We’ve only been in Australia for two full days, but we’ve already uploaded a whole bunch of photos from the Cairns area. You can view them at http://www.leler.com/Oz. Unfortunately, I haven’t had time to put captions on them yet. When I get more photos, I’ll probably edit these down a bit as well. But be sure to see the photos of Cindy holding a Koala bear!
I just added new photos, including underwater photos from the Great Barrier Reef.
Last night our sweet flatmates made us a traditional Kiwi dinner with all the trimmings: roast lamb, roasted vegetables, and for dessert our second Pavlova. Yummy. I ate way too much!
One of the vegetables we had was called silverbeet. I’m not sure, but I think it is what we call swiss chard. There was also roasted pumpkin, kumara (which is a kind of sweet potato), onions, and (my favorite) parsnips.
Arrrrgh! I just spent several hours deleting spam. Not your typical annoying email spam, but spam comments put into this weblog! I had to go through the entire blog and carefully weed them out, leaving the real comments. I changed the options on the blog to try to make it more difficult, but if the problem persists I will probably turn off the ability to leave comments while we are traveling, and then fix the problem when we get home. In addition to the spam comment, each comment triggered an email to me, so I had over 100 emails telling me about all the nonsense messages with embedded links to buy various drugs. Sigh.
I’m reconsidering my opposition to the death penalty, but only for convicted spammers.
The next day it happened again, but I had turned on moderation so the spam comments did not show up in the blog, and all I had to do was deny the more than 100 comments. Unlike the first day when they were all about cheap drugs, the next day they were all about online poker. Weird.
So you can still make comments on this blog, but they won’t appear until I get around to approving them manually (like the comment on this entry, which I just approved).
The NZ dictionary describes “natter” as “talking socially”, like “shooting the breeze” or “chewing the fat”. The knitting group that meets at the Newlands Community House, every Thursday morning, is a lovely knit/natter experience . I have learned a great deal about this area of NZ from this group of women and men (as well as terrific knitting tips and projects). This group knits for charity. Wool and needles are donated. Worthy causes that need hats, scarves, mittens, jerseys, etc. are brought forward and taken on. The Newlands Community House is a feel-good place, providing some wonderful inexpensive/free community service. Through the work of the House Coordinator and a dedicated group of volunteers they maintain a toy library; drop-in care; arts,craft and yoga classes; knitting, scrabble and walking groups; a food bank; and a weekly community luncheon. You can even rent this cute space for $5. I feel quite lucky to have been a part of this community and look forward to coming back to them in September.
Here’s a photo of the Newlands Community House Knitting Group:
I walked Karori Wildlife Sanctuary today. The birds were in full chorus. The sun shone through the silver fern trees. And at night we drove to the Botanic Gardens and admired the constellation of glow-worms. New Zealand is a very special place.
We’ve gone a number of times to a beach about 15 minutes away from where we live, and usually spend most of our time there picking up “cat eyes”. At least that’s what the locals call them. We’ve found them at other beaches around NZ as well. They seem to be shells that have been worn down by wave action, until just an image of the spiral shell is left. I don’t know what kind of shell they start out as, or why they stop wearing down when they get to this stage. But I do know that they are beautiful!
Here’s an image that Cindy took of some of the cat eyes we have collected. We’ve found hundreds of them!
Well, I reckon it is about time for a blog entry from me (that’s me, Cindy, just in case you thought Wm likes to knit). Robin and her mom, Eileen, have been working on my diction. Each day during afternoon tea, before I get too sozzled with wine, I learn a wee bit more kiwi. I have been keen as mustard to learn the proper way to speak. Although with all the wine and learning I have to make several trips to the dunny. The rest of the evening we spend nattering on about wop-wops, whipping the cat until the wee hours. Occasionally I hear a “good on you” when I have done well…but not often. The house is often chocker with kiwis laughing at our slang.
Wm and I have been packing: one box to stay here, one for the rubbish bin and one for our clothes, togs, souvenirs, etc, to bring home. Can’t wait to see you all! Let’s go for a tramp and a cuppa soon!
Our first stay in New Zealand is coming to an end in one week! We are taking off for Australia, spending a few weeks there, then heading back to the good old (?) USA. Will be back in Portland at the end of May, to spend the summer. Current plan is to come back to NZ sometime in September.
I’m really glad we took off last week and spent some time traveling around the north island. It reminded me of why I love it here. There are so many interesting things, friendly people, beautiful sights. It is so easy to travel around here, especially for backpackers. And I continue to be impressed at the food. We had a really yummy Korean meal in Taupo, and discovered a restaurant called the Fat Dog in Rotorua that is known for their huge portions, but I was also surprised at how delicious it was. We ate there twice!
Had a quick trip up to the central plateau of the North Island. I think it was the longest we have been without seeing the ocean, but there are huge lakes, including Lake Taupo, the largest lake in New Zealand. It is in the caldera of an enormous collapsed volcano. When it erupted 25,000 years ago, it covered the entire north island of New Zealand under 100 meters of ash and lava.
First stop was Tongariro National Park, which includes 3 active volcanoes, two of which were used in The Lord of the Rings. Mt Ngauruhoe was Mt Doom. Mt Ruapehu last erupted in 1995 and 1996, although the major problem was that it ruined the ski season. We stayed in the Grand Chateau, one of the more famous hotels in New Zealand, which is right between two of the volcanoes. Unfortunately, this time of year you can’t actually see the volcanoes, because of all the clouds (it is autumn here). So we went onto Taupo. The entire area around Taupo, and on up to Rotorua, is covered in hot springs, geysers, fumaroles, and other volcanic features.
Rotorua is also know as a center for Maori culture. We went to two different traditional dances, a traditional Maori meal, called a Hangi, which is cooked in the ground with hot rocks.
I’ve uploaded lots of photos, at http://www.leler.com/NZ-Apr/
It is autumn here (they don’t seem to use the word “fall” to describe a season) and the days are getting shorter, but it is still nice weather for hiking (which they call “tramping”). So we went out for a quick tramp in the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary. I’ve blogged about this place extensively, they have a 500 year plan for putting it back to the way it was before humans arrived, including a big fence around it to keep introduced species out. We did a longer hike in it than we have done before. The sanctuary used to be the water supply for Wellington, before they discovered that a major faultline went right through it. From the entrance (where you check your bags to make sure you aren’t bringing in any mice or other pests) it is a 20 minute walk up to the old dam. We had never gone beyond that before, but we took off, walking the trail along the faultline, which is now a lovely streambed.
The sanctuary is full of birds, and they are not shy in the least. We got a good long, close look at a Tui bird, a large black bird with white tufts on its throat. The Tui is a great mimic, making the most amazing noises. Everything from whistles to grunts, squacks, and beeps. We watched for about 5 minutes while one, just a few feet above our heads, did a singing performance.
We then turned uphill, walking all the way up to the fence that surrounds the sanctuary. Just outside the fence is a wind turbine, which supplies some of the power for Wellington. There is only one here, but a few weeks ago we drove through an area that has hundreds of wind turbines. This area of NZ is smack dab in the middle of the “Roaring 40’s” — a latitude where there are strong winds circling the globe. There are no major land masses in the seas just north of Antartica, so there is nothing to slow them down. As I type this, the wind is howling — they don’t call it “Windy Wellington” for nothing.
While we were tramping up the hill through a forest, a small gray robin was following us. Everytime we would pause along the trail, he would be just a few feet away from us, just as curious about us as we were about him. Robins here are much different than those in the US, slightly smaller and very cute. We also saw a few Fantails, which are the most amazing fliers, doing acrobatics in midair, and flying right through dense patches of tree branches, narrowly missing each branch as if it were the most fun thing to do imaginable.
The other amazing thing we saw during this hike were hundreds of mushrooms. Huge red mushrooms of all kinds of sizes.
To see more photos from the hike, or larger versions of the above photos, click here.
I’ve recently reorganized the New Zealand photos, and put up a bunch of new photos from our adventures around Wellington. You can always get to the photos by clicking on the “nz photos” link on the right side of this page, or you can go directly there:
I seem to be on a food kick lately. Probably because I’ve been working too hard. But tonight we ate at a Northern Chinese restaurant in Wellington. It was a rather modest place — not quite a hole in the wall, but nothing fancy either. We found it in a local guide book, which said it was the best Chinese food in Wellington. We agreed. In fact, it was one of the best Chinese meals we’ve had outside of China. They also had messages handwritten (taped to the window, in the menu, etc.) by people who eat there — including the Chinese ambassador to NZ, Peter Jackson (of Lord of the Rings), and lots of other famous people.
When we were in China a year ago, I kept asking in restaurants in various cities if they could make moo-shu pork. Never did find it, and we finally decided that like chop suey and other dishes, it wasn’t really chinese, it was invented in the US. So I was surprised that this Chinese restaurant in NZ had “moo-shi delight,” which was fairly similar to moo-shu. Well, except for it was made with chicken and shrimp instead of pork (at my request they left out the shrimp, since I’m allergic). And the pancakes were the size of peking duck pancakes (about 3 inches or so in diameter), not the tortilla sized pancakes that normally come with moo-shu pork. But it was served with hoisin sauce (like moo-shu pork). It was totally delicious.
I continue to be very impressed with the food in NZ.
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