driving in NZ

Whakapapa Village, May 23

thanks to my mother, we now have the device to download videos to the computer. here is a quick video we took on may 23

Fun Facts about New Zealand

New Zealand is roughly two-thirds the size of California and they share a lot of similarities in terrain. However, the population of California is nearly 37 million and New Zealand has just over 4 million people (that’s about the population of Houston or Atlanta). New Zealand has about 7-8 locations that are large enough to call cities. The largest city by far is Auckland, which has approximately 1.3 million residents – that wouldn’t even rank among the top three cities in Texas. The next two biggest cities are the capital, Wellington, and Christchurch which both almost have about 400,000 folks.

So what do they do with all that extra land? There are plenty of National Parks, Forests, and other amazing scenery so tourism plays a large part of NZ’s economy, but agriculture is the largest contributor. As most of you know, NZ is quite famous for its sheep population, which outnumbers its human population by more than 10 to 1 (It used to be 20:1 in the early ‘80s). Throughout our travels, we’ve expected to see a few large fields crammed with thousands and thousands of sheep. However, there are mostly flocks of about 300 scattered all over the country. It’s hard not to see sheep roaming the surrounding hills while driving down the highways and back roads. They are literally everywhere.

Dairy, beef, and logging are other large industries in NZ. Someone told me that logging was very popular years ago and many farmers planted forests on their land. Lately, thanks to Fonterra (a dairy cooperative that controls about 30% of the world’s dairy exports) the dairy industry is highly profitable and many farmers are cutting down their forests to create more grazing land. Despite the recent economic struggles, Fonterra was able to distribute its biggest profit share to date.

Winter in New Zealand…

…is cold. Actually, the daytime temperatures hover around 25-35 degrees, which we see in the Southern US. However, those temperatures rarely stick around for more than 1-2 days before warming back up to the 50s. Rachel and I quickly learned how to layer much better than before. We’ve never needed heavy winter coats before, so we’ll usually put on 3-5 thin jackets to stay warm.

It’s funny when you realize how wonderful something is once you don’t have it. I’ve heard some public service announcements stating that over 60% of homes in New Zealand have substandard insulation and it likely plays a large part in children developing respiratory problems such as asthma. The government and banks have teamed up to help fix some of those 900,000 homes with poor insulation, as it helps keep people healthy and retain valuable heat throughout the winter.

A log fire is the most common way to heat a house in NZ. Jon and Amy were building up their fire wood reserves about the time we moved in. It was all very exciting because we both have fond memories from our childhood of sitting in front of a big fire on Christmas morning or after playing outside in one of the extremely rare snow storms. The fires were always for ambiance and never really played a role in heating the home – that was left for the central heating/air system.

Jon informed me that a typical winter’s supply of wood generally costs about $1000-1500. Jon is a builder, so he has an endless supply of kindling and he was lucky this year because a massive tree fell on a friend’s property so a large portion of the wood was free. Jon also installed a new fireplace while we were there. It was centrally located in the living room and the chimney was exposed, so it let off much more heat than a smokestack covered with stones or bricks. They also had a fan system which pulled air from the living room into the bed rooms at the back of the house.

Heat pumps (think a large wall-mounted space heater) are gaining popularity, but the up front investment is pretty sizable and the sharp increase in the electric bill doesn’t make it too tempting of an option either.

One of my favorite parts about all the log fires is the scents in the evenings. As you walk around town, you get all sorts of different smells coming from the various types of wood burning. Also, if you look out across town around dusk you can see a thin layer of smoke rising as everyone is starting to light their fires.

This is coming from someone who has never lived further north than Atlanta, so all of the previously mentioned things may be ordinary above the Mason-Dixon Line. Overall, we’ve had a couple of cold days and nights, but are managing much better than we thought.

Arrival to Queenstown...

We arrived in Queenstown on Monday afternoon to attend the volunteer meeting for the Winter Festival. The 1hr drive from Wanaka (another smaller mountain town) to Queenstown was astoundingly beautiful as we climbed and descended through the mountains. Queenstown is often called the adventure capital of the world and it is quite evident upon arrival; there is a constant buzz and just walking down the streets gets your adrenaline pumping. It sits on Lake Wakatipu with the Southern Alps looking like they’ll slide into the lake any minute.

A couple of the ski mountains are already open, but the Winter Festival marks the official start of winter. It is a 10 day festival filled with music, parties, races, and a huge assortment of other random activities. There are about 5 new stores on the main street who are frantically trying to finish setting up their merchandise and store front so they’ll be open for the huge influx of visitors.

We are still awaiting our final volunteer assignments, but we hope to get a good mix of work both on the mountain and down in the town center.

As far as work goes, it sounds like we came at the best time possible in a place where there is an endless supply of people wanting work for a very limited number of positions. We’ve met countless people who have been here since the end of May desperately looking for any work at all. We’ve heard from job search agencies and locals that places will start hiring again in the next week. Fingers crossed.

In the meantime, Rachel landed a coveted job as a housekeeper at one of the big hostels, which offers free accommodation in exchange for 3hrs of cleaning each day. Among her tasks are cleaning up spoons from all the shower floors! Sound random? Rachel was perplexed too, so she asked another cleaner what the deal was. The showers in the hostel have water saving faucets that only stay on for 10 seconds at a time. Residents have figured out that if they jam a spoon into the space between the handle, the water will stay on until they’re ready to get out. Sounds silly…but we did it this morning and it worked great.

All for now.

some videos we watched at our orientation

The first video was made by an Australian who was making fun of the way Kiwis speak.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdVHZwI8pcA

The second video had us ready to bolt from the conference room and get on the road to explore

http://www.youtube.com/PureNewZealand


enjoy

Kaikoura

We arrived to the South Island on June 11 and have had a whirlwind journey so far on our way to Queenstown for the Winter Festival. After a few days in the Marlborough region (more to come soon), we left Nelson on a sunny Tuesday afternoon headed for Kaikoura (Kai = food; koura = crayfish). Kaikoura is one of the best places in the world to see a diverse group of sea mammals, especially sperm whales. The ocean floor drops off drastically to depths of 1000m and as the warm upper currents mix with the colder deep currents, it raises plenty of food and provides a perfect feeding ground for a variety of whales and dolphins. There are also several seal colonies along the rugged coastline.

The folks at the visitor center showed us a 3.5hr walking route, which would take us by a couple of the seal colonies and eventually lead us to the top of beachside cliffs providing a spectacular view of the Kaikoura Mountain range and Pacific coastline. We didn’t make it far on the walk before stopping to indulge at the famous roadside Seafood BBQ trailer where we got an Elephant fish sandwich and seafood chowder.

We continued towards the first seal colony where we hoped to get lucky and spot one swimming around in the shallow rocky water. A few minutes later, we saw a large brown blob scooting its way through the tall grass alongside the road looking determined to cross the road. We were so surprised to see a seal this up-close we were sure it was sick and disoriented. Why would a seal be this far from the water and trying to cross the road…and not nervous in the slightest to see two dumbfounded humans five feet away? We slowly walked by trying not to startle it, but made sure to take tons of pictures. We hi-fived thinking how lucky we’d been to spot a seal on our walk. One minute later, we spotted over 30 seals sunning themselves on the rocks, sand, and even in the grass. We soon found out that hundreds of seals lounging in the area near the road is an everyday occurrence in Kaikoura.

The walking route took a sharp turn up from the beach to the cliff tops tracing the shoreline. The views of the perfectly green pastures backed by the snowcapped mountains were remarkable. We had to cross over several fences that kept the dairy cows in the respective grazing land. Rachel found out the hard way that the fences were electric – I’ve never seen someone dismount from a stepladder so fast. (We discussed how this hiking route could not exist in the U.S. in the same way it does in NZ. Farmers in the US wouldn’t take too kindly to hundreds of tourists walking through their land and alongside their cattle. Also, the courts might overflow with hikers filing lawsuits for getting shocked by the electric fence.) The rest of the hike was free from injury, although our pride was bruised quite a bit after we missed a turn and had to finish our gorgeous hike along the state highway. Once we made it back to the car, we drove 2.5hrs down to Christchurch.

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Excursions From Taupo

Apologies for the very long delay in updating the blog. We left Taupo 10 days ago and are making our way to Queenstown where we'll volunteer at the Queenstown Winter Festival. We'll be posting more updates from our past adventures while living in Taupo and our current ones. Thanks. (also, be sure to click on the scrolling pictures to the left to view many more pictures from our online google album)

I finally found work 2 weeks after Rachel started a Waterside. During my unemployment, I was a man of leisure and found a couple occasions to drive an hour north to Rotorua for some of the best mountain biking in the Southern Hemisphere. The vast network of trails was reminiscent of our epic mountain biking journey through British Columbia last summer. I also spent several lazy afternoons reading on our deck and looking across the lake towards the mountains. Jon and Amy’s deck is a perfect spot to watch the sun set over the hills. They laughed at me during our first week living with them as I scrambled on railings and hung on to the gutters to get the best sunset shot I could. I tried to capture the perfect sunset to show Rachel how amazing the sunsets were…until I found out her view of the setting sun was even more spectacular and panoramic from her restaurant.
Eventually, I found work with one of the skydiving companies in town. I was hired as part of the ground camera and video editing crew. It is a ton of fun and involves lots of interaction with the passengers before they go up and I am the first to welcome them back to earth, so I see a huge range of emotions with every group. It has been a perfect job, full of excitement. The employees are from all over the world and most have left a previous career to become full time skydivers.

Our first free weekend, we drove 2hrs east to the Hawke’s Bay region to visit the coastal city of Napier. Hawke’s Bay is known as the fruit bowl of NZ because the terrain and climate make a perfect growing location. In addition to growing the most fruit and vegetables in NZ, Hawke’s Bay is one of the finest wine growing areas in the country. There are nearly 40 wineries within a few miles of Napier’s city center.
Napier is unique because the whole city is designed in Art Deco style. There was a tremendous earthquake in the early 1930s and when the time came to rebuild, they decided to do it in a uniform contemporary architectural style, which happened to be Art Deco. The bright colors also help accentuate the beach atmosphere.
It is about 70 miles from Taupo to Napier, but the drive takes about 2 hours because the road twists and turns through hills and along ridges as it passes from the central plateau down to the east coast. You can see the ocean about 40 minutes before you arrive to Napier’s sunny beaches. (Hawke’s Bay receives over 2200 hours of sunshine a year)
The highway drives by several vineyards and ad hoc fruit stands. We stopped by one of the stands to get some fresh golden kiwi fruits, apples, and vegetables. The highway passes over a flat stretch that used to be under water, but the 1931 earthquake exposed more than 200 square miles of sea bed. The relatively new land is actually where many of the vineyards and apple orchards sit.
After grabbing lunch at a café on the promenade, we went for a stroll on the beach. The beach was a little unusual because there was no sand to be found. It was full of smooth, tiny, black rocks that were perfect for skipping across the calm ocean. We tried digging to find any trace of sand, but all we found were small stones.
Next, we drove up the very steep roads to the top of the Bluff Hill for look out over the port and straight down the beach to Cape Kidnappers, home of the world’s largest gannet population.

Our last stop in Napier was supposed to be a winery tour at the Misson Estate winery, which originally started as a French mission and is now the oldest winery in NZ. However, on our way we mistakenly turned into one of the other wineries on the same street – Church Road Winery. We walked in hoping to get on the last tour of the day, but it was overbooked so we settled for a wine tasting in the restaurant. This was only our fourth wine tasting ever, so we appreciated the sommelier helping us identify the flavors we were tasting while giving a very detailed history of the winery and surrounding area. After our tasting, we decided we’d try for a tour at our original destination at Mission Estate Winery. The winery is perched on a hill overlooking the Bay with a spectacular entrance passing between two plots of vines along a tree lined drive. Mission Estate didn’t host tours, but we guided ourselves through the historic building and gardens.
We got back in the car and meandered through the streets of Napier while eating our fresh fruits before heading back to Taupo.