The Correlation with Corrugation

On Monday morning we gathered our things to head to Rotorua (for those over 40:  "and away go troubles down the drain, Roto-rua") and the Coromandel.  We were excited about the trip but also filled with a bit of trepidation.  Going through security in Denver, a TSA lady noticed that my drivers license had expired.  In Colorado, licenses expire after 5 years on your birthday and no notice is given.  Ok, I know you're thinking no big deal, but since Debbie's and my birthdays are only two weeks apart, her license had also expired.  Oops.

We had rented a car from Avis and for our first two days in New Zealand had been devising some way to get by unnoticed.  Plan A was to have Debbie go in and get the car.  In our infinite cleverness we thought that an unsuspecting Kiwi would read her birth date -- 2/5/59 -- as May 2 and not notice that the license had expired.  Plan B was to take Megan's car and have her drive the rental car for the week (a less clever and less sexy alternative to be sure).  Debbie approached the counter confidently with some standard pleasantries and general chit chat.  I cowered outside.  The Avis lady got the reservation and started typing in the info and then paused and said, "wait a minute, you use the month first in your dates, it looks like your license has expired."  Debbie made some noises about the expiration not really taking effect until the end of the month (even though it expressly says "Expires On XX Date") and that her new license was in the mail but hadn't come yet.  And, in a common display of New Zealand kindness, the woman said, "I just won't type anything in there."  Whew, Plan C executed brilliantly!  We drove away with a shiny new Toyota 4 Runner, outlaws with expired licenses and continually flaunting any laws requiring the use of turn signals (I did, however, make sure to turn on our windshield wipers when making virtually every turn all week [some of you may need more time to think about this]).

Megan had given us very definite instructions with detailed directions to the effect to "look for some cheese place in some small town that serves great food for lunch."  Uncertain just where that might be we stopped to get a coffee and snack along the road a little out of Auckland.  Sated, we got back in the car and headed on.

Not really sure what we were looking for (despite that excellent description), we entered the town of Waharoa, and waharoa, what did we see?

You guessed it, the Kaimai Cheese Company, serving legendary cheeses and superb lunches.  They made a wide variety of cheeses on premises, which we couldn't resist sampling and taking with us for later in the day:

The road to Rotorua went through a number of small towns, one of which is Tirau.  Now, most of you know me as a deeply religious man.  So, it will probably not surprise you to learn that I had an intensely spiritual experience there.  We were just driving along, enjoying the scenery, when lo and behold (notice the Biblical "lo" to set the tone) an image appeared in the distance:

Debbie and I have been to the great cathedrals in Europe.  We have seen massive churches in South America.  We have even seen the Pope giving services at the Vatican.  But nothing had quite prepared us for this.  You simply cannot imagine how moving a Lord Is My Sheppard theme in corrugated iron can be.   Especially, when after wiping away our tears of awe and joy we were also able to witness His flock:

Now, most of you know Sara as a deeply religious young woman.  So, it will probably not surprise you to learn that she had an intensely spiritual experience at our next stop:  Rotorua.  We were just driving along, enjoying the scenery, when lo and behold (notice the Biblical "lo" to set the tone) an image appeared in the distance:

We had entered the Promised Land.  Need I say more?  Yes, I need say more.  Notwithstanding the name of the restaurant, there was not one caper in any dish that it served.  Not a single dish, you say?  Not a single dish.  The absence of capers was almost made up for by the plenitude of olives -- almost because as you know nothing really makes up for an absence of capers:

In addition to our hokey pokey distribution rights, Sara and I also acquired the rights to distribute Teza in the US.  I am addicted to Feijoa & Limeblossom and Sara is addicted to Peach & Passionflower.  

Having had our run of religious and near-religious experiences, we checked into the hotel and set off to see what downtown Rotorua was all about.  The city itself is famous for its hot springs, for some other geothermal craziness, and for bungee jumping and rolling downhill in big giant plastic balls (called Zorbs).  In a fit of wild adventurousness in keeping with the city's tradition, we headed for the park to look at and smell flowers.  The park was beautiful with lots of flowers in bloom, a museum, hot springs spas, and various lawn courts (for crochet, lawn bowling, etc.).  Sara kept her low-key approach to things in check even upon learning we did not plan to check out the museum (in the background):

We were told that we should take in one of the cultural dinners while in Rotorua, so we went to a "traditional" Maori village later that night to learn about the Maori culture.  It was actually pretty well done as far as those things go, and we learned a good deal about the Maori and their history in New Zealand.  We also had a bite to eat; like many Polynesian cultures, the Maori cook their food in pits in the ground.

For anyone interested, more pictures can be seen at:  https://picasaweb.google.com/cariboulane/CorrelationsWithCorrugation?authkey=Gv1sRgCOj36Zv19LX9Bg#

Life's a Beach

In New Zealand, life really is a beach.  The country is narrow in many places, and there is water and beach to be seen just about everywhere.  With all the water comes an insane number of boats, and it is not for nothing that they call Auckland the "City of Sails" (not to be confused with its sister city Silverthorne and its outlets, also known as the "City of Sales").

On Sunday (Day 2), we got an early start (for us anyway) waking up easily before noon.  Rick and Sue had brought eggs from the chickens Leah and Luke are raising, which we had for breakfast (the eggs, not the chickens).  Great start to the day.

Because it was a fine day outside, we all decided to take an excursion to the beach.  In an eco-friendly caravan of three cars we drove to Muriwai Beach, which is about 45 minutes to an hour from Auckland.  [Side note for the under 60 crowd:  apparently, Jack Johnson has a house there.  He seems to love NZ and performs a lot there.]  The beach is gorgeous and is broken up by a spit of land.  The waves are a little higher on one side, which makes it ideal for surfing, and people swim and relax on the other.

Surf side:

I am not a huge fan of just seeing endless sea, and one of the great things about New Zealand beaches to me is how many of their vistas are broken up by little islands at varying distances before the horizon.  More on that in another post later.

This particular beach is well known because some species of bird migrates all the way from Australia to a cliff at the end of the spit of land to nest.  The cliff was so popular that as word spread among the birds and more and more of their friends and relatives migrated, they were forced to expand their colonies to the adjacent cliffs (much like the snowbirds who flock to Tucson every winter from NY):

The bird in question:

Moving from birds to humans, needless to say, we are a very good looking bunch of people (notwithstanding the fact that some of us lean left):

With a subset of this gang bordering on the ultra-cool:

After impressing everyone around us with our good looks and hip attitude, we moved on to the swimming beach.

Some of us swam.  Some of us took in the views:

Some of us tried to escape to China:

And, some of us hid with trolls in caves exposed by the low tide:

Whew, all that activity at the beach made us hungry, and we headed for lunch (I was so hungry and lunch so good that I forgot to take pictures).  Because it was a grueling ride home (45 minutes is longer than you think) that parched our throats, we then made an unplanned stop at a brew pub after lunch.  Proving the adage that great minds think alike, the Dave/Sara/Debbie/Scott car (which was sent to do another errand) was shocked to see the Megan/Sue/Olivia car pull up for a beer and doubly shocked when the Rick/Leah/Max/Luke car also pulled up.  Awkward palm (ask Andrew or Sara), but we recovered and all enjoyed a libation or two together.

The 2011 Rugby World Cup is being held in New Zealand, and Rick and Sue were kind enough to give us a tutorial on the rules and teams later that night.  I had no idea how the game was played -- despite having seen Invictus -- and once I understood the rules, it really was fun to watch.  Sadly, the same cannot be said for either netball or cricket despite how hard Sue and Leah worked to give me an appreciation for those sports (in my defense, Rick, David, and Debbie were all asleep in various places in front of the TV in the living room during the cricket match/explanation).

Refusing to let the night end without one last thrill, Sara and I did the hokey pokey.  More accurately, we had a bowl of hokey pokey ice cream, the national dish and source of Kiwi pride.  She claimed to like the pokey but I tended to favor (or favour) the hokey.

We are working on becoming distributors in the US.

Additional pictures can be found here (no password required):  https://picasaweb.google.com/cariboulane/LifeSABeach?authkey=Gv1sRgCLiilPqm7dei7wE#.

Hank Slept Here

Somehow having lost Friday entirely in one of the great mysteries of the International Date Line, we landed in Auckland early Saturday morning ready to really start our vacation.  [As an aside, it is patently unfair that we had to suffer through two Mondays in exchange for losing a Friday.]  Customs was uneventful, but future travelers be forewarned about taking fresh fruit into the country.  They are very serious about preventing it, apparently to the point of imposing the death penalty on those who violate the prohibition (ok, it's a $400 fine, but whatever).  After a quick stop in the duty free shop to purchase our 3, yes 3, bottle allotment of alcohol each, we were on our way, comforted with the knowledge that we had enough provisions to last the 45 minute drive to the house.

David (and Olivia) was kind enough to pick us up at the airport and to demonstrate his method of staying awake by opening his eyes as wide as possible, much like one of the Wild Things (and he even has a son named Max):

Because the road from the airport to the house goes through Auckland, we decided to make a quick stop at One Tree Hill, or Maungakiekie for those of you who speak Maori.   One Tree Hill is just outside the city and has a commanding view of all 360 degrees.  Speaking of degrees, the weather was spectacular, especially coming from such bitter cold and so much snow.  There was the added bonus that more trees had grown since the hill got its name.

According to David, the obelisk at the top of the hill contains the grave of Sir John Logan Campbell (who among other things owned the land), and the statute is of a Maori warrior which was Campbell's idea to commemorate the Maori.  Whoa, that is waaaaay too much information.  Key takeaway:  it's a big hill with a big thingy on top and from which there are great views.

We got back in the car and headed to David's house.  There was great excitement about seeing David's house because Hank had slept there; it was just like visiting Mt. Vernon and other sites along the east coast and seeing where George Washington had slept.  We missed Tokyo, Hanoi, and a host of other now historical sites, but were finally able to visit a "Hank slept here" place.  The house:

David, Megan, Max, and Olivia's house is awesome.  It's in a great neighborhood, backs to a park that is on a cliff overlooking the water, is seconds from a great beach on the other side of the point, and most importantly is a block away from a great Indian restaurant.  What more can I say?  We met Megan's sister's family (also awesome), had a bite to eat, and headed for the beach.

View from (Kennedy) park on cliff:

Path from house to beach along cliff:

Max and Olivia's beach at low tide (bonus points for picking out Debbie and Megan walking):

Fisherman on cliff side of point:

Megan and Dave then cooked an incredible meal of lamb (I discovered I do like lamb) and green lipped mussels with spicy Thai sauce.  I had a religious experience and became a mussel man (not to be confused with muscle man because I eschewed physical activity for food the entire trip).  It is difficult to top a religious experience so I will end it here.  I will put more pictures on a Picasa site later this weekend (and add a link from here) in the off chance you want to see a few more pictures.

Introduction

Not one to miss a bandwagon, I have decided to create a blog.  After The Google, The Facebook, and The Twitter, The Blog seems to be something all the young people (and even the not so young) are doing these days, particularly when traveling.  Of course, I am not traveling, so these are recollections of my recent travels.  With luck, some recollections may in fact be accurate, and with even greater luck, you will not be able to discern the difference.  

To minimize expectations, let me say from the outset that this will provide you hardly any information about New Zealand, its history, or its people.  I doubt that I am overstating it by saying that really, this will not provide you any information at all.  Just as importantly, this is not a Jack Kerouac-style piece and sadly therefore has only passing reference to drugs, promiscuity, and spiritualism.  Actually, I am starting a cult and looking for followers, so please sign up.

Like a real blog, I will add new content to this ridiculous after the fact blog every day or so (emphasis on the "so" part), generally following a linear progression of our trip.  The meat of the blog (sorry Alison) will start with our arrival in Auckland.  To those of you who still will be traveling there, let me forewarn you that the flight is grueling.  And, I'm just talking about the Denver to LA leg -- the LA to Auckland portion probably violates some Geneva Convention.  We had heard that Air New Zealand had new Boeing 777s on the route and were excited about that.  The planes are brand new and very nice inside.  Unfortunately, the seats are narrower than even domestic flights, and legroom is wanting to say the least.  That being said, the excitement of going to NZ and seeing Dave, Megan, Max, and Olivia ultimately makes it a fast trip.

Not to worry, future entries will have less talk and lots of pictures (and will link to all my pictures on Picasa).  We had an absolutely incredible trip and look forward to sharing it with you.  These teasers are just to keep you interested:

Sara waiting for the plane:

Olivia in her playpen:

Max ready for school: