Adventures in NZ February 2
With the prospect of re-powering looking more and more likely, life here in New Zealand rotates around work. Luckily, there have been a fair number of distractions over the past few months and I’ve nonetheless been able to see a fair bit of New Zealand. Ellen was able to get a ticket down here over her Thanksgiving break – a surprise visit and a great time. We took the opportunity to cruise the bay aboard Heretic, do a fair bit of hiking, and a few dives. The Bay of Islands, located about as far north on the east coast of the North Island as you can get, is, like most of New Zealand, beautiful. Home to prehistoric looking tree ferns, mangrove swamps, and birds ranging from parakeets to penguins it was a fantastic place to spend the ten days Ellen had here.
After Ellen’s departure I took a trip down to Auckland to purchase a car and began working on a 45 foot catamaran being rebuilt up the road. Along with the grinding, glassing, and fairing at work there are, as always, a host of projects ongoing aboard Heretic. With two new coats of varnish and a few more to come she’s still looking fairly sharp.
Ellen was back down for three weeks over her Christmas break and, as we were now equipped with a car, we did the classic New Zealand car camping tour. Pictures are certainly more effective than words (check out the New Zealand photo gallery for a sample) in describing the landscape here. We made stops at two glaciers, the yellow-eyed penguin reserve, and Christ Church, where we unexpectedly ran into Monica of Clarabella, a British boat we had met back at Hiva Oa! Highlights worth mentioning more of are wine touring in Renwick and New Years at Milford sound.
The Marlborough region is probably the biggest wine producing region in New Zealand and there are a host of vineyards within easy biking distance of each other (given the number of wines to sample driving was out of the question). Of course, after the tenth or so vineyard (that would would make it the 60th or so sample) it’s a bit difficult to differentiate between the various types, but a few of our favorites include Gibson Bridge (good wine and fantastic people), Mahi (locally owned – a lot aren’t – and less worried about pleasing everyone making for more interesting wines then elsewhere), Framingham, and Seresin (organic).
Milford Sound, in Fiordland, the southwestern most bit of New Zealand, is nothing short of spectacular. Of course, as tourism is big business here, that also makes for some spectacular crowds. However, there are few options for staying overnight at the Sound (we were lucky and got a tent site when the people who had booked it didn’t show). Thus, when 4 PM roles around, the tour buses pack up and leave, the scenic flights quit buzzing overhead, giving those of us lucky enough to have a place to stay the opportunity to enjoy being chased around the parking lot by a weka (it’s like a kiwi… looks a bit like a mini dinosaur). The one bar in town had a fantastic New Year’s scene and was amazingly cheap (we only spent $6 all night!) It was light out until 10:30 (that’s how new years ought to be), and we met a host of interesting people in the mostly local crowd.
Sadly, our tour was over all too quickly and Ellen grudgingly left postcard perfect New Zealand for les-than-scenic New Haven, Connecticut. For me that meant back to work, but I look forward to our next Kiwiland adventure.
Cheers,
Seth
