Windy in Wellington
Feb 17–22 in New Zealand ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C
Our next destination definitely lived up to its nickname "Windy Welly"! Although we were lucky to have just dodged the "super wind" event of 90+ mph winds that knocked out services and some transportation (airports, roads, ferries), it was still breeze on for most of our 5-night stay. Luckily, while breezy, the direction was right for a smooth ferry ride from Picton to Wellington of about 3 hours through Queen Charlotte Sound and the famed Cook Strait that separates (and acts as a wind funnel through) the North and South Islands. The large ferry (8 levels) was well appointed with comfy seating areas, bars, and cafes (picture from the water level in the last post).
The AirBnB was right in the heart of town, a block from the trendy pedestrian Cuba Street with eateries, art, and "Op Shops" (NZ for thrift shops). The walkability allowed Cyndee and I who had not been to Wellington before to do the museums and such while the others who had been there before (Stef, Brian, Mark) to catch up with their fitness (gym, swimming) and meeting up with a guide they had met earlier in their travels.
The Te Papa Museum exceeded the hype. It took Cyndee and I two bites at the apple to see the whole place (good thing tickets are good for 48 hours!) with cool exhibits on the volcanos and super volcano (Taupo) that created the Islands, crazy birds and insects that inhabit the place, indigenous art, and very cool Maori history exhibits. There was also a powerful exhibit on the Anzac experience at Gallipoli in WWI enhanced with some stunning Weta Workshop re-creations of real life soldiers and nurses.
As for the "and such", Wellington is teeming with Op Shops (thrift stores) and Cyndee proved to be a savant in the genre. With that and the cool outfitting shops (think REI), now my shopping needs are for another suitcase to make the trip home! Between shopping and sight-seeing, Wellington has lots of fun bars, restaurants, and beer gardens with a good selection of craft beers that we enjoyed (see photos). A highlight was the tasting menu at the hip, Asian-inspired Koji. So much food for only $72pp for our table including wine!
Stef had also booked us for a fun day excursion through the Wairarapa Valley to the wine region of Martinborough with more boutique (read: smaller) vineyards and olive groves. One of the cool features of NZ is the crazy number of microclimates within close proximity. We also marveled that an area at 41 degrees latitude (equivalent in the north to NYC or Chicago and in the south to Puerto Montt where we just sailed in Chile) could grow not only grapes, but limes, lemons, olives, and apple trees! We visited a small winery that had just won an award for their Pinot Noir, a small olive grower, an artisanal cheese producer cheekily named C'est Cheese, and a small chocolatier with some crazy flavors such as fennel, ghost pepper, and several florals (yuck!). We had a fun game of "name that flavor" before buying a chocolate shot for the ride home :)
Another highlight was a visit to the Weta Workshop, home to the incredible company behind the effects in the Lord of the Rings trilogy as well as so many other films and video games. The tour was really fun and showed the incredible detail, effort, and artistry that goes into making incredible creatures/characters/settings come to life (for instance hairs that are placed one by one to replicate human hair and chain maille that was sewn together one tiny link at a time).
On our way out of town heading to Taupo, Mark suggested we tour "The Beehive" which is NZ's funky parliament building. The tour was short and fun, giving us an appreciation for the inclusiveness of the NZ parliament system including the fun fact that NZ was the first country in the world to give woman the right to vote in 1893.Read more
Pretty in Picton
Feb 16–18 in New Zealand ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C
If the first few days on the South Island were about decadence, the next two were about enjoying some of the outdoor adventures this area has to offer. We booked with Marlborough Sounds Adventure Co for a two day trip out of Picton, a cute little seaside town where ferries land from Wellington and many adventure companies are located. Day One was super windy, so we took a large water taxi/cargo vessel from Picton to Portage for a 6 mile hike into our overnight accommodations at Lochmara Lodge along the Queen Charlotte Track. This is a popular 4 day trek, but where they dropped us off was at the Portage to Lochmara Lodge (if anyone wants to look it up on All Trails!) point. With 1400+ feet of elevation gain it was tiring, but not difficult and the views were absolutely stunning. Lots of interesting vegetation (my favorites were the Tree Ferns and the Rangiora aka bushman's toilet paper), birds (small and loud or big and quiet), as well as lots of cicadas/locusts. It was not all quiet on the NZ front!
Lochmara Lodge was so cool. Only accessible by boat or foot, it had a luxe summer camp feel with nice rooms and dining, but also trails, art walks, animals (sheep, cows, weka birds), and a beach area with SUP's and kayaks. The coolest thing was an area rife with glow worms that lit up like clockwork after the sun set.
Day two turned out to be a beautiful calm and partly cloudy day that was perfect for the Kayak Tour. Our guide (Hannah from BC) met us at the lodge with 3 tandem "sit in" kayaks and after a short bit of instruction, we headed out for a 10-mile trip around Queen Charlotte Sound and back to Picton. We had been provided lunch and stopped a few times for snacks and "tea". The water was an incredible color of clear but dark green. Hugging the shorelines, we saw lots of mussels (including the native green-lipped mussels), starfish, jellyfish, and eagle rays. We returned to Picton at about 4pm (so 6 hours) later, secured our luggage and headed to one of the many hotels catering to adventurers within a few minutes walk of the harbor. After a short "horizontal", we reconvened at the super cute Oxley Hotel for happy hour and then to our hotel's Chartroom for dinner that included the green-lipped mussels we had seen on our trip!Read more
Bacchanalia in Blenheim
Feb 14–16 in New Zealand ⋅ ☁️ 18 °C
After a few days of solo travel in Auckland, I was so excited to connect with my fellow travelers in Blenheim, base for the wine region of Marlborough (this area accounts for 75% of the country's wine production and 85% of its wine exports). We arrived just in time for the Marlborough Food & Wine Festival, which was quite the day drinking event! We arrived at 11am and immediately began sampling several local, small batch (and a few more commercial) vintages of Sauvingnon Blanc, Pinot Gris, Rose, some failed attempts at Albarino, "bubbles", and Pinot Noir. The live entertainment was great, the "kewl" ambiance was strong, and the food trucks were good.
The next day (after a few ibuprofen), we tried our hand at another day of day-drinking with the added level of difficulty of cycling. We rented bikes, were given a map with instructions from the local barista as well as the bike rental guy on the "Best Vineyard Tour", "Best Rose", "Best Pinot Gris", and the "Best Gin" (no, that's not a typo!) and headed on a loop that took us about 6 hours. It was amazing just how many of these awesome places were so close together. The "Best Vineyard Tour" at Bladen Vineyards was indeed fabulous. The passion of the vintner, son of the original owner, was so infectious. He was a self-described "dirt nerd". None of us had ever had a winery tour that was so focused on the vines vs. the production. We sampled 5 wines total, but two of them were sampled amongst the vines. He also cut off grapes for us to sample, which was also a first for all of us (Pinot Gris grapes are delicious!). Even though we were pretty toasted from 11am on, the terrain was flat and the bike lanes were mostly off road, so it was a great experience!
For any of you who followed our Chile trip, I was amused that this area of New Zealand is exactly the same latitude of Fruttilar (41 degrees South).Read more
Arrival Auckland
February 10 in New Zealand ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C
Kia Ora! It will be a winter of summers in my first year of retirement! First Chile in December and now New Zealand … ironically with a winter-like trip to Florida in between. Alex dropped me off at Fort Lauderdale airport after completing the Midwinters in Key Largo to meet friends Stef, Brian, Mark who are really living large on a 3-month tour of New Zealand from South of the South Island to the northernmost tip of the North Island. After two days on my own in Auckland, I will connect with them in Blenheim (northern part of the South Island) then up through Picton, Wellington and then to Taupo before heading home. We’ll also be joined by another friend Cyndee who is also doing a partial trip with them.
I got super lucky on the 30-hour trip in the cheap seats: full rows to myself on both legs of the journey! Being able to get horizontal was a huge win. I got even luckier when I arrived at my Marriott hotel at 8am expecting just to store luggage but was able to check into my room. Nice!
The highlight of Auckland was the NZ Maritime Museum. I have been fascinated with Polynesian navigation since a rainy museum day in Hawaii 12 years ago. The exhibits of gaff-rigged catamarans that could navigate thousands of miles in the Pacific with no modern or European tools such as time pieces or sextants (much less GPS) and find the hundreds of tiny islands in the vast Pacific is just jaw-dropping to me. They also had exhibits with great pride in their America’s Cup successes (and failures) to Dennis Conner’s “tricksy” catamaran in 1988. After the main tour was done, the guide showed me a “Dirty Dennis” sticker on the backside of one of the exhibits scales. The rest of the afternoon was spent walking and shopping Queen Street with an early dinner at the Commercial Bay food court. Kiwis love their food courts! Seemed like there was one every block or so.
Day two’s weather was too overcast and blustery for some of the suggested attractions (ferry ride, Sky Tower), so I reluctantly opted for the War Memorial Museum which (thank goodness) was more NZ History, Culture and Natural History than War Memorial. The place was huge and had really good and interactive exhibits. There was even a simulation of a volcano erupting in the harbor, complete with earthquake and tsunami (thankfully they skipped the silica plume or large volcanic rocks hitting!) Even skipping the war stuff, I spent a good 2 1/2 hours roaming.
Taking the bus saved my legs to spend the rest of my last day being a sailor fan-girl. The Sail GP folks were in town for the Sail Grand Prix Auckland. There are not too many places where sailing has sold out bleacher seating! Sadly for them, the weather was causing major scheduling delays, which meant walking Waitemada Harbor with all the land-based infrastructure was all I got to see.
Tomorrow morning, it’s off to meet up with my traveling companions at the Marlborough Food & Wine Festival!Read more
