Too little time Gisborne!

We got up on Saturday and met for breakfast at a small resturant next to our hotel. Nav and Linday had the day planned out for us.

First we strolled along the riverwalk that runs by our hotel. Along the walk we saw a small trail station that runs steam engine trains, Nav did not know where they go, but there were poeple working on the steam locomotive. Chuck was thrilled to see and get pictures of this!

We came upon a monument to Captain Cook as the walk streatched out from the river to along the bay. There were parks and recreational facilities all along the coast as we walked.

We eventually ended up at a public beach and we did a little beachcombing. We turned around and started our return walk and as we strolled along we were treated to some birds in the mouth of the river diving down into the river and catching fish to eat. It was such a treat to see. These birds were able to swim underwater for great length of time and distance.

We returned to our hotel and got our car . With Nav directing we started our drive. He took up up to a hill with a monument that overlooks the entire city of Gisborne. There it was laid out before, totally surrounded by mountains. This seclusion makes Gisborne such a gem, because it is more difficult to get here, so many people pass it by for easier access areas.

The view was phenomenal and if you turned 180 degrees, the view was out the bay to the Pacific Ocean. You could almost picture Captain Cook "discovering" New Zealand as Maori people watched from this point as the sails of his ship came closer. They drove him off with no much needed provisions and thus this bay is called Poverty Bay.

We left this area and went down to a small fish shop and acquired fish and chips for lunch. We took the fish and chips to a beach front area where there were picnic tables and sat at the beach, watching surfers and swimmers and ate this delicious lunch. I could have stayed in that location forever.

The beautiful view out to the Pacific, the calm, the company, all were perfect. I would have stayed there too, but we had more places to see!

Nav took us on a tour through Gisborne as he narrated about the neighborhoods and locations. We went into town and strolled some shops and bought a couple books in a book store. We went to a park area to the north and walked through a rainforest area with some of the tallest trees I have ever seen. This forest had a quietness that was only occassionally broken as huge palm trees dropped their fronts crashing to the ground.

We drove to the Kahn's (Nav's Family) home and we met his mother and sister. We had fresh lemon juice afetr we went to their backyard and picked the lemons from their lemon tree. What a treat! His mother served us a delicious choclate cake and we talked visited for about two hours. We left and came back to our hotel. Nv came up and we all sat and talked for another 2 hours before we decided to walk into town for dinner. Chuck and I ate at an English pub along the river, Lindsay and Nav decided to head further into town. Chuck and I ended our day by walking back to our hotel along the riverwalk at sunset. The perfect end to an absolutely wonderful day. Unfortunately, we must leave this place now. We now must drive the 6 hours to Auckland and we have one final day there before leaving the country. I have never visited anyplace where I felt so comfortable and welcomed.

Napier and Gisborne

We left Wellington 2 days ago and drove to Napier. On the way we stopped and put our feet into the Tasman Sea. The Tasman Sea seperates New Zealand and Australia by about 980 miles.

Napier is a beautiful little city along the east cost of New Zealand. It is a small resort city with beautifl beaches and a cute downtown shopping district. Many of the buildings are in the art deco style, which gives this town a unique look and feel. We walked along the beach, which is a black pebble beach and did some beach combing for awhile. We decided on a Steak restuarant for dinner. Our decision was based on wanting to see if steak tasted differently here than back home in the states. Interestingly, we found it tastes VERY different. The taste was a much gamier taste, probably because all livestock here is grass fed. They augment livestock occassionally when necessary (with grain), but only when neccessary. There are few crop fields in the country, so grain would need to be imported. Grass is everywhere however, so they graze the livestock. This can not be the only difference though, since I have had grass fed beef in the U.S. and it does not taste as gamey as the beef here. It must be the difference in grass. We also noticed a different taste to cheese and ice cream. I have heard that cheese made from cows in Wisconsin tastes differently than cheese made from cows in France because of the gasss, and I am assuming the same reason exists here. We walked the downtown and visited a few shops in this quaint town. It reminds me of the shore town in New Jersey, but more upsclae and nicer in so many ways.

We left Napier after 1 night and drove to Gisborne. Gisborne is known as the first city to see the sunrise each day. Gisborne is a city secluded on a bay along the east coast on New Zealand. There is one road in from the south, and one road in from the north. The road in from the south that we drove on was the a very twisty road through beautifu gorges. The hairpin turns and treacherous condistions were made all the more exciting by construction and huge logging and tracter trailer trucks, many doubles. This made it a thrill-filled ride, I assure you! I was astonished that some of these trucks could drive their huge trucks on these roads that barely allowed two cars to pass.

We arrived in Gisborne and checked into our hotel. We are staying at a hotel where Nav's father works (Nav is a friend of Lindsay's). The hotel is beautiful and sits right at the point of a river and the bay. Gisborne has a beautiful riverwalk along the river that is used for biking, walking, etc. The river has shipping and recreational traffic along it. We walked from the hotel to the downtown area (about 8 blocks) to meet Nav at a resturant for dinner. Nav is a really nice young man and we really enjoyed his company. We talked, laughed and had a very nice dinner at a Turkish retsurant he had chosen. The meal was delicious, as was the dessert. We need more Turkish retsurants in the U.S.! We left the resturant and walked back through downtown as Nav gave a narrative about the area and the town. We walked down along the riverwalk and finally arrived at the hotel. What a wonderful evening!

Wellington

Where do I start? This is a really nice city. Pretty, unique and vibrant. There are old victorian homes next to new buidings and modern homes and somehow it works. It is a truly lovely city on a beautiful bay. This city certainly makes the most of it's location!

First we went to a place called "Weta". This is a company that does the special effects for many movies including "lord of the Rings", "Avatar", "District 9" and many others. This company is located in a warehouse in Wellington, and Lindsay wanted to go because they have a museum on Special effects. Not being big on Sci-Fi stuff, I was surprised how much I enjoyed this outting. It was really interesting to see how they did much of what you see in many movies. This is a company that is hands on and we actually met some peole that do the special effects in movies we've seen. To our surprise, this museum was free. Peter Jackson and others started this company years ago and they have become very well known in recent years. I'm sorry to say I had never heard of them before a few weeks ago.

We drove back to Victoria University and Lindsay gave us a trour of the campus. This is a university that is much smaller than the University of Minnesota. Her dorm is nice by U.S. standards, but frankly, it is still a dorm. The campus is small, but nice. It is laid out on one of the hills in Wellington.

After our "tour" we walked the few blocks to the cable car. The city of Wellington is surrounded by hils and they have a great little cable car system that allows riders to easily commute between the waterfront upper hill neighborhoods. We rode on "elevators" that were quite similar in Lisbon. In Wellington the go up and down the hill through a number of tunnels. It is such a nice ride. The cost is a bit pricey, $6 for adults, $2 for students (round trip).

We got off the cable car and walked the two blocks to the waterfront. They have developed their waterfront so that along with the shipping industry they have museums, parks, cafes and shopping in the area. We even saw school girls jumping from the docks and swimming. Many people were walking along the waterfront. It is obviously a very popular area.

We walked along the watrefront to the Te Papa Museum which is the offical museum of New Zealand, but natural and human history of the country of New Zealand. It was a really wonderful museum. We spent 4 hours at the museum. This was another venue that was free! Can you believe this?

We walked back along the waterfront, through a beautiful park. There were several fountains in this park. All along the waterfront there are pices of art that use the wind coming off the bay to add movement to the landscape. This makes such an awesome show as you walk along.

We walked back to the cable car and took it up to the top. Lindsay took us on a great tour of the Wellington Botanic Gardens ( another cost free option to do in this wonderful city). The Botanic Gardens are on the top of the hill and look down on the entire city and the bay below. BEAUTIFUL views and the gardens themselves are truly relaxing!

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign!

We have seen some very interesting road signs while here...

Hiking!

We started out leaving Rotorua and headed for the volcanoes to the soouth. As we drove closer we realized how high they were, even from a distance, they were totally covered with snow. We drove to the east side of the volcanoes and entered the Tongariro National Park (free). We had already done alot of research on the park and trails and knew what trail we wanted to hike on. The one we chose was a 3.5 miles hike. This trail was to take us through flora and fauna of a rain forest, lava fields and to the base and top of a 100' water fall. Words can not even capture the extent of what we saw. Ever step was a new adventure. We were fascinated with the diversity and beauty of the this very unique area. Chuck and I decided it was probably the best hike we have ever taken.









The trail was quite steep, although not dangerous.


We loved every minute in this great park and trail.

Rotorua and Hobbiton

We had a beautiful drive down to Rotorua yesterday. The countryside is rolling hills. The hills are a beautiful shade of green and quite steep in places. It looks like what I imagine Ireland must look like, a glowing green emerald color from all surrounding hills, dotted with sheep.

There are Barberry hedges everywhere along the landscape, much as I imagine in England. There miles and miles of this terrain. We have also seen many railroad tracks, but no trains! Lindsay said there are not many trains here. Chuck is on the hunt to find and capture the elusive train on film. Good luck to him!

So, you drive and drive through this unbelievable green countryside, and then you come along a small little village that is equally unbelievably quaint. The houses are all one story outside the larger cities. Each house is a small little one story bungalow with a little tiny yard, surrounded by a cute little “Corgi” sized fence. Inside the fence are little gardens with beautiful gardens of flowers and vegetables. It is like a little Hobbit city, but instead of Hobbit Holes, like in the movie, little small more modern homes. The houses are, for the most part, painted bright colors with contrasting trims on the doors and windows. This makes each town. No matter how basic, look incredibly cute and adorable!

As we arrived in Rotorua, you notice the distinct sulphur smell. It is everywhere. They have mudpots and mud baths here that use the “resources” from the geothermal steam emulating from the ground everywhere in town. It is just smelly to us.

We took the bus to the farm that was used for the Hobbit Village in the movie Lord of the Rings. There is much activity on this farm because there are workers and construction people all over creating an even larger village for the upcoming movie “The Hobbit”. It was phenomenal to see these sets creating this beautiful little village out of a small hilled area here. The actual set and village takes up quite a bit of land area and it is very well along in the building process. It was incredibly interesting and we felt fortunate to have gotten to see it, because they are so far along, I can’t imagine that they will be allowing tours much longer, with people traipsing all over the movie set area, when they have taken such care to build so meticulous locations. I can’t wait to see the movie and see these places again.

We also got to see the working part of this sheep farm. There are 8K sheep on 1250 acres. They were herding and shearing, etc. We got to feed some babies (they are always hungry apparently). We watched them shear some sheep and something I did not know was that mandolin is from sheep. The oils that are on their wool is secreted from their skin and that “oil” is lanolin. When we touched the sheep after they were sheared, we had lanolin all over our hands!

We returned to Rotorua and walked to a large lake in town. There were a couple seaplanes on the lake. People were feeding gulls and black swans, which was weird. There are only black swans here, no white ones. There are many black swans, not as many as the Canadian Geese back home, but still, there are a lot. They must have the same problems with them and their “droppings” because there were signs showing you were not suppose to feed them. Oops, I guess those people we saw didn’t see the signs!

They have these beautiful trees that are filled with beautiful flowers growing everywhere here. Some have so many flowers you can not see the green leaves, just all pink or purple flowers. These trees stand about 20 feet high and have multiple trunks.

We got up close to one at the park in Rotorua. It is a Rhodedendron! Only in the states they are bushes, here they are trees. They look amazing!

So, our day ended with dinner and some much needed rest. Tomorrow we head south for hiking some volcanoes and then finally Wellington.

Dinner and some rest!

We had dinner at a wonderful restaurant named the Haborside. Our table overlooked the bay. We had beautiful views as the sun set and boats came and went along the docks. Dinner was phenomenal. I had snapper and a white bean salad on a bed of greens. We had raw oysters for an appetizer (I have had raw oysters in Portugal, Boston, Baltimore, Kona and now here in the southern hemisphere. I love raw oysters). They serve them differently here. Along with the typical lemon wedge, they were served with a vinegar and garlic dip and a creamier pepper sauce. I enjoyed the vinegar and garlic dip. The oysters were $5 each, they do not sell them, as they do most other places by the 1/2 dozen or dozen. We had desert and expresso, and then called it a night around 7:30 p.m. Lindsay said most people in New Zealand eat dinner early, around 5 to 5:30ish.

We came back to our room and I went to bed around 8:30, exhausted! Lindsay and Chuck stayed up until 10:30 p.m.

A little observation about something we see in our room and Lindsay informs us is everywhere here. Switches on the outlet plugs. Lindsay said she has not seen an outlet without these on/off switches. You can turn off each outlet so whatever appliance you have attached to the outlet does not trickle drain electricity from the outlet or use electricity while not in use. What a great way to save electricity, something we should look at in the U.S.! Even the hot water outlet has a switch, which you turn on 15 minutes before you'd like a shower, etc.

Today we are off to Rotorua. There are 7 active volcanoes in the area and Lindsay said the entire area smells like sulphur. We will visit Hobbiton in this area. This is the movie set for the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and they are currently setting up to film the "Hobbit" movie at this same location. We will also visit a sheep farm and hike some trails in the areas around the volucanoes. There are trails that lead to "mudpot" areas similar to the mudpots in the Mammoth Springs area at Yellowstone. Maybe we'll get a mudbath? Lindsay said they sell the "mud" from this area for cosmetic reasons all over the country, and in fact we did see some yesterday for sale. At any rate, I have to wonder, how much mud would it take to make me beautiful (and tall, I mean why not, right? If it's gonna make be beautiful, why can't it make me tall too)?

I have noticed my walking lately has paid off tremendously. We walked all over Auckland yesterday and it was a breeze. Thanks Barb (especially), Pat and Alice for keeping this going. I am feeling the wonderful effects of these long strolls together and the companionship is what has been the difference for me. I would have never continued to do our walking without the company!