March 30, 2008 - Whangarei

We've spent the past few days getting stuck back into our boat projects while we wait for our parts to make it up here from Auckland. Since boat work is so uninteresting, I thought I'd share a few of the lessons we learned about traveling around New Zealand via car, as at least that info might be of use to somebody out there.

We primarily stayed in double rooms in hostels. Use the BBH guide, which is available free at information centers, and pay attention to the ratings - there is a big difference between the 90%+ places and everywhere else. We much preferred the smaller hostels and tried to avoid the ones that the tour buses frequented. Bed linens were always provided for double rooms and occasionally towels. We brought our own pillows with us, just because we really like our creature comforts.

Most of the kitchens at the hostels had everything we could conceivably want for cooking breakfast and dinner. Some provided tea and coffee and a few even put out freshly baked bread in the morning. We brought the following things with us and used them all the time:

• French press
• Stemless Riedel glasses
• pepper grinder
• Maldon salt
• Wicked sharp chef's knife
• Long tongs for grilling
• Chilly bin (aka cooler bag)
• Freezer packs to keep the chilly bin cool

We wish we had brought a corkscrew with us. In this land of screwcaps, we managed to keep buying bottles of wine with corks in them and not every hostel had a corkscrew in the utensil drawer. We also wish that we had brought more socks with us. We spent much more time wearing cold weather gear than we expected to.

The vast majority of the rooms we stayed in were lit by a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. If you like to read before going to sleep, bring your headlights or buy some cheap bedside lamps that fit in the kiwi outlets.

We wish that we'd brought snorkel gear to dive for paua and crayfish. Sten is also suffering from the delusion that he would have found gold in the rivers if he'd just had the right gear. And he wishes that he'd brought a lightweight fishing rod. Several times he considered buying one to use along the way.

We primarily stayed at hostels, but we also spent two nights at motor parks. One had pots and pans available in the communal kitchen, one didn't. At the latter, we wound up drinking wine out of our stemless crystal glasses while sprinkling sea salt and applying a liberal dose of freshly ground pepper to the reheated leftover pasta that we were eating out of old yogurt containers with plastic forks. Classic.

There is very little traffic on the South Island, so it is a good place for a novice left-hand side of the road driver to get the hang of it. The only trouble we had were a few times when we pulled out onto a section of road with no signs or traffic and Sten would forget that he was supposed to be driving on the left. A quick "left, Honey, left," from me and he would be back on the correct side of the road.

New Zealand strikes us as a very safe place. We never felt uncomfortable about our personal safety (except while sledging . . .). A few times we were concerned about having our car broken into, but nothing ever happened to it. All in all, New Zealand is a very easy and comfortable country to travel around. And if the dollar ever recovers, it might actually become an economical destination again.

March 27, 2008 - Raglan

After years of watching Sten surf, it was well past time for me to give it a try. I've been wanting to learn for a while, and that desire just got stronger and stronger this past year as we spent several weeks in world-class surfing locations. I've felt like I really haven't been exploiting the opportunities that a trip like this has presented. But the reef breaks he's been surfing this past year are no place for a rank beginner, so I needed to find a nice beach to learn on and somebody patient to teach me.
Our first morning back in Raglan, while Sten was off surfing the point at Manu Bay, I and a Swedish traveler named Marie took a lesson at the Raglan surf school. Our instructor, Dane, started out by asking if we had any board sport experience. Marie volunteered her snowboarding experience. I just shook my head.
"Skateboarding?"
"Nope."
"Wakeboarding?"
"Never."
"Do you know which foot is dominant? Do you know if you have a natural or goofy stance?"
"No."
"Which foot do you kick a soccer ball with?"
"Umm, can't remember the last time I kicked a soccer ball, but I can promise you that I'm going to be a natural."
Poor Dane, I was like his worst teaching nightmare come to life.

Before we hit the beach, Dane demonstrated the steps to standing up on a surfboard. First lay down, with your toes hanging over the edge of the board. Then, arch your back, lifting your shoulders and head off the board. Look back over your shoulder for an approaching wave that you want to catch. Upon spotting one, begin to paddle fast and steady. When you feel the wave begin to push you, taking over from your paddling momentum, put your hands flat on the deck of the board, under your shoulders and push up on your hands, assuming a position very similar to yoga's upward facing dog. Drag your back knee forward (as it turns out my stance is natural and my back knee is my right one) and plant it between your hands. Pull front foot (in my case my left foot) through hands and plant it at a 45 degree angle to the center line of the surf board. Stand up, planting your back foot perpendicular to the centerline of the surf board, and distribute your weight evenly between your two feet. Your back knee should lean slightly forward. Don't look down at your feet. You'll lose your balance and topple over. Turn your shoulders so that they are at a 45 degree angle to the center line. Face your head forward towards the beach. If you start to lose your balance, squat down. Standing up and waving your arms like a windmill won't help at all. Got it?

Surprising both my self and Dane, I managed to stand up on the third wave and by the end of the lesson I had ridden a few all the way into the beach. It was an incredible workout. I was tired and famished by the end. Back at the hostel, I scarfed down left-over curry, while I waited for Sten to turn up. That afternoon we headed back to the beach. I rented another board to keep practicing. As the surf built up during the afternoon, my lack of physical fitness really caught up with me, and I spent more time fighting my way back out to the point where the waves were breaking than actually surfing. That night we both slept like rocks.

The next morning, Sten dropped me back at the beach before heading back off to surf the point breaks. When he got back he found me very discouraged as I was struggling to even stand up on a board, let alone catch the waves. I'm just too out of shape to try to surf two days running. With Sten's help, pushing me forward as the wave caught the board, I was able to catch a few waves and reinforce my muscle memory of how to stand up and balance on a surf board. After one good ride, I called it a day and Sten messed around on the big foam beginners board that I had rented.
If we had to pick a town in New Zealand where we would want to live, Raglan would be it. The beach and the surf breaks are obviously big draws, but the atmosphere of the town is what gets us. It has this cruisy, laid-back vibe that just makes it hard to get stressed out about anything. There are a few good cafes, a butcher (complete with a pig on a surf board hanging over the counter), and a guy that knows how to make a great cheeseburger ("You must be American. No New Zealander would ever ask for their meat to be cooked medium rare."). What more could we want?

March 24, 2008 - Tauranga

Yesterday afternoon we drove up from Rotorua to Tauranga, where we met up with Andrea, Patty and Giff on Phoenix. We never knew that a boat on the hard could be so clean and put together! Giff served up a feast of steak and popcorn (a Phoenix tradition) and we all settled back to watch Pirates of the Caribbean III and a enjoy few slices of Patty's pumpkin pie. After dinner Patty and Andrea almost had us convinced to join them on the Tongariro Crossing, which is meant to be the "best one day hike in New Zealand" but decided that we were too out of shape to attempt it. We spent the night in Phoenix's cozy forward berth and the next morning Giff made pancakes for all of us.

Over breakfast, we talked about our plans for the coming season. Sten and I have been so busy working on the boat and seeing as much of New Zealand as possible that we haven't put any time into researching destinations for next season. We are planning to get ourselves (and Mata'irea) to Darwin, Australia by mid-July so that we can join the Sail Indonesia Rally. But other than that, we have no firm plans for the coming cruising season.

We would like to spend some time in Vanuatu and maybe New Caledonia or the Solomon Islands before heading west to Darwin. We have no interest in day hoping our way up the inside passage of the Great Barrier Reef, but we will probably make a quick stop at Thursday Island (in the Torres Strait) to clear into Australia before continuing on to Darwin. If we don't stop at Thursday, we're looking at a nearly 2,000 mile run from Vanuatu to Darwin. At this point, we've done a handful of 1,000 mile passages, which typically take about a week (and by the end of which we're both ready to get off the boat). Our Pacific crossing from the Galapagos to Marquesas was just under 3,000 miles and took us 19 days in near perfect tradewind sailing conditions. We haven't done any 2,000 milers yet.

This coming season Phoenix will be sailing shorthanded as Andrea is staying in New Zealand to work for a bit, before heading back to the States to start college. Giff and Patty will be heading to New Caledonia as soon as the weather allows and then onto Vanuatu before heading over to the Great Barrier Reef. Diving is to them as surfing is to Sten, so their itinerary is structured around getting to as many of the best diving sites in the world. We're hoping to be able to spend some time with them in Vanuatu before we go our separate ways in Australia.

We were hoping to do some surfing in Tauranga with Phoenix, but the weather wasn't cooperating, so we decided to head back to Raglan, where this road trip began 6 weeks ago. Before we left, Patty gave us a packet of her delicious pumpkin bread to snack on as we drove west.

March 23, 2008 - Rotorua

Admittedly, we might be a bit testy due to lack of sleep, but we found Rotorua (aka Rotovegas) to be the most obscenely commercialized place we've come across in New Zealand. Even Queenstown and Milford Sound have nothing on this place. We showed up at Te Puia, a geothermal park containing pools of boiling mud, sulfur springs and New Zealand's biggest geyser, ready and willing to pay the $25NZ admission fee stated in our Rough Guide. Apparently things have changed since the guidebook was published, because now the general admission fee is $50NZ, which includes a guided tour and Maori concert. We asked if we could pay a reduced fee if we promised not to go to the concert. Nope. So then I stopped a guy running one of the dozens of tour buses parked out front. I asked him what his group was paying. He said the fees charged to tour companies are $19NZ per person for the guided tour and if they opt to do it, $31NZ per person for the concert. Hmm. I walked up to a security guard armed with this info and asked if we could pay $19NZ to walk around. He explained that the general admission fee is $50 and the tour and concerts are "free services" offered to the public. Apparently Te Puia is Maori for semantics.
As we walked back to the carpark grumbling about price gouging when Sten noticed steam vents across the street. We crossed the street, jumped a fence, walked around a screening of trees and found ourselves all alone on a crusted over plane of mud, complete with boiling pools of mud and little volcano-like mud mounds with boiling mud spewing from the center.

"Just a little closer, Honey."

All this geothermal activity was surrounded by a golf course. We actually found a golf ball in one of the mud pools. It was all a bit surreal.

Now that we had checked bubbling mud pools off of our list, we still wanted to see funny colored hot springs, so we headed down to Wai-O-Tapu, where the admission price was a much more reasonable $27.50NZ each.

The Artist's Palette - chemical deposits cause the variation in colors

In front of the Champagne Pool

The Champagne Pool

The Devil's Bath - sulfur and ferrous salts cause the yellowish green color of this pool. I made Sten pose next to the pool just to show that I'm not tweaking these pictures to make the colors more intense (otherwise Sten would also be green).

March 22, 2008 - Opotiki, East Cape

While in the Marlborough Sounds last weekend, I booked all of our accommodations for this past week, as we'd been warned that Kiwis all travel during the 4 day Easter holiday and that there would be no vacancies anywhere. As requested, on Friday I called to confirm our booking for Saturday night at the Opotiki Beach House. Booking confirmed, we showed up this evening, after a really long day of driving, introduced ourselves and paid our tariff to the owner, brought in our overnight bag, pillows, and towels, stowed our chilly bin in the fridge, unloaded our cooking gear in the kitchen, and went for a walk on the beach. When we got back, the owner was all out of sorts.
"You're not Julie!"
Um, no, I'm not. "I'm Danika."
"Your reservation is for Sunday night, not tonight," he said tapping his reservation book.
"No it isn't. I booked for Saturday. I can show you my notes from the call."
"You must have made a mistake. I have you down for tomorrow, not tonight."
"I called to confirm tonight's reservation on Friday. Nobody said anything about the booking being for Sunday."
"Well, Julie is coming and I don't have rooms for both of you."
At this point we didn't really want to stay, but we weren't going anywhere on this holiday weekend without another reservation. So he called around and managed to get us a room in town. We got our money back, got all our stuff, repacked the car and headed back into town. In retrospect, we should have fought to keep our room by the beach.

Our lodging in town was on the second floor of an old hotel with a restaurant and bar underneath - never a good thing on a Saturday night. When we arrived, the woman who checked us in struggled to get the key for our room to work, while we waited in the oven-like hallway. She offered us the room across the hall instead, which overlooked the roof rather than the street. We didn't care about the view, but the kitchen fans whirring away on the roof outside the window were a deal breaker. She eventually got the key to work in the door to the room overlooking the street, so we went in to investigate. The room, facing the setting sun, was even hotter than the hallway. I went to open the window, and the woman started protesting that we couldn't leave it open as it might come falling down. Losing my patience with the whole situation, I tersely explained that we needed a way to air out this room. We also needed sheets for one of the beds. She went off to find something to prop the window open and some sheets. While this whole scene was playing out, an English couple sat at the dinner table in the hallway with knowing looks on their faces.

We brought our stuff up, and went out through the kitchen, which shared a wall with our room, to the balcony to have some wine and wait for the room to cool down. One look at the cramped and ill-equipped kitchen, with a headless whole fish airdrying in the fridge, and we decided not to try to cook dinner in there. While we were sitting on the balcony, the English couple came into the kitchen to try to clean one of the pans they used for dinner. After a cursory attempt accompanied by many noises of disgust, they left it to soak and came out to welcome us to "the arsehole of New Zealand." They had wound up throwing out the meat they started to cook in that pan when they realized that it was blackening from the layers of old grease coming off of the pan, rather than from any natural browning process. We explained how we had wound up here, in a room that we were afraid to try to lock. They laughed and said that at least we could lock our room - their lock didn't work at all.

While we sat on the porch enjoying our wine, the hotel's long-term residents arrived to cook their dinner. Based on their meal, we think they were Chinese. Whatever it was they were cooking, it smelled pretty good. After a while, we couldn't stand it anymore and went off to the Double Lucky Takeaway to get some dinner. When we returned, a strange woman was trying to show our room to another set of backpackers. Her key seemed to be working much better than ours. We stated our claim to the room and went back to the balcony to have dinner. After a bit, I went to the ladies and discovered a guy shaving in the sink and that the light in the toilet was out. I did my business in the dark and returned to the balcony where we and the English couple spent the evening watching the local cop do laps around the downtown district - all four blocks of it. We saw him quite a few times. The local kids were also out cruising. At one point, Sten started hooting at them, and getting them to hoot back at him. Exhausted from such an exciting evening, we called it a night around 9:30. We shut our window and went to bed. At that point we noticed the music from the bar below us reverberating through the floor of our room. Good times.

In the middle of the night, I woke to the sound of voices in the kitchen, on the other side of the wall from my bed. Thinking that maybe it was 4:30 and that someone was getting up for an early Easter morning fishing trip, I rolled over and tried to ignore them. They moved their party out onto the balcony, right next to our window. With my brain half awake and bladder demanding to be emptied, I stumbled down the hall to the bathroom. On the way, passing the kitchen, I realized that it was not the pre-dawn hours. I diverted to the balcony and confronted the three guys yacking it up next to our window. Pointing at the window, I told them that our room was right there and that they's just woken us up. They made apologetic noises. "What time is it, anyway?" I asked. "Dunno," the youngest responded. A slightly older guy glanced at his cell phone and said it was around 2:30. Now I was pissed. "It's fucking early!" And with that I stomped off to the bathroom. While sitting on the toilet, in the dark, I realized that they had been too young to be backpackers, and had likely wandered in the unlocked front door. I went back to bed and laid there considering telling them to leave, but concern for our vehicle parked downstairs kept me quiet. Within a few minutes they were gone anyway. The room was back to roasting temperatures, so Sten opened the window when he came back from going to the bathroom. We lay awake for the next two hours, listening to the traffic, howling cats and barking dogs, finally drifting off to sleep sometime after 4:30.

Around 6:00, with it still pitch dark outside, the local street sweeper came by to sweep the sidewalks and empty the rubbish bins. Groaning, Sten rolled over and shut the window again. He needn't have bothered. Within an hour the first of our fellow guests started making breakfast on the far side of our bedroom wall, making any further attempts at sleep futile. We gave up and got up. This ranked as one of the three worst nights of sleep we've had on this trip (other than offshore where we don't really expect to sleep well). The other two nights were in Dominica and Aruba where we were kept up most of the night by discos going until dawn. We would have asked for a refund, but there was nobody around, and we weren't about to spend another minute in this place waiting for someone to show up.

March 21, 2008 - East Cape

The East Cape is one of the least densely populated regions in this sparsely populated country. Those who do live here are primarily of Maori descent. The only other pakeha (non-Maori) we saw during the two days we spent out here were the few other travelers we ran into and people who work in or run the lodgings we stayed at. We regularly saw Maori youths riding along the roads on horseback. The heart of each village is the local marae. Although it wasn't the most exciting place we've visited on this trip, we were glad that we took the time to check out a bit of the Maori world - beyond the Disney version tourists typically experience at hangi nights and concerts in Rotorua. For a look at Maori culture, check out the movie Whale Rider, which is a story about a modern Maori tribe living on the East Cape. The film incorporates the legend of Paikea, the ancestor of the East Cape Maori tribe of Ngati Porou, who (according to legend) arrived in New Zealand on the back of a whale.

Our cozy cabin at Brian's Place - the shell shape seemed to amplify the sound of the surf.

The view from the deck our cabin across Tokomaru Bay.

The East Cape is dotted with towns that time and progress have passed by.

This perfectly mundane looking Anglican church contains a treasure trove of Maori carving, weaving and imagery.

Can you see all the tikis with their paua shell eyes staring out at you?

The stained glass window over the alter beautifully interweaves Christian and Maori imagery. Note the World War I uniforms on the Maori youths flanking Jesus. Entire regiments of Maori men fought overseas in that conflict, primarily in Galipoli and North Africa.

Another postcard perfect church.

Although it provided us with brief glimpse into modern Maori life, the drive around the East Cape of the North Island was not as satisfying as the drive along the Catlin's Coast at the bottom of the South Island. In the Catlin's, every 30 kms or so there is another geologic wonder to check out. There, we were able to break up the driving with lots of short walks. The East Cape has beautiful scenery, but there are no hiking trails or anywhere else to get out and stretch your legs, except by going to the beach. And neither of us is really interested in getting salty and sandy in the middle of a long day of driving.

March 20, 2008 - Hawke's Bay

After checking out nine vineyards over two days we've decided that the Gimblett Gravels region of Hawke's Bay seems to produce consistently good wine. Generally, we have been much more impressed with the quality of wine that we tasted around Hawke's Bay compared to the Martinborough region.

When we pulled up to Hatton Estate's cellar door and realized that the tasting room was just a picnic table inside the winery, rather than a flash standalone building, we knew we were in for some good stuff. In the US and UK, Hatton's wines are primarily found in restaurants, such as Charlie Trotter's, Per Se, The French Laundry, Moto, Everest, and Gordon Ramsays; but, the sales manager told us that some of Hatton's wines were available at three Chicago liquor stores (see the website for a complete list), including our favorite - Sam's Wine Warehouse. If you can find it, Hatton's EC2 Chardonnay is worth seeking out.

One brand from this area that you are likely to find in your local wine shop is Craggy Range. They source their grapes from each of New Zealand's best wine regions (Pinot Noir from Central Otago, Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough, Chardonnay and Merlot from Hawke's Bay), and make wines that reflect the terroir of those regions. We were impressed with all of their wines.
The vineyards in Hawke's Bay have just begun to harvest their grapes. This busy time of year turned out to be a great time to visit their cellar doors. The winemakers are taking samples of grapes from around their vineyards to test the sugar and acidity levels to see which varieties are ready to harvest. At two vineyards we were offered freshly pressed grape juice to try once the winemakers were done with their tests. At Hatton Estate we tried juice from Syrah (aka Shiraz) grapes. At Alpha Domus we tasted some Chardonnay juice. It was so delicious - nothing like Welch's. As we were leaving Alpha Domus, they gave us bunches of Chardonnnay and Merlot grapes to take with us.

March 19, 2008 - Hawke's Bay

The road from Martinborough to Hawke's Bay passes through "a region uncluttered by places of genuine interest" according to our guidebook. To fortify ourselves for a long day of driving, we stopped at The French Baker www.frenchbaker.co.nz in Greytown, for some of the best baked goods we've had since we last raided Suzy and Alena's kitchens. With a bag full of bread and pastries in the back seat we headed north.
The city of Napier is definitely worth the drive. In 1931 a massive earthquake, measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale, hit Napier. The quake and ensuing fire devastated the city. The city rebuilt, embracing the Art Deco style of architecture that was popular at the time. The result is one of the world's greatest collections of Art Deco buildings. What we really liked were the few buildings that encorporated maori motifs rather than just the chevrons, subursts, zig-zags and ziggurats that are typical of Art Deco.

Even the Golden Arches have gone Deco in Hawke's Bay.

March 18, 2008 - Martinborough, North Island

Our first morning back on the North Island, we returned to Te Papa, the national museum, to visit the floors we didn't have time for during our visit with Patty and Giff of Phoenix last month. Specifically, we wanted to check out the special exhibition about whales. Our favorite part of the exhibit was the sound chamber, where you could listen to the songs of several different species of whales. Sten also really liked a display that contained a number of scale models of porpoises and whales, which showed how huge a blue whale is compared to a sperm or humpback whale. We both love scrimshaw, and there were several good examples in the exhibit. One that really interested me was a tooth that was recently carved by the crew of a Japanese whaling ship. Instead of the classic scene of men in small dories hunting a giant whale with harpoons, it depicted a modern whale hunt, complete with a helicopter lifting off of a factory ship. The juxtaposition between the traditional craft and the modern story was jarring.

About 30 years ago the New Zealand government commissioned a study to determine how to save the declining farming communities an hour north of Wellington. A government expert determined that the drought-plagued region would be the perfect place to grow grapes. Within 5 years the first commercial vintages were bottled. Now, the region, which is an easy drive from Wellington for a weekend out of town, is lousy with vineyards. However, most of them are only open for tastings on the weekends, and those that are open mid-week have limited hours. All the vineyards here charge tasting fees, which wasn't the case in the other wine regions we visited. We hit the three most renowned in quick succession and determined that we weren't impressed. After quaffing one Chardonnay, I commented that the primary flavor I was getting was popcorn. The prices (typically around $50NZ for a bottle of Pinot Noir) struck us as ridiculously steep considering the quality of what we were drinking. For New Zealand Pinot, we'll stick to Central Otago. In defeat, we picked up a bottle of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc and headed back to our motel room to make some pasta.

March 17, 2008 - Marlborough Sounds, South Island

At the end of a long, dusty, winding road, sits the top rated backpacker accommodation in New Zealand, which we saved for the last stop of our tour around the South Island. The three days that we have spent at Hopewell on the Kenepuru Sound have been utterly relaxing. Before we got here we had all these plans to go hiking, fishing and kayaking, but mostly we have just hung out, done laundry, read, planned the rest of our trip, and enjoyed the atmosphere. One morning Sten treated me to breakfast on the patio of our cabin, overlooking the sound. We took advantage of the close proximity of oyster beds that were revealed at low tide and collected oysters for lunch and dinner. Although the Pacific Oyster isn't as prized as Bluff Oysters, we preferred them because they were so fresh.

The Marlborough Sounds are filled with mussel farms. On our second day here, we went with the owner's brother to a nearby mussel farm to collect green-lipped mussels for a group dinner that night. The boat trip out to the farm gave us a chance to check out the Sound. This is only the second place (the first was the Banks Peninsula) we've seen on the South Island that we would actually want to spend some time cruising on our boat. Back at Hopewell, we and about 20 others grabbed our wine and a seat and waited for the first batch of mussels to hit the newspaper covered picnic table. Both of the resident cats knew what was coming, and claimed the end of a picnic bench for themselves. They were clearly no strangers to mussel night!
On our third day here Sten borrowed some tools and a length of wire from Mike, the owner, to fix the cigarette lighter in the car so that we could finally recharge the computer. Mike just installed (relatively) highspeed wireless internet, so we spent some time updating the blog. Even after a marathon session of uploading pictures and text we're still woefully behind.

The days here just seemed to slip away, but we both feel refreshed and ready for the rest of the trip - or at least the drive back to Picton along that long, dusty, winding road and the ferry trip back to the North Island.

The last thing you want to see (or smell!) as you drive onto the vehicle deck of the ferry.

March 13, 2008 - Kaikoura

After our lackluster boat trip on Milford Sound, I opted out of doing a whale watch in Kaikoura. I figured that one of us spending $130NZ and being disappointed would be a much better outcome than both of us being disappointed to the tune of $230NZ. And I didn't have my heart set on seeing sperm whales, so I spent the afternoon wandering around town while Sten went on a whale watch. The text and photos below are here courtesy of Mata'irea's special marine biology corespondent, Sten Levin. If we ever go commercial and put ads on this site, I'll have to figure out how to cut him in on his share of the profits.
The tourist town of Kaikoura is built around a deep sea trench that just happens to come within a kilometer of the coast at this location. As a comparison if you were to set out from New York City you would have to go something like 60 miles out to the continental shelf to find water of similar depth. In Kaikoura, the deep waters combined with large cold water upwellings attract bachelor sperm whales, which can grow up to 20 meters long and weigh in at over 50 tons, in large numbers.

The local Maori have a monopoly on taking people out to see these whales, so I forked over my $130NZ (gulp) and headed for the bus that would transport us to one of the several purpose built whale watch catamarans. I was a little concerned prior to the whale watch, as the gift shop pictures were pretty bland when compared with what you might see from a trip to see a humpback or other such playful whale. After some woozy moments, we arrived on the whale grounds and almost immediately came upon a resting sperm whale.
These whales are here to hunt squid and as such spend their surface time resting up for another foray into the deep, a typical dive here being around 800 meters and lasting 40 plus minutes. After all this time hunting down deep it isn't surprising that the whales aren't too active while on the surface. In fact, they basically look like a very large log floating just at the surface. While they sit on the surface breathing, very little of the whale is visible above the surface and they are basically stationary. Every 40 or so seconds the whale would spout and after four or five minutes on the surface arch his back, show his tail and be gone back to the deep.
So the thrill of seeing sperm whales in Kaikoura is not so much about the actual viewing but actually seeing, in person and up close, the largest toothed predator on the planet.

March 12, 2008 - Waipara

Today's drive north along the East Coast of the South Island took us through Waipara (Maori for "muddy water"), the smallest wine region we'll visit on this trip. Because we still had a good distance to go today beyond Waipara, we limited ourselves to quick stops at only three vineyards. Our favorite of the bunch was Daniel Schuster Wines - the smallest vineyard we visited. The reputation of these wines and their winemaker far outpaces the volume produced.

Daniel Schuster is a transplant from Bohemia by way of a dozen wine regions in the Old and New Worlds. We were lucky enough to find the man himself in the tasting room today. It was the most fun we've ever had tasting wines. We were a rapt audience for his running monologue of Dylan quotes, advice on marital relations, recipe ideas, jokes about the American cities he's visited promoting his wines, and last but not least commentary on the wines themselves. This was also the strongest collection of wines we tasted - there was not a bad bottle in the bunch.

March 11, 2008 - Le Bons Bay, Banks Peninsula

We spent last night in Christchurch, which embraces its English heritage just as strongly as Dunedin does its Scottish roots, with unfortunately much less interesting results. The most entertaining thing I can say about the place is that we spent the night in jail. Seriously. Well, kind of. The backpackers we stayed at used to be the local jail. The new owners have taken the incarceration theme and run with it. The toilet seats in the ladies room were lucite, with barbed wire embedded in them. Some of the rooms still had inmate art on the walls - really beautiful stuff actually.
Since we couldn't find anything in Christchurch to entertain us, we lit out for the Banks Peninsula, which turned out to be incredibly stunning. It seems that during the Age of Exploration, the French managed to claim some of the most beautiful places on earth for themselves, and the Banks Peninsula of New Zealand's South Island is no exception. It is the only New Zealand region that was settled by the French, before the English declared their ownership of the territory via the Treaty of Waitangi, is the Banks Peninsula. True to form, it is one of the prettiest little spots we've come across in this country. It is the first place we've seen on the South Island that we would want to spend some time cruising on our boat. Today were also able to exchange our jeans for shorts for the first time in weeks - so maybe that colored our perceptions of the place a bit.

In places like this, we inevitably find ourselves wondering if the local livestock realize how incredible their surrounds are.

Traffic jam on the Banks Peninsula

On the way out to the Banks Peninsula we stopped at the Ohinetahi Garden in Governors Bay. Sten stayed in the car and tried to troubleshoot a problem with our cigarette lighter, which has stopped working, leaving us unable to charge the computer or cell phone. Meanwhile, I wandered around taking hundreds of photos of the most beautiful garden I've ever seen. Like most formal gardens, it is actually a series of garden rooms. Here are a few shots (double click on them to see more detail) that give a sense of strong architectural framework the place, which was designed by two architects and an artist.

March 10, 2008 - Rangitata

Our rafting trip on the Buller last month left us wanting to experience more difficult rapids. According to our Rough Guide, the best place to run class 5 rapids in New Zealand, other than heli rafting trips (which are decidedly not in the budget), is the Rangitata River. So we signed ourselves up for a run down the River in the Sky. What the guide book failed to mention was that this glacier fed river was frickin' cold.

We had a great time. Check out Sten's expressions in the series of pictures below - he is the one in the red helmet. They crack me up. I'm wearing (an orange helmet and) the exact same shit-eating grin in all of them.

After two rafting trips and a sledging trip, we're still craving more white-water experiences. If we ever live in the mountains, we would definitely take up white-water kayaking.
After the trip we had lunch with the other two couples who were in our raft. We all hung out for a bit trading traveling stories. One couple, from London, is on a year long trip around the world. The other couple, from Australia, work for a few months, then pick up and travel until the money runs out. When he introduced himself as a "boilermaker" I thought he was joking. Turns out that it is more than just a drink.

We are impressed by how many people we have met in New Zealand who are taking time off from their jobs and careers to travel. Mind you, none of them are Americans. Traveling (and I'm not talking about a 1 or 2 week holiday here) just isn't part of our culture like it is for Europeans. We both think that the British Gap Year and German Wanderjahr, a year of travel between high school and college, is a terrific tradition, one which should be embraced by more Americans. One of the four women who shared my freshman year quad at Bryn Mawr deferred starting college for a year to travel around Europe. She was so much more grounded and focused than the rest of us fools, who were just a little too thrilled about being away from home to buckle down that first semester.

We've met several Kiwis and Europeans who have mocked the way Americans travel - flocking to 7 day cruises or packaged tours that don't provide any real opportunity to experience a foreign culture. When we've explained the limited amount of vacation time Americans are granted people have been shocked. Once they recover, the follow-up question is usually "Well, why don't you just take a career break." Then we explain how most American employers just don't support the notion of taking off for a sabbatical or extended leave to travel. Whether it is true or not, American employers tend to perceive each of their employees as essential (at least until the next recession . . .). Most employers will let you know, subtly or bluntly, that taking more than a week off at any time is considered to be too great inconvenience to customers and clients. American employees are too afraid to take the chance that their boss might realize that they could get along without them. Asking to do so could hurt your chances of being promoted. No wonder Americans tend to check themselves into all-inclusive resorts to spend a week getting bongo on free pina coladas, rather than dealing with the hassles of really traveling.