Rotorua

We were traveling from Hawkes Bay to Rotorua when the unfortunate city of Christchurch was struck by the earthquake on February 22. Our hearts go out to them.

Just when you think you have seen the best, most awesome, whatever expression you want to use, New Zealand comes up with another awesome place. Rotorua is such a place, probably not better than some other places but definitely a must see if you ever travel to New Zealand.

Rotorua town and the lake are set in the center of a large volcanic bowl. You can stand on the lookout tower in the museum and see the edges of the crater bowl above the town on all sides. There is a belt through NZ North Island that has 17 thermal zones, including two thermal power plants that contribute five percent of NZ's power. At first I thought the cooling tower of a thermal plant was a nuclear plant and was confused as I did not think NZ had nuclear power. Then I thought maybe thermal which I later was able to confirm. A pretty neat and green way to produce power.


The area is on top of huge geothermal pools and as you drive into and out of the town you can observe spouts of steam coming up from the ground through the fissures into the hot underground water sources.

Originally settled by the Maori, British missionaries moved to the area in 1843 and established a mission which grew to a village in the vicinity of the white and pink terraces. These terraces were formed by thermal water draining down the side of the mountain and solidifying into descending pools deep enough for people to bath in. The white and pink colors came from the type of minerals in the water. Pictures of the two terraces show one a brilliant white and the other a salmon pink. The terraces were proclaimed to be the eight natural wonder of the world.

The local Maori tribe collected great amounts of money from European tourists that led to increased illness and alcoholism amongst them. One of the tribes priest warned of coming disaster and around June 1st 1885 a group of tourists and their Maori guide seen a ghost canoe of Maori on the lake leading to the terraces. Ten days later Tarawera Mountain erupted and the flow of basalt magna and mud completely buried two Moria villages, destroyed the British settlement and buried the white and pink terraces forever.

Even after this tragedy people continued to move into the Rotorua area and make use of the thermal water for medicinal and bathing purposes. As early as 1878 people with arthritis were brought to the area for immersion in the waters. One of the pools later became known as the "Priest Pool" after a Catholic priest, disabled with arthritis, who was able to walk home to his Parrish after treatment in the pool. Successive baths were built in the area and two bath houses remain, the Blue Baths and the Bath House. The Blue Baths built in the 1930s house swimming pools and event rooms for weddings etc.

The Bath House was built in the early 1900s as a sanatarium and health spa to use the hot mineral waters. The bath house was used to treat various ailments including arthritis, rheumatism, nervous disorders, psoriasis. The spas were also used as a rehabilitative hospital for wounded soldiers returning from World War II. Due to the high acidic content of the waters maintenance was and costly and the medicinal effects of the waters was called into question by health authorities, the money generated by the tourist trade was not able to keep the Bath House maintained.

The Bath House has been restored and now houses the Rotorua Museum. The museum houses and tells the story of the Bath House, Maori settlement and culture of the area and the Maori Battalion that fought with distinction and high losses during World War II.

Museum, formerly the Bath House

The Battalion was formed by the Maori themselves and all that joined were volunteers. Many families saw all their sons join, some as young as 16. They fought in Greece, with great defeat and then were shipped to Africa, where faced with charging a German line, one of them led the way with a Maori battle song. They won the line and and with continued reinforcement from the Maori back home fought with distinction in North Africa and Italy. The losses were extremely high, one in six were lost, and many of the interviewees expressed that some of the problems that the Maoris have experienced with later generations are the result of that group of men not being there to guide the younger generations.

The next day we visited the thermal wonderland of Wai-O-Tapu, (Sacred Waters in English), a very diverse and beautiful area of thermal activity. A three kilometer walk takes you through hot springs, hot pools, newly formed terraces and other thermal activity. Wai-O-Tapu sits on the edge of a volcanic caldera.

First on the agenda was Lady Knox Geyser, which with some help erupts every morning at 10:15. Without help, the Lady erupts between twelve and seventy hours. Under the geyser is cold water over laying extremely hot, 100 degree celsius, water that eventually heats up the surface tension of the cold water level, which then beaks and allows the hot water and steam to erupt. The geyser was originally discovered by penitentiary inmates on a tree planting work gang. Deciding to wash their clothes they used carbolic soap in the hot pool and the soapy water draining underground broke the surface tension causing the geyser to erupt. Today for the show they dump down a bit of surficant and within about 5 minutes Lady Knox explodes, up to twenty meters in height and can last for twenty minutes. Over time the silica in the water has hardened and formed the mound that they drop the surficant down.

Geezer at the Geyser

The walk itself wanders around and through the thermal pools and cavities that have fallen in from the erosion of the fissure walls from corrosive and acidic waters. Many of the pools are filled with colored water from all the different minerals contained in the water.

Colors run from rust through shades of yellow and green.

Also forming is another smaller set of terraces from the spill of the biggest pool. It was a very informative and mind opening walk which you can tell, I was quite taken with! We also went to see the boiling mud pools.

Then off to a Maori village for a cultural show. There are many hotels in Rotorua that have Maori shows and two family villages where they put on a cultural show and treat you to a "hangi" traditionally cooked meal. The one family village belongs to a family that as young men they ran afoul of the law a lot. The brothers decided to reform and built a thriving business around the village and performing for the public. Seven shows a week that are usually sold out.

The Maori cooked all their food in ground pits. First they build a fire of wood and then line the embers with river rock, when the rock is white hot in goes the food wrapped in wet leaves and matting. Then they cover all with dirt and let steam for a couple of hours, then they dig it out and consume. I remember my Dad cooking a side of beef for a community picnic similar to this on the sand flats at East Pine when I was a kid.

They are a little more modern as the fire is propane fired and the the food is all put into big steel pans and then covered with moist cloths and steel oven lids. Nor was the food traditional as it was lamb, chicken, potatoes, kumara and lots of salads. Kumara, red sweet potato, was the only traditional Maori food of the evening, but it still was yummy good.

The warriors greeted us by paddling a war canoe down a small stream that transects their family lands. All had facial tattoos and performed wonders with the canoe, paddling forward, backwards and side ways across the creek at will.

Next we went into the village to be greeted by the Chief and welcomed to their world. There were 10 male performers and 4 ladies, yes the ladies also had facial tattoos.

All Maori tattoo patterns tell a story, lineage, deeds, etc., and for Maori of different tribes or non-Maori to copy them is insulting. To stop copying of their tattoos, the Maori have developed tattoo patterns based on Maori lore that have no tribal or mythical Maori meaning. These are the ones that are sold in the tattoo shops. Loreen threatened to throw a hussy fit when I wanted to get a warrior tattoo over my right eye. Not sure why she got so excited. I thought one similar to this would look nice!

I liked the tat on the middle guy

They performed a number of dances, songs and demonstrated the use of their weapons. A lot of the dances performed were built around a warrior society and developed as way to exercise muscles and joints to handle weapons. Dances at the performance last minutes but in fighting times would last up to 30 or 40 minutes at a time for strengthening and building flexibility. Lastly they performed the tribal "haka" war dance where they bulge out the eyes, stick out the tongue and generally scare the hell out of you if you had to face them in a battle. The chief explained a lot of their myths and how the Maori formed the two islands of New Zealand.

Haka

Then off to the "hangi" where we feasted and drank wine - imagine that, Loreen and I drinking wine! All in all a very pleasant and entertaining evening. We are off from Rotorua in the morning for our next big adventure, me driving through Auckland, city of 1.2 million, looking for traffic signs and going through three and four lane traffic circles. Woo hoo!

Hawkes Bay

We caught the Interislander ferry to the north island and spent three nights in the Hawkes Bay area. Hawkes Bay itself is a beautiful Pacific Ocean bay that is anchored by the city of Napier. This leads out to a huge agricultural area (vineyards, fruit trees, market gardens, dairy, sheep, and the list goes on) that runs through and past the city of Hastings to the bottom of a high mountain range that leads back to the port at Wellington. 

I know I have talked about NZ mountain roads before, but the mountain pass from Wellington to Hastings was the worst so far. Steep grades, 70 and 80 percent side slopes, endless curves and barbed wire guard rails for 26 kms.

Loreen said this stretch of road makes the Rogers Pass look like it is on the prairies! New Zealanders, when I make some idiotic statement like, "that sure is a tough piece of road", they always tell me, "oh that road is really good compared to some other places"! They are a patient bunch, as at times I or other camper vans have had up to ten cars behind us, they just wait for a passing lane and away they go. I get a kick out of the curve sign that says "25kms" while right beside it is the 100km speed limit sign.

Schools on the motorways put up signs to thank drivers for not exceeding the 100km speed limit while within the school zone! Oh yes, and pedestrians have "NO right of way". I am adjusting well to all the rules of the road while driving (i.e. driving on the left, the mountain roads, strange road rules, etc.), with the exception of being a pedestrian and trying to cross streets or roads. The only place a pedestrian has the right of way is at light controlled intersections and other than that pedestrians have to "give way" to all vehicles. We read in the paper yesterday of two separate accidents in Wellington where tourists were hit by bus drivers on "uncontrolled" cross walks! Crazy!

I digress, one of the reasons we went to Hawkes Bay was to visit the north island wine region and one of Loreen's favorite Kiwi wineries, Kim Crawford Wines. After picking up a winery guide in Hastings, we find a winery called Te Awanga, formerly site of Kim Crawford wines. Unlike Oyster Bay winery, Loreen's second favorite Kiwi wine and also a must see, Te Awanga at least had a tasting room. We found out that Oyster Bay in the Marlborough Valley has no tasting room. So off to Te Awanga we go to find out what has happened to Kim Crawford wines.

Similar to Oyster Bay, Kim Crawford has been bought out by an international corporate company that has a multitude of alcohol brands all over the world. They have kept the Kim Crawford name and still market wine under that brand, but the wines are no longer made as they were in the past (at a private winery with Kim Crawford being the winemaker) but are now part of a long line of Kim Crawford vintages, some of which are certainly no longer to our taste! Oyster Bay has met a similar fate and although the company still owns the original Oyster Bay vineyards, the original Kim Crawford vineyard is now owned by Te Awanga. Te Awanga has some very, very good wines of their own, but as a small batch winery they do not export to Canada. So sad!

Loreen at Te Awanga, formerly Kim Crawford Wines

Then we were off to Napier where we visited a couple more wineries.

We visited another Catholic sect that had started the vineyard for sacramental wine and then progressed to a corporate entity. We thought we might have lunch there and were quite perplexed at the amount of people in the car park dressed in 1920 and 1930 style. There are numerous dress and antique shops in the downtown that specialize in flapper dresses, hats and 1920 style suits. You can also buy this type of clothing in almost any shop except for the brand name and department type stores.

Napier was destroyed by an earthquake in 1931and was reconstructed in a 1930's style of Art Deco architecture - both the downtown business and residential districts. An art deco celebration is held every year, where people from all over the world come and spend the four day festival in dress of the thirties. They have a large antique car rally and it is strange for me to see a 1957 Ford or Chrysler driving down the road with right hand drive.

We met two really nice New Zealand couples at the campground so we spent a lot of our time visiting and just relaxing. We have seen some special places in NZ and this is just another. The climate in the north island seems similar to San Diego, with little difference throughout the year. Warm, but not overly hot during the days, low humidity and warm nights. Beautiful scenery, great climate, maybe a place to spend our winters on the ocean!

Picton

Picton is where you catch the ferry on the South Island to sail off to Wellington on the North Island.

Picton is situated in a harbor off Queen Charlotte Sound and is one of the cutest towns (Loreen's term, and I totally agree) we have encountered. It is not an industrial port, it handles the trucks and containers that come across on the ferry from the north island and gets about three cruise ships a month. Consequently it has grown up as a bit of a tourist town and all the downtown streets end at the wharf. The wharf itself is full of little pubs, restaurants, small retail stores and tour companies. There was a junior sailing regatta taking place as we left the wharf, with these little boats going, to me, around in circles.

 The north end of the south island is all sounds while the south end is all fjords. Being an inquisitive type I asked what the difference was. Fjords are caused by glacial gouging and movement while sounds are old river valleys. The total north east end of the south island was at one time inland lakes and rivers that have sank and been flooded by the ocean

We visited a Maori "pa", which is a high piece of land that was supposedly easily defendable. This particular one was set on a high ridge with steep cliffs on three sides and a narrow strip of land into the main area. As there were no rats, etc, on NZ they simply dug ground pits in which to store enough food to last out a siege. This group was eventually wiped out by another band of Maori that had been supplied muskets by the British. No archaeology work has been done here and the site is maintained as it was found.

Food Storage Pit

We then followed the old foot path down to the beach where there were hundreds of black and purple mussels attached to the rocks along the shore line. Loreen, being ever enterprising, decided we should gather up a sack of these for our supper. I was pretty skeptical about it all, without asking a local if they were safe to eat or not. Loreen won out and what the heck you have to take some risks, so we gathered a dozen of the biggest and took them back to camp. After a good cleaning we steamed them open and then grilled them on the half shell with copious amounts of garlic and butter. Yum, yum, why do I ever doubt my wife!

Beach Mussells

Queen Charlotte Sound was named by Captain Cook after the Queen of England. Cook explored NZ from 1770 to 1777 and had favorite places in the sound where he would stop and replenish ship supplies and repair any damage. He established and claimed NZ as a British possession at a place now called Ships Cove. It is a sheltered cove with an abundance of fresh water and fish. Cook stopped there five times and planted fruit and vegetable gardens and off loaded sheep, pigs and chickens in the expectation that the plants would grow and animals multiply to provide food sources on subsequent trips. The Maori in the area, although friendly to Cook and his crews, must have been really happy every time he returned with another load of animals, as they ate all the vegetables and animals long before his return.

NZ has world class hiking and there is a 71km track along the ridge line of Queen Charlotte Sound. There is also a protected island just off Ships Cove where all predators have been removed. One must remember that NZ had no predators prior to European ships and the predators here now are hedgehogs, ferrets, possums, feral cats, etc, most brought by the English as pets and then let go into the wild. These animals have almost exterminated some NZ bird species, so this island was declared a protected area to recover the birds. Not active birders, we none the less, went out to the island to see some birds.

Weka, a NZ Flightless Bird

All though we did see a few birds the real treat was being able to just stop and listen to the songs from the bird choir. It was like listening to one of those tranquil CDs that they sell in some shops. There was also a viewing tower that was above the canopy and provided a 360 view of the sound.

Queen Charlotte Sound

After an hour on the island the boat returned and picked us up, took us across to Ships Cove and dropped us at the trail head of the Queen Charlotte track with the Captain informing us that if we made a 15 km hike to Furneaux Lodge, that the mail boat would be there in five hours and would take passengers back to Picton.

With the blisters mostly healed and feeling pretty smug about our last hike, we spent 30 minutes looking at all the memorials and information boards about Captain Cook and his voyages, then set off for the lodge. The first 2.25 kms was a 200 meter ascend to the top of the ridge and then another 2.25 kms back to sea level. The last 10.5 kms was a bit easier but still had many ascends and descends. We stopped twice to snack and made the hike in four hours, and even though the last kilometer was flat it seemed as hard as the first 2.25 kms. So with a half hour to spare we had a lay down on the beach and waited for the mail boat. They must have delivered a lot of mail that day as it was about forty minutes late, but it also picks up passengers and delivered us safe and sound back to Picton.

The Mail Boat

After a Kilkenny, a Connemara, fish and chips and cottage pie, (not shepherds as shepherds pie has to be made with lamb and this was made with beef), we limped off to our trusty little home on wheels in preparation of crossing Cook Straight to the North Island. Well Loreen had the Kilkenny and fish and chips, I didn't have it all!

Blisters and Scrapes

Loreen and I have spent the last few days doing some more "physical" adventures.

We travelled up to the north west to Abel Tasman National Park. It was not a long drive from Kaikoura, but it took a full day as we traversed a few mountains and then went through the cities of Nelson and Richmond and the town of Stoke. Although there is a bypass road that misses all of them, we missed it on the way to the park but found it on the way back! Oh well, I got to practice my driving skills around a half dozen more traffic circles and practice is good.

We camped at the beach town of Kaiteriteri, a nice place with a 400 plus camp ground. It is very popular with the Kiwis, in fact it is full of folks that come there every year for their summer vacation. They set up almost permanent camps sites. Caravans (trailers) complete with canopies, that make into a tent thus giving them another full room, plus add on sunscreen and/or cooking areas. Loreen talked to one lady who has been coming there every year since she was a little girl and has just carried on through married life for some forty years.

We were off the next day on a sea kayak adventure. Now I have kayaked once before and this was Loreen's first time, so did we pick the half hour excursion around Kaiteriteri bay? No, instead we drove over the mountain, well I guess just the headlands on the ocean to Marahau (5 km that took 30 minutes) and set out on a 3.5 hour kayak trip along the bays and headlands of Abel Tasman park. We had a great guide that kept us informed of how all the little beaches got their names and how the lady that owned the land, that the park is now on, manipulated the government into making the area a park. It seems the NZ government, even though she was donating the land, had no desire to establish a park there. So, because Tasman the explorer from Holland was the first European to find NZ, she simply asked the Royal Dutch family to come over and open the park, which they accepted. When the NZ government was informed that the royal family was coming to open a park they found it a priority to make the area into a park


There was a couple from Oz, a couple from Minnesota and a young fellow from Germany on the trip with us. The area is beautiful with high ocean cliffs interspersed with numerous open sand beaches. The sea was calm, the company good and scenery stunning. We did not see any marine life other than a multitude of birds. The guide showed us one sea bird that nests in the trees. Now landing in a tree nest with large webbed feet is not that easy, consequently these birds do a lot of rebuilding through out the nesting periods. They also have a unique way of moving the young out, the Mom just decides one day that it is time for the young to leave and simply pushes them out of the nest. They either fly or fall into the ocean and swim.

Onshore training

After about two hours of paddling around the headlands, I found I had developed a blister on my hand not that I admitted it to Loreen as she was not complaining, at the end of the trip the blister was gone, broke and drained, but sore. After a nice lunch on the beach, I found out Loreen's hands were not any tougher than mine were.

Loreen and Abel Tasman scenery

Now there are two ways to get back, either by sea taxi or walk. We opted to walk, but had not packed our hiking shoes but just wore our sandals. Up to this time we were thinking this was a 6 or 7 km hike and kept wondering why it was a 4.5 hour walk. So while everyone else is putting on their hiking shoes, we set off up the mountain in our trusty sandals (not your flip flops but good Tevas), after a fifteen minute hike to the top we see the direction sign back to town and wow it is a 14 km hike! The hike was great - walking along the top of the cliffs overlooking the ocean and the bays and beaches. The blisters from the Tevas put a little bit of a downer on it, but what the heck so far every thing was a long way from the heart, we just bucked up and carried on.

On the Abel Tasman Tramping Trail

Then off to the Marlbourgh Valley, which is the big NZ Sauvignon Blanc wine producing area. NZ is the largest producer of Sauvignon Blanc in the world, but the total NZ wine production is only 1% of the world production. I am guessing based on the comparative sizes of areas, the Okanagan would be less than half of one percent. The NZ motto is to produce quality not quantity as they can not compete with the large world wine producing areas, i.e. France, Italy, Chile, Argentina, Australia, South Africa and California.

We thought we would have to stay in Blenheim, about 15kms away from the majority of the wine tasting facilities we wanted to go to. This was bothersome as we really wanted to just park the van and bicycle from winery to winery, but the little town of Renwick, where the wineries are, did not have a campground. However, eagle eye Dan spied a little sign on a backpacker's hostel that said they had two spots for camper vans. In we went and sure enough they had a vacant spot. By the end of the evening they actually had four camper vans scattered around the property, two of us on power the other two not. When in campgrounds we always wash the dishes and shower in the campground facilities, which in most cases are separate sex. Not here, two shower rooms and both where unisex, they did have locking shower stalls! Even though I knew it could happen, I was still a bit shocked while shaving, to have a thirty something gal step out of the shower partially clothed and start to put her makeup on at the sink directly beside me. Why I had no choice but to grin and bear it!

The hostel also rented bikes, at half the price of elsewhere and they were good bikes, so off we go on a bicycle day trip to some wineries and for lunch. It was a tremendous day, we visited lots of nice places and learned a lot. The Kiwis are an exceptionally nice group of people, friendly and informative and most like Canadians. They all have been, have a friend that has been or want to visit Canada. Toronto, Vancouver, Whistler and the Rocky Mtn parks are the preferred locations.

Marlborough Valley

The valley itself is quite large and nestled between two ranges of mountains, forested on one side with lots of logging and grasses on the other with lots of cattle and sheep. In all very picturesque. So again we probably took on more day than we should have as we have not been riding that much on this trip, but we managed to do 25kms with stops. The last few kilometers was uphill and then into a brisk head wind. I had forgotten how a wind can effect you on a bike as I was down in the same gears as climbing hills. Anyway with my knees played out and the hostel in site, I looked back over my shoulder to see if the road was clear to cross, nope there was a car right behind me so I steered back out of his way and hit the six inch curb, first the front wheel, then the pedal on that side, then my knee on that side, then full length down the side walk. All in all, very graceful and entertaining for any that cared to enjoy the show. The young fellow walking down the sidewalk was quite concerned, especially when it seemed like it took five minutes for me to get up, I was fine and did not admit that my knees where so stiff I had to just take my time getting up! No serious damage, I left a patch of skin about 2 inches by 3 inches ground into the side walk, but the bike and the wine in the panniers that we had purchased were fine, and that was what counted. We had stopped at an orchard and picked a few kilo's of nectarines and they were a bit worse for wear. So those are the blisters and scrapes to date.

Before the wreck!

We are next off to Picton, to take a boat cruise and hike for a day on the Queen Charlotte trail and then the ferry to the north island.

Surf and Turf

Kiwi style

Carpet Shark

Sheep

Sperm Whale

We have spent an interesting three days in Kaikoura, a little fishing village along the north east shore of the south island. Kaikoura is an exceptionally pretty little village situated in a valley in the midst of some coastal mountains. It is a moderately sized valley and has both dairy and sheep farms halfway up the mountains. Once sustained by agriculture and fishing it is now a mega draw for tourists to see and do a number of tours with marine mammals. Kaikoura was also a turn of the century whaling port and there are places where the shore line has been extended into the sea by the build up of soil and vegetation on top of numbers of whale carcasses.

Just off shore is a deep ocean trench, 1000 meters deep in fact, that is home to many deep sea fish, squid, octopi, etc. Due to the abundance of food, it is on a major migration path for a few species of whale as they follow the colder water towards the antarctic in summer and back to warmer waters north in the winter. We are not here in migration season, but as there's is a small population of male sperm whales live here, I did finally see a whale at sea. The waters are too cold for females and young so it is a bachelor population of about twenty whales that return here after mating season and spend the balance of the year. The sperm whale is the largest toothed whale and holds about 2.5 tonnes of oil in its forehead alone. This may be used to help them dive or as sonar for finding prey. We saw two that were on the surface for a short time, they can dive to 300 or 400 meters and usually surface about every 40 to 50 minutes. It was amazing to watch these huge great mammals, they look like a submarine actually, gracefully dive back under the water.

Back for the 19th year

The tour boat I went out on holds 48 people and it was full, the company has five of these and two helicopters that take whale watchers out at the same time, so they have quite a gig going. The company is owned by a local Maori group and is the only whale watching tour in Kaikouri. Loreen sent me off on this tour by myself as she has seen lots of whales off the coast of both BC and Alaska.

There are huge resident pods of both common and dusky dolphins along the edge of the deep trench, again due to large amounts of prey fish, these guys apparently like squid. As part of the tour the whale boat blasted off in search of the dolphins and found pods of them. They like to play and chase around beside and under the boats. The Dusky dolphin is especially playful and are quite entertaining. This was my first sighting of dolphins also and although I took a ton of pictures they are difficult critters to get to pose just right. Not sure which are the Dusky and which are the common, but maybe someone can differentiate. There are a number of companies that take out just dolphin tours and if you are so inclined you can don a wet suit and go for a swim with them.

Acrobats

We also passed by a couple of rocky little islands that were covered with fur seals and their young. These are the same fur seals as we seen in Dunedin. That was one day spent and a good day it was.

We spent the next day hiking out of town on some walking trails and to visit another fur seal colony. Along the way we stopped at a beach side food stand, world famous seaside Bar-B-Q (according to Lonely Planet travel guide) for a delicious fish chowder and half a dozen garlic basted scallops. It was kind of neat sitting on the side of the road scarfing down food at a place that hides the Honda generator behind the trees so they have power.

Next stop was a local sheep farm for a sheep shearing demonstration and a talk about the sheep industry in NZ. The sheep herd in the last few years has dropped from 80 million to about 38 million! Lots of sheep farms have now been replaced by dairy farms and vineyards. Both of these are more viable than sheep farming as the price of wool is not great, although it seemed like the price of meat lambs was pretty good. I am not sure how long it took for this guy to shear one sheep - but it looked like hard work to me! As in every thing there are sheep shearing contests - for the fastest on one sheep, the most in an eight hour session, etc. The numbers are astounding, fastest on one is about 32 seconds and the record for an eight hour stint is, don't quote me, but I think 857. I think I could do three, if I had help.

Loreen making friends

Shearing

It started to rain so a couple kilometers into the hike we turned back to the campground, which was about a four km hike in itself. Back at camp we had new neighbors, a Kiwi couple from north of Auckland. Super nice retired couple, actually quite a bit like us, nice I mean:o). Anyway we had a great visit that evening and the next morning.

One of the things I was really interested in was the hunting that is is done in NZ. I kept seeing these sporting goods stores selling firearms and while we had seen red deer, fallow deer and elk farms, I had always been led to believe that NZ did not have any natural game. Well this is true, but being the sporting gents our european ancestors were it seems they passed this trait on to their NZ descendants and they imported about any kind of game animal they could. Red and fallow deer from Europe, white tail deer and elk from North America, several types of sheep, goat and antelope from Asia and Europe. It is a great climate here, combined with no predators, and these animals exploded to the point where at one time they had to cull the wild deer herds. Today these animals still survive nicely, eat the farmers pasture and hay and roam the mountains and hills. This has made NZ a hunters paradise, no limits on what you take, as long as you take the meat out. There is no season and you do not need a license, as in a tag. This was all very interesting to me.

Meeting this couple has brought on a slight change to our plans as we had not thought about traveling North of Auckland, but now on their invitation we plan to go visit them for a day and look at their part of the world.

On our last day in Kaikoura we went on a fishing trip with Koura Bay fishing charters. What a trip! The owner went out as the mate and had a hired Captain Nick - what a wild man - he did every thing at full tilt boogie. He had full body tattoos and all ten fingers and thumbs were gone at the last knuckle. So being a curious fellow and being able to get all that info about hunting and sheep, etc, I figured what the hell. He told me he got his fingers all chewed by a shark and they didn't heal right so they had to remove them. As he had just told us that if a shark chased a fish we had to let them take the fish as he wanted to catch the shark, I figured he had got them chewed up fishing. He also was missing his left leg from the knee down so a bit later I got up the courage to ask "Nick how did you lose your leg?" "Same shark, Mate," and then showed me some big scars on his belly. "He took me around the stomach and I fought him off by sticking my hands in his mouth, and then the bugger came back to finish me off and got my leg." This happened while partaking in a water sport off the coast of Australia. He was a wizard with a fillet knife and you would never know he was disabled.

Loreen, her fish and Nick

The fishing trip was a great success - we pulled up three crayfish pots and we all got a crayfish. (We did let the little carpet shark go that also came up in one of the pots). There is such a demand from Asia for NZ crayfish that the restaurants here have to pay export price for crayfish, even though they are caught a couple of miles off shore. Crayfish at the market are $50 to $60 and then you have to cook them. A full crayfish in the restaurant was $120. So with Loreen and I both getting one, our trip was pretty much paid for. We caught a lot of fish, Loreen caught two and then got sea sick so could not fish any more. There was a lady from the UK, a fellow from Austria and girls from Belgium and Switzerland. If there was a limit we must have caught it. I caught a blue cod and four sea perch. Ugly but oh so tasty. The blue cod is the "the king of the sea" and very rare as they have been trawler fished out and are just starting to recover. Nick filleted every thing and then Gerard, the owner, invited us all back to his place to cook our cray fish as the others were staying in a hostel and had limited cooking facilities. We cooked our cray fish, and Gerard made us sashimi with ocean perch, and bottles of wine. What a great trip and what a great host. Nick showed up just in time to show us foreigners how to get the most out the crayfish, nothing wasted. We watched and nodded our heads, but when I cleaned ours a bit of the stuff he indicated was like candy, that slimy brown stuff, somehow fell into the garbage bag. Oh darn!

Our cooked Crayfish

Well that is it for Kaikoura, now off to wine country and Abel Tasman national park.

Camper Vanning

RV type motor vehicles in NZ are called camper vans and pull trailers are called caravans and the roads here are full of them, all sizes from a ford family van size to Winnebago types. Mostly tourists from the UK, Germany and Holland drive the bigger ones while young folks from all over the world drive the sleep in the back (passenger van) types. There are also some pretty strange looking RVs here, as when Kiwis first started using them there were none readily available on the market so they built their own. There are converted stock trucks, buses, utility trailers, etc. You don't see these at the four and five star campgrounds but out at the public parks and non-serviced sites. These people are locals and usually more down to earth and friendlier than some of the Euros who seem to stick to their own groups, although the Brits or Poms, as they call them here are pretty open.

Ours has about 12 feet of living space that includes a three burner stove, fridge with freezer, kitchen and bathroom sink, shower, toilet, table and two benches that make out into a queen sized bed. It is fully equipped with dishes, for two, and all the cooking needs and bedding. It has a gas barbecue, two fold up chairs and a little picnic table for dining under the stars, which we have not yet done, but we do cook mostly outside.

It is nice to be able to cook for ourselves, although the last 10 days in OZ we rented a suite and cooked or prepared something every day. We can buy fresh every day from farm stands and the choices are great. The fruit is delicious. Meat choices are great with lots of lamb, beef, pork and fish. NZ prides itself for having the tastiest grass finished beef in the world. Growing up with grain feed beef and finding most grass fed beef in Canada lacking flavor and tougher, I was skeptical, but it is darned tasty.

So we shop, go back to the camp ground, cook and eat, go on tours and other adventures and visit with other campers. Most of the campers we have met so far have been from Holland and Britain, and we have met one super couple from the North Island in New Zealand, who we will go visit before leaving. Last night after a day of fishing we had barbecue steak, butter garlic grilled crayfish, which we caught, baked potatoes and scrumptious Pinot Noir. Now how good is that?

A portion of a 420 site camp ground, it was full

We have had some great day drives and some not so great. NZ is a ruggedly beautiful country, where the mountains meet the ocean a lot. Some areas are stunning.

We left the coast and went west into the foothills area of the Southern Alps following along river valleys, through large tracts of fruit farms and road side stands. All stone fruits, peaches, apricots, plums etc. It is just at the start of the harvest produce is plentiful, fresh and good.

Then over another range of hills and into a big broad valley, full of sheep. Lots of land, lots of sheep. The New Zealand sheep flock is about 38 million, I figure we saw a few hundred thousand in one afternoon drive. This country is wild, with great vast hills that are steep and sharp, but grassed to the peaks. Those that are Lord if the Rings fans, this area is where a lot of the horse charge scenes and a number of battle scenes were filmed.

Unfortunately the second day of travel through here was rainy with the cloud cover right on the motorway. Visibility was limited and we did not get to see much of the scenery. We made a long day of it and pushed on up north to the town of Kaikoura, which is an absolutely beautiful place, but that is for a later blog.

Let me tell you about the New Zealand motorways. Our lonely planet book and my friend Leanna said that the motorways in NZ were narrow, but my conception of narrow was quite misguided. These are the toughest roads I have driven, tougher than the Isle of Sky, Newfoundland and the so called bad roads in BC. The mountains go to the sea and they do not have the broad valley mountain passes I am used to. Lots of these are at 11 and 12 percent grade, up and down, with multiple switchbacks, down to 25 and 30kms per hour to make the corners. After coming down a steep road like this for 7 to 12 ams, at the bottom there may be a single lane bridge, with no control, just a give way to oncoming traffic, then back up the other side. This is not only true of the back country motorways, but happens on the main #1 motorway that is the transportation route for the south island, oh my! Oh did I mention the one lane tunnels? Use your imagination. But all is well, I have only have been honked at once, my left arm is getting lots of exercise from shifting gears, so I only use my right arm for the Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet at night.

Truck Leaving a Tunnel

Unlike other places where a day of rest is just sitting around the pool and not doing walks or tours, here a day of rest is being in a campground for a day and walks and tours are great.

Kiwi Land

Wow, what change. Loreen and I fled Cairns two days before Cyclone Yasi hit and flew from Sydney the next day. We arrived in Christchurch, New Zealand and are things different.

From plus 40 to 20 degrees, from shorts and tees to long pants and layers, wine tours to chocolate factories, kangaroos to royal albatross, and from a nice little car to a 15 speed, 6 ton camper van. I jest, it is actually a 5 speed manual on a Ford one ton frame.

The first day we drove south about 350 kms to the city of Dunedin. Well first Loreen and I had a discussion about taking the one ton downtown Christchurch in weekday traffic. I finally laid out on the floor and screamed and kicked my heels against the wall to fully express my angst about trying to navigate this in a strange city, heavy traffic while learning how to drive the beast.

The trip to Dunedin was mostly through farm land and while we saw some sheep it was mostly big dairy farms. Unlike Canada, the dairy cows here are still allowed to go out on walk abouts, not confined to barns all their life, although there is one corporate farm on the north island, milking about 19,000 cows that have went to confined herds. The public outcry was so huge that the government has not allowed any more farms to go to confined herds. Similar to Canada the bulk of the cows are Holstein, but every herd has a number of Jersey or Guernsey to keep the milk fat content higher, this is maybe why we Canucks import milk solids from NZ to make most of our ice cream products. Visiting some of the farmers here I learned that the holstein in NZ has not been selectively bred over generations to increase milk production to almost abnormal production rates, cows here are smaller and produce about 60% of the Canadian cows. There are supposed to be 38 million sheep in NZ and Loreen thinks the dairy herd must be close to that. Dairy is a big export product here with milk solids being sold heavily into the Asian market along with other places.

Dunedin is a city of 111,000 of mostly Scottish and Irish descent. It was originally named new Edinburg, the name was changed to Dunedin, which is a slang of the Gaelic words which, mean New Edinburgh. A port city, it is built within a small valley amongst a lot of hills. There are lots of streets that are 10 to 12% slope and it has the worlds steepest street, yes it beats San Francisco, at a 19% grade. Loreen wants to hike it one morning, I am starting to get early symptoms of a migraine! Dunedin was laid out by a Scottish land company and is very similar to the cities of Scotland, complete with a center square in the shape of an octagon.

We visited the Cadbury Chocolate factory - it is the largest chocolate factory in NZ and produces about 32 thousand kilograms of chocolate a year. About half for NZ markets and the balance for the export market. On site is a 5 storey tower where they pump up a ton of melted milk chocolate and then dump it for every tour that goes through. Just a chocolate waterfall that takes about 30 seconds. Throughout the tour they give out chocolate treats and at one point a sample cup of warm melted Cadbury's Dairy Milk, yum, yum. We both left with a goody bag of chocolate and I wanted to take the tour again, but Loreen wasn't up to it:o)

Chocolate Tower

Then while on our way to a brewery for a tour with beer samples, Loreen says "Oh my God!, then this women coming towards says the same thing. I was trying to figure out what couple we had met in Oz was in Dunedin, but it was a couple from Dawson Creek that had worked at the college with Loreen. They are in NZ for six weeks and we just bumped into them on the street, what a small world and a great reason to spend a couple of evenings visiting and sampling Kiwi wine.

The brewery tour was great, and the tasting room even better. This company has about 70% of the market share in NZ and make five different products. We were able to try them all and even pour for ourselves. I tried to convince everyone that each time I went to the bar I was drawing the second glass for Loreen, but they may have seen through my ploy.

Well after the chocolate and beer we decided to go and see some of New Zealand's native species, fur seals, yellow eyed penguins, sea lions and the royal albatross.

First up was the albatross, the largest sea bird in the world. The Royal can get up to about 4.5 feet in length with a wing span of 11.5 feet, but the bones are hollow and they only weigh about 16 pounds. There are about 21,000 breeding pairs, they mate for life and can live into their sixties, and only one one nesting site, at Dunedin, located on mainland. These birds raise their young, kick the young out and then head off by themselves for a year, before coming back to the nest to raise another batch of young. While gone they spend all their time on the ocean and go as far as South America.

Royal Albatross

The Yellow Eyed Penguin is the rarest of all penguin species and only found in New Zealand. Almost extinct, due to introduced predators from England, these penguins are now starting to recover due to conservation methods. They do not migrate and live as individuals rather than in colonies as other penguins do. The adults spend all their time going to sea, catching food and bringing it home to feed their chicks. Pretty much like humans!

Yellow Eyed Penguin

New Zealand Fur seals and whaling are what brought European settlement to New Zealand. Hunted to the brink of extinction in the 1800's, the fur seal has recovered from about 200 to around 100,000 adults. These critters spend a good part of the day at sea hunting and then come back to the rocky shores to rest, sun and feed the young. The pups (which are adorable) are left by themselves on high rocky shores with little pools while the Moms fish for the day. This protects the little one form predators and also teaches them social skills for later in life. When the Mothers reach shore they have no idea where their young are at so they crawl up on a rock and then repeatedly call for the young. Eventually pups will make their way to the Moms and nurse.

Pups Playing

Nursing

Hooker Sea lions are the rarest of the five species of sea lions and were hunted to near extinction by the Maori. There are two small communities of these sea lions in New Zealand, one at the very south of the Island and the one at Dunedin. Although they tolerate humans, they have been known to give chase to the odd human that got to close, and weighing up to 900 pounds and being able to travel at 20kms per hour, we did keep our distance. The day previous a young female had chased a group of tourists down the beach, but the guide told us she was just wanting to play.

Sea Lion

We will next be going inland then up to the north end of the South Island.