try it again.

Unfortunately, the weather on Sunday wasn't the greatest and rained very hard. We ended up just driving home, but made it through the rain.

What was on bikes?

For the past 5 years in Auckland an Erotic Fair has been held and the Wednesday prior to the weekend there is a very special parade that comes through the city. Last year I happened to be outside with a co-worker when the parade passed us, and everything seemed reasonably low-key.

This year, there have been protesting and people seeking injunctions in court. What kind of parade was it you ask? It was a parade that's called Boobs on Bikes. It's used to promote the fair for the weekend and an opportunity for individuals to be "free". The injunction didn't work and the parade went ahead today. With all the press, there were many people lining the streets today to see what was going on. (I decided that to ensure I really got to experience Auckland I should be there as well). I've heard that there were around 100,000 people on the streets.

Here's a link to the newspaper article on it. I was able to snap a few pictures of the crowds and people with my phone as shown below. (Don't worry no nudity below)

Here are a bunch of construction workers lined up for the show (parade).
Right in front of the parade were a bunch of protesters walking against pornography and nudity.

Two of the participants in the parade.

Don't worry...

There has been some concern that we are losing all of our friends here in New Zealand, and we wanted to let everyone know not to worry as we still have friends left...(haha)
This past weekend was good and on Friday night we decided to hang out at a new bar with a couple friends Jackie and Jerry. We weren't out late as on Saturday we had plans to go to the gym early in the morning.

It was good talking with some folks from back home this weekend (Ciaccia's and Mathews'). It was also Avery's 3rd Birthday on Saturday and she celebrated with a sprinkler party. We sang Happy Birthday to her on Skype, but she didn't seem overly impressed with our singing skills.

It's a busy week this week and we will be preparing for our trip down to Mt. Ruapehu on Friday with a bunch of friends. We are planning to try a little snowboarding on Saturday and will be sure to update you all with how sore we are.

New Zealand had a big day at the Olympics on Saturday as well as they won 5 medals (2 gold, 1 silver, 2 bronze). It was a big day for the country!

Another bites the dust

We went out for Mascha, Jereon and Sophie's last dinner in New Zealand last night. We headed to Mecca for what ended up being a very fun, very tasty, and very expensive meal. Jacco joined us as well and we proceed to drink a bunch of wine, and eat various courses.

Mascha has been in New Zealand for 8 years and Jeroen has been here for 2 years. He came over here with PwC as a single man and is leaving as a married man with a 3 month old baby girl. He worked fast! They are headed back to the Netherlands.

We had many fun times with them and it was sad to see them go. We will hopefully catch up with them in May on our travels back home to Boston.

Busy Week

Thursday night were the "leaving drinks" for Jeroen. Unfortunately it was raining like you wouldn't believe that night, but a lot of people showed up and it was fun. Then Friday was the last day for Erin's co-worker Joe and they went out for drinks and dinner. It was month end drinks at PwC which entailed a pretty late night for me as well.

On Saturday Craig and Lisa came back to Auckland from going diving up north at Port Knights which is one of the top 10 dive spots in the world. We ended up going to the All Blacks Road Show which was pretty cool and we got rugby balls and signatures from 1 current All Black and 1 past All Black (Joe Rokocoko and Buck Shelford).


At night Erin and I had dinner plans at Paul and Emma's house with Jeroen and Mascha. While we were over there enjoying some good food, Craig and Lisa watched the All Blacks beat the Wallabies at Foxes which is a bar in the Viaduct. Craig and Lisa headed down south on Sunday and we enjoyed our time with them and having some house guests.


Today Erin and I had a lunch at Sunshine Chinese Restaurant and had Yum Char or Dim Sum as it's sometimes called. It was very good!

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.