A Proper Winter

As the UK basks in the heatwave, Sarah and I have been suffering for a very different reason. The winter in Auckland isn't cold enough - how miserable is that?! I've introduced several blog entries with a dubious reason for a trip away, and this one's no different. To cure winter homesickness we needed some proper cold, days of skiing, mulled wine and lots of good food. Five days in Queenstown were prescribed.

It worked. Here are the highlights!

Jumping on the early morning flight from Auckland, we were out the door of Queenstown Airport in less than two hours and soon exploring the lake shores. Last time we were here was the middle of Summer and roasting. A wee bit different this time round...

Lake Wakatipu with The Remarkables behind

Before we came across sporting gold, and a good replacement for our favourite summer campsite game (frisbee beer hoopla) it's frisbee golf! With 18 holes and some of the drives over 150m it kept us occupied for a while. Especially Sarah.

Teeing off

For par!

All with the most amazing view in the background...

The Remarkables (skiing on Day 2!)

After getting pretty cold and tired, it was time to head to our accommodation. Not the best place we've ever stayed, but not that bad - Pinewood Lodge had a bit of a party reputation and our bedroom backed onto the biggest communal kitchen on site. So we woke up to kitchen carnage every morning... warmly reminiscent of Goodricke C Block!

It's what radiators are for, right?

Day 2 starts, I excitedly jump out of bed for our first day of skiing! Fitted for our boots, skis and the like the previous day, we hobble on down to the bus stop and catch the mother of all bus/trucks to the top of the mountains, snaking our way up through the snow. I've not been skiing since I was 14 (just a bit of snowboarding since then) and it was Sarah's first ever time. So we hit the beginners slopes and magic carpets to begin with.  Check out the view!

Sarah learning on Coronet Peak

The views were stunning, and the weather perfect, but bloody cold!

The view from Coronet towards the Remarkables

After a morning together going through the basics, I soon had my snow feet back so upgraded my pass at lunch to a Big Boys ski lift pass. No more magic carpets for me, heading up the peaks looking for more amazing views into the Southern Alps. I decided to stay on piste for now though... The runs were incredible, with fresh powder all the way down. Happy times!

Maybe tomorrow...

Meanwhile Sarah had a lesson with a pro, who taught the key skill of how to stop and slow down. This one's a speed demon.

4 intact limbs? Check.

And what do you do after skiing? Apres ski. Funny that, isn't it? TO THE PUB!

The beer wench

And cheese fondue of course...

Who loves cheese?

After a beer, cheese and ski exhaustion coma - we were up and off to the Remarkables on an even crazier bus-truck to the top of the mountains. Equally stunning weather, wide and empty slopes and views that beat the previous day:

Now she's getting the hang of it!

And here are those views:

Love it.

But the days go too quickly and the sun soon sets on the slopes...

Colours on the Alps

But hey - back on the apres ski again. Sarah had a craving for mulled wine, didn't take us long to sniff some out...

Cheers ears

Day 4. Wake up. More skiing. Loving the routine. But where's the sun gone? And how come on the chairlift I can't even see the chair in front of me? Minor details to the kiwis and the slopes stay open. Whilst Sarah snowploughed the easier slopes into flatness, I popped on to the top of the mountain to find out what -14degC looks like.

This is what -14 looks like.

After nearly going off the side of the piste several times, and managing to come to a stop whilst going straight down a slope due to the gusts of headwind - it was time to call it a day and head out for our final night (after finishing our drinks cabinet we stocked on the first night, of course!)

happy days

And we'd saved the Queenstown legend of FergBurger until last, man it didn't disappoint. Huge, meaty and juicy. Yum. I plumped for the Big Al, of course!

A big burger for a little lady

And that was the end of our trip! Such a different adventure to the last time we were in Queenstown, but so much fun. I'm sure we'll see you again soon QT!

Heading back to warmer climes

A day at the office...

As if 5 days a week (plus the odd evening) isn't enough, I had the inspirational idea that our Sunday this week should be spent in the Kaipatiki Local Board area of Auckland. Since April, I have been Senior Advisor to this particular Local Board, one of 21 across the Auckland region, which together with a central 'Governing Body' forms the largest Local Authority in the Southern Hemisphere. Exciting stuff (some of you) might say with a hint of sarcasm. Well yes, working in local government has never been the sexiest of professions, but in Auckland - local government (and the Local Boards in particular) really are making a difference for their local communities. Mine being the best in this regard obviously.

The Kaipatiki area is on Auckland's North Shore only about 15 minutes by car from our flat (sadly it's a bit longer to get to work during the week by bus) and includes a number of suburban areas, some inner harbour beaches and most importantly lots and lots of native NZ bush in the form of numerous parks and reserves dotted about the place.

Matt and I decided the best way to get my research done would be to run as many of these as possible. So we set off from under the Harbour Bridge at Stokes Point/Onewa Pa, and headed up through Little Shoal Bay Reserve, Le Roys Bush, Birkenhead War Memorial Park, Eskdale Reserve, Kauri Park, Kauri Point Centennial Park and Chatswood Reserve, Chelsea Heritage Park and back to Little Shoal Bay Reserve and the Harbour Bridge (with a wee stop for roast beef and all the trimmings (inc. beer) at the Northcote Tavern!) About 25km in total and two and a half hours of running and scrambling up and down paths, through lush forest, along beaches (and a little bit of road to connect it altogether!). Absolutely beautiful and fully illustrated to me why (a) there have been a few complaints recently about signs pointing the wrong way in the reserves and (b) what a cool city we live in to have all this just on our doorstep.

Matt telling me to hurry up!

Basking in the sun

Not a bad view

Well deserved pint (OK - not quite a pint -
and they call themselves a British pub?!)

$15 roast beef dinner. Rude not to.

City of Ales

Some of you will remember that back in London, a highlight of our summer was our annual visit to the CAMRA Great British Beer Festival in Earl's Court. Living in NZ has meant that we are now missing the festival two years running. There was a beer shaped empty space in our lives which needed filling.

Not to worry - the longer we spend in NZ the more we are realising that the craft beer scene over here is on the up, to the extent that they have beer festivals here too! A bit of googling later and we landed on City of Ales as the festival of choice.

What would the wrong reasons be?

Having spent an enjoyable evening with my British colleague Hannah and her husband Jody a few weeks before (made very enjoyable by our realisation that in Hannah and Jody we had definitely found beer drinking kindred spirits) we invited them along. Pen and paper ready for tasting notes, food and beers chilling back in the flat for all of us afterwards and we were sorted for a fantastic Saturday. A great time was had by all - thanks to Hannah and Jody for agreeing to feature in the blog - roll on the next beery afternoon spent together!

First drink, already merry!

Yummy lunch included in the entry

Little ladies getting served

Matt's ingenious way of freeing up both hands
for making the all important tasting notes

Couldn't not do a Nick VM special shot!

Tearing up Whakarewarewa!

Well its been a little while since we blogged. OK a long while. Sorry everyone! It turns out that routine creeps in even when you are in the most beautiful country in the world and we seem to have been focusing rather too much on work and a little bit of beer drinking with friends, and our tiki touring has fallen by the way side. You'll be pleased to hear though that whilst it is June out here (read December for season if you're used to the Northern hemisphere) we have been fitting in some weekend fun, including an absolutely fantastic four day weekend (coinciding with the Queen's official birthday bank holiday) down in Rotorua and the forest park of Whakarewarewa!

Our lovely campsite for the weekend

We have been before (one of our first NZ blogs) but this time was completely different. For a start we had Carrie, which meant we could stay in a beautiful campsite a few kilometres from town, beside a stream which runs through to Lake Rotorua. Soon after arriving we jumped in the deserted campsite's kayaks and enjoyed the sunshine down to the lake.

Sunshiney kayaking

It soon became obvious that this would be an outdoors weekend like no other when Matt discovered that he could hire a fly fishing rod from the campsite owner for a mere $5 for our entire stay. I say an outdoors weekend like no other because despite being in what may be the country with the most recreational fishers in the world, we haven't yet tried it.

You'll all be shocked to discover that we didn't catch anything. To be honest its a miracle that we actually got the line in the river (thanks go to the little boy also staying at the campsite who had a bit more experience than us and showed Matt the ropes). Fun and strangely satisfying (I'm not sure what we would have done with a fish if we had caught one to be honest!)

Matt trying his luck

I took a more energetic approach!

After a relaxing afternoon we awoke the next morning raring to go for two days of mountain biking in Whakarewarewa Forest. Mountain biking was the main purpose of the trip (even though I have never mountain biked previously) and we were both pretty excited (Matt because he was looking forward to the excitement, me because I didn't know what I was letting myself in for). We hired our bikes and got set up in a slightly revised version of our road biking kit (read exactly the same but with proper shorts on over our cycling shorts and no clipped shoes).

Radical

Soon enough we were off into the forest's 100km of trails, ranging from beginner to 'extreme'. I turned down Matt's offer of giving the kid's trail a go and instead got straight onto a steep, narrow and pretty scary trail. Oh dear - we had just booked the bikes for two days and this was pretty intense. All was well though once Matt stopped racing ahead and explained the subtleties of handling the bike (some slight differences from my road bike)... I soon got into it and we spent all day exploring the trails.

It doesn't look scary...

... and OK this trail wasn't really!

This was actually scary -
the photo does not this justice - honestly!

Matt doing his thing

A quick lunch in the van

Back out on the main track to the trails

Trying to catch an air shot,
massive fail from the photographer....

Back to the campsite for a few beers, dinner, some table tennis and telly and we were refreshed ready for our second day.

Free rubbishy magazines to read - yes please,
must catch up with my Aussie/Kiwi gossip...

Of course we had overdone it a bit the day before so I was pretty pooped - we separated for most of the morning so whilst Matt went off to explore the grade 4s and 5s I stuck with the 3s. We both loved it though and definitely got a taste of the other side when it comes to cycling!

The highlight of the day was getting off the bikes, and into the Polynesian hot pools. Rotorua has definitely got it just right having arguably the best mountain bike trails in NZ just a few kilometres down the road from arguably the best spas. We soaked for ages - the muscles loved it and we enjoyed people watching and admiring the sunset. A rather large dinner later (I think the kitchen assumed that whoever ordered the steak sandwich was a bloke and needed extra chips!) and we were ready for bed.

Excited by the size of my dinner

Disappinted by my ability
to eat even half of the dinner.

Luckily the rain only joined us for our last morning so we had a fantastic few hours exploring the Rotorua Museum in the old bath-houses before lunch and heading home. A fantastic weekend - great to get away from work and remind ourselves why we came here in the first place!

ANZAC Day Weekend

ANZAC Day (the NZ equivalent of Remembrance Day) fell on a Thursday this year so taking the Friday as time off in lieu from work made for a proper long weekend. We set off (VERY) early on Thursday morning to a part of the North Island we hadn't yet explored - Taranaki. On the West Coast, Taranaki's motto is 'like no other' - which we thought was kind of apt. Stunning surf beaches, with the backdrop of Mount Taranaki makes it a beautiful little part of NZ.

We had two nights at a beach side campsite in New Plymouth, attending an ANZAC Day service on the Thursday as well as visiting some of New Plymouth's beautiful parks, and the really brilliant museum (perfectly timed for the showery weather).

War Memorial on Anzac Day

First torii gate we've seen in a while -
a gift of New Plymouth's sister city Mishima

On the Friday we did a fantastic hike around Egmont National Park - getting a good way up the central volcano - Mount Taranaki (we decided to listen to the Department of Conservation Ranger who 'strongly' advised us not to try for the top given the conditions!)

Hazy views

The clouds did finally clear

And we got to see the top!

After an epic BBQ and an even more epic night's sleep in the van we spent the morning running the 10km coastal path before packing up for the next part of the adventure...

Prepping for the bbq (aided by a drop of red)

A sunset walk

Hot coals

Flicking through the Lonely Planet we stumbled across a mention of the Forgotten World Highway - a road linking Stratford to Taumaranui. The LP described the road as 'winding through hilly bush country' with a stepped back in time feel - it turned out to be one of the highlights of our time in NZ so far. The road was beautifully isolated, with several historical sites en route giving a feeling of the pioneer days when the road and railway were built and the first settlers started to farm the hilly land.

We had a quick stop halfway at Whangamomona - a self proclaimed republic (they declared independence in the 80s when a Council re-organisation split the district down the middle) - enjoying a pint with a combination of the locals and several scary looking leather clad bikers.

Matt wanted to get his passport stamped

We decided to stay for the night in a campsite just beyond Whangamomona - perched on a hill the campsite has the best views of anywhere we've stayed so far.

360 degree views - just like this!

We shared the small site with a German family of mum, dad and two daughters aged three and five. They were on a cycling holiday and were carrying everything between the two of them - the picture below gives you an idea of how ambitious this is!

A little laden - but they were happy!

Luxurious camping accommodation in comparison

What a spot!

Fantastic sunset again

The next morning we opened up the back door of the van and were treated to a completely new view - the clouds rolling in were stunning.

Above the clouds

Pylons popping up into the distance

We left reluctantly to carry on the forgotten highway and before too long back in Auckland.

Amazing road tunnel carved through the hill

Autumn colours (and Carrie the Van)