Kia ora! We’ve been in New Zealand for 3 months now (Jul-Sep) and our favorite thing about New Zealand has definitely been the natural beauty. New Zealand has snow capped mountains, lush green rolling hills dotted white with sheep, wide valleys, steep canyons and, of course, beaches. Even though it has been winter here, we have visited more beaches than I can remember and they have all been beautiful in their own way. For us, beaches are a great stress reliever. Believe it or not, we do still have some stress in our lives. We miss loved ones. We’re living on a very tight budget. We get bored. There are temporary bouts of anxiety over the decision we made to sell everything and live the life we are living. Health and insurance concerns raise their heads. And, sometimes, we just get tired of living out of a suitcase and trying to remember where we are when we open our eyes in the morning. Like other native Californians and Danes, we find solace at the ocean’s edge – the beach. There is something therapeutic in smelling the ocean air, hearing the “breakers” (as my grandparents used to call the waves), viewing off-shore islands and craggy coastlines or just having a relaxing search for sea shells. And, of course, salt water will provide a remedy for just about anything that ails you.
The best thing about beaches is that they are always changing. They are ever changing. Visit the same beach twice within the space of a day and there can be crashing waves or water as smooth as glass. Winds can howl or barely whisper. High tides roll in leaving all types of interesting things to inspect – inanimate, live and dead. Low tides roll out exposing treasures like shells, rocks and, if you’re lucky, one of our favorite things: tide pools. Well, if it is beaches you are looking for, New Zealand delivers in spades. Simply put, they have it all (except warm water). There are wide beaches, narrow beaches, white sand beaches, black sand beaches, rocky beaches, sea shell beaches, beaches with no waves, beaches with great surfing, etc., etc., etc. As written in the previous blog (New Zealand: Part I), we hit several beaches during our time in Titirangi. Now it was time to explore more of what the north island’s seashore had to offer.
On August 3rd, after a month in Titirangi, we headed south east to do a two-day house sit in Waihi Beach. Even though it rained most of the time we were there, we enjoyed the sit. Between the showers we found time to check out a few beaches. These beaches faced the Pacific (as opposed to the beaches we visited when were in Titirangi that faced the Tasman Sea). The best beach we visited in this area was Whangamata Beach which is in the picture above with the rainbow. The sit in Waihi Beach was short, and we were cooped up in the house most of the time, but we enjoyed it because we got to look after a black standard poodle named Zac that reminded us of our first standard poodle: Charlie.
Zac the standard poodle. Janne on Whangamata Beach. Waihi Beach location.
After Waihi Beach, we backtracked to Auckland and then headed north to a small town on the east coast called Leigh (pronounced “Lee”). In Leigh we looked after a small menagerie of 2 dogs, 2 cats and a parrot (well, actually, an Alexandriane Parakeet) named Mango. Although there were a lot of them, the animals were very easy to take care of and we enjoyed them all. We spent 10 days in Leigh. Leigh endeared itself to me quickly. The home was close to the water and had an absolutely gorgeous view of the Pacific. Our very first night in Leigh we went out to find a place for dinner as we had not had time to go grocery shopping. Leigh is a very small town of only around 500, so the number of places to go out for dinner were extremely limited. We ended up in a pub/restaurant. When we arrived, a lady with green hair asked if we were there for the poker tournament to which I replied “maybe”. It turned out that a small group meet at this pub on the first Monday of each month to play Texas Hold’em. I had a good time with them drinking some beer and playing some cards and I left the bar with more money than I had when I got there.
View from home in Leigh. Janne and Mango Leigh location.
After Leigh, we headed south again, taking a hard left just past Auckland, and spent a couple days touring the Coromandel Peninsula. We stayed in a relatively small town named Whitianga. We splurged a little and booked a room at a motel with an ocean view. While in Whitianga we visited Hot Water Beach where you can dig a hole at the shore until you hit hot water that comes from a thermal spring. The hot water fills your hole and then you lay down for a little soak. You have to take care though, as the water can get as hot as 147f (64c). The day we visited, it was cold and rainy. The spot on the beach where you could dig your hole was a good 400 yards from where you parked so we took a pass on putting on our bathing suits, walking down to the beach and digging a hole. It was still pretty neat to check out, though. Another thing we did was take a cruise with the main sights being Cathedral Cove and the Te Whanganui-A-Hei Marine Reserve.
Motel room in Whitianga. Cathedral Cove Hot Water Beach
On August 18th we headed back to Auckland and caught a plane to Queenstown for our first visit to the south island. We were already in awe of New Zealand’s beauty, but people kept telling us, and we kept reading, that we hadn’t seen anything yet. The south island was supposed to be even prettier and the most awe inspiring place of all was waiting for us there – the crown jewel of New Zealand: Milford Sound. I could go on and on with the accolades showered upon Milford Sound. Trip Advisor once named it the world’s top travel destination, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Rudyard Kipling called it the “eighth wonder of the world”, yadah, yadah, yadah. So that’s the hype. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see it.
Long story short, you need to see Milford Sound by boat and there is only one road into the town where the boats are docked. That road is called Milford Road and there is a 12.5 mile (21km) stretch that is an avalanche zone. Stopping is strictly prohibited on this road. Forty avalanche paths run across this stretch of road. When the road was first constructed, several workers were killed by avalanches and in 1983 a govt worker was killed by an avalanche. There are now several cutting-edge technologies in place to monitor and manage the risk of avalanches. Unfortunately, on the day of our cruise, the risk of avalanche was deemed too high and the authorities closed down the road. That’s the bad news. The good news is that we don’t give up that easily and we will be returning to Milford Sound in mid-October to give it another try.
Even though we didn’t get to cruise the Sound, we did get to take in some of the beautiful nature that part of the country has to offer. The day before our cruise, we drove from Te Anau all the way to Milford Sound dock and stopped along the way to do some hikes and just enjoy the nature. Then, on the day we were supposed to cruise Milford Sound, we settled for a “Plan B” cruise of Lake Te Anau which was beautiful and included a visit to a cave with glow worms – worms (larvae actually) that spin glow-in-the-dark webs to catch insects.
Milford Sound in background On Milford Sound Road. Lake Te Anau cruise.
On August 22nd, it was finally time for us to head to the city of Whanganui. We had been excited about Whanganui since we first booked it way back in February when we were in Panamá. It was the very first sit we booked that was located in New Zealand. We were so pumped when we finished our video call/interview with the home owners and they agreed to us looking after their home and dog. After we hung up, we just looked at each other like little kids, wide-eyed and laughing, and said almost in unison “We’re going to New Zealand!”
Whanganui is located on the north island, so we caught a flight from Queenstown to Wellington and then caught a bus from Wellington to Whanganui. We arrived in Whanganui in the dark at around 7:00PM. The home owners, Janice and Terry, met us at the bus station and took us to their lovely home where we met Ergo the dog – who would quickly steal our hearts. The next night, Friday night, Janice and Terry took us to a nearby restaurant and introduced us to several of their friends. It turns out that every Friday they meet at this restaurant for “Friday Fries” where they order up some “chips” (french fries), have a few drinks and enjoy each other’s company. We filled in for Janice and Terry with this group for the next 7 Fridays in a row! We made some great friends and it really enriched our stay in Whanganui and gave us a real feel for the New Zealand people and way of life. Janne and I both made a couple good friends that we spent time with outside of the Friday night meet ups and that we will definitely keep in touch with and hope to see again someday.
Whanganui is a city of around 45 thousand located on the south western coast of the north island. It is located where the Whanganui River empties into the Tasman Sea. The Whanganui River is the longest navigable river in New Zealand and, as such, attracted human settlement. The first to settle at the mouth of the river were the Mauris. Europeans first began to settle the area in the 1840’s. The city saw great growth from the 1870’s until around the 1930’s and during this period it was one of the largest cities in New Zealand. Now, Whanganui would probably be categorized as a medium sized city by New Zealand standards and is somewhere between the 15th – 20th largest city in the nation. Whanganui enjoys some of the mildest weather in all of New Zealand with the coldest month being July with an average high of 56f (13c) and the warmest month being February with an average high of 73f (23c).
At the time of this writing, we still have more than a week to go in Whanganui. We have enjoyed our time here very much. We enjoyed the friends that we made attending “Friday Fries”. We enjoyed the “small town” feel. Whanganui has a charming downtown area and a main street called Victoria Avenue. Many of the buildings on Victoria Avenue were built in the early 1900’s and have really neat fronts and dated cornerstones, etc. We also really enjoyed the nature surrounding Whanganui: be it the river, the beaches or the local mountains – all beautiful in their own way.
Ergo asking "are we there yet?" Saturday Market The Whanganui River
On September 9th, I had a bit of a strange day in Whanganui. It started out with a search for a dermatologist. If you know me, or have read previous blog posts, you know that I have a history of skin cancer. Well, I’m pretty sure I have another one so I was looking for a dermatologist to confirm it is what I think it is and get it cut out. Long story short, after getting some names of doctors in town from new friends here in NZ, I was unable to see a “GP” (general practitioner doctor) or a dermatologist. I was, however, able to schedule a surgeon. I found this quite odd – I was able to schedule a surgeon to cut something out that had yet to be confirmed as something that needed to be removed.
Later that same day, we went to a “Mexican restaurant”. I usually don’t go to Mexican restaurants outside of the USA or México as I always find them disappointing (I also generally don’t order hamburgers outside of the USA or Canada). We were told this particular restaurant was really good and their reviews on Trip Advisor bore that out. So, despite the name “La Quattro” and the fact that I learned it was run by 4 brothers from India, we decided to give it a shot. We knew it would not be your standard Mexican fare as we had heard that lamb tacos were one of their best dishes. It turned out that the food was good – but – it was very different than anything we had tried before. For example, we tried the “Pommegranite Lamb Taco” which included whipped garlic, saffron, apple, grapes and “micro greens”. We also tried a “Smoked Pork Belly Taco” that included jalapeno crema, pickled onions, popcorn and mesclun. If you don’t know what mesclun is (I didn’t), it is a type of salad that is served in Provence, France that typically includes chervil, arugula, leafy lettuces and endive. Other interesting items on the menu included a “Roast Pumpkin Chimichanga” and “Jalapeno Poppers” that included feta and olive powder. Of course, you could always play it safe and go for the old standby: chips and guac. Oh wait – never mind – the guacamole includes spiced peanuts! We decided that La Quattro was not a Mexican restaurant – we dubbed it a “Mendian Restaurant” (Mexican and Indian combined).
After dinner, we walked across the street to the movie theater to see the new Quentin Tarantino movie: “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”. For several years in the late ‘80’s I went to a local video rental store and rented movies. More often than not, the guy behind the counter that I would engage with was Quentin Tarantino. If it wasn’t Quentin behind the counter, it was probably Roger Avary. Roger was in my high school English class and he later shared an Academy Award with Tarantino for Best Original Screenplay for Pulp Fiction. But I digress. Back to the movie theater after the “Mendian food”. We bought our tickets for the movie at a price a little bit less than you would expect in the states and then we went to buy some obligatory popcorn - well, obligatory if you are going to the movies with Janne – and we were pleasantly surprised. If you go to the movies in the states and want popcorn and a drink, you are probably going to drop $20US, regardless of size of popcorn or type/size of drink. We were delighted to see that we could get a popcorn and drink for a grand total of $6.50NZ, which equates to around $4.25US! But then, the weird part came. The movie theater was in a neat old building on the main street in town, Victoria Avenue. The theater contained 4 separate screens (even though it was called the Embassy 3). After we bought our tickets and incredibly inexpensive popcorn and drink, we were directed to the “new theater”. “OK, cool” I thought. New car smell theater to watch the new Tarantino film in – nice! Well, the theater did have that new car smell but it was tiny. I have a friend in Arizona with a media room that is almost as big as the “new theater” is. The “new theater” had 4 rows and a grand total of 19 seats!
It was a weird day. Surgery scheduled without a doctor’s referral. Guacamole with spiced peanuts. Tacos with apples and popcorn. Movie theater with only 19 seats and inexpensive concessions.
As we travel to new countries, we always do our best to experience and learn about the cultures of the people we are visiting. One big part of New Zealand culture that I have come to appreciate is what I’ll call their “Rugby Culture”. Rugby is absolutely HUGE here. It is THE sport. It is hard to put in into terms, that Americans would understand, just how big rugby is in New Zealand. All towns in New Zealand have a rugby pitch (field). You can recognize them by the goal posts (similar to American Football goal posts). The New Zealand National Team, The All Blacks, are super popular. They are like the Lakers, Celtics, Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, Cowboys and Patriots all wrapped up into one. Actually, they are more like the NBA, MLB and the NFL all wrapped up into one.
I had always been interested in rugby but never took the time to figure out the rules. While in NZ, I became more and more interested in rugby as I learned more about it’s history, it’s ties to American Football and how deeply it is rooted in New Zealand’s culture. I'll try not to go into too much detail and just provide a few quick bullet points to share some of the facts I find so interesting:
- Modern rugby started in England in 1845 and grew quickly in popularity ever since then. These dates mirror pretty much exactly the growth of New Zealand, first being settled by Europeans (the majority being English) starting largely in the 1850’s.
- American football grew out of rugby. As you watch rugby and begin to learn more about it, you start to see where some things in American football came from. Your mind goes "ding" and you think "oh, that's where that came from". For example, in rugby you have to take the ball past the goal line to score a "try". For the try to be good, the player has to touch the ball down on the ground in the "in-goal" area (known as the end zone in American football). This action of touching the ball down in the in-goal area is the genesis of the "touch down" in American football (even though in American football you only have to cross the goal line into the end zone and you don't have to actually touch the ball down).
- There were some very intense rugby matches between NZ and France in the 1980’s after France basically committed an act of War against New Zealand. Code named Opération Satanique, on July 10, 1985 the "action" branch of the French foreign intelligence services sent operatives into New Zealand to sink the flagship of the Greenpeace fleet, the Rainbow Warrior. The Rainbow Warrior was located at the Port of Auckland on its way to a protest against a planned French nuclear bomb test in Moruroa. The bombing destroyed the Rainbow Warrior, caused several injuries and killed one person. France initially denied responsibility, but two French agents were captured by New Zealand authorities and charged with arson, conspiracy to commit arson, willful damage, and murder. As the truth came out, the scandal resulted in much fallout including the resignation of the French Defense Minister, Charles Hernu. The agents got off incredibly lightly in my view. They pleaded guilty to manslaughter and were sentenced to ten years in prison. They ended up spending a little over two years confined to the French island of Hao before being freed by the French government.
- Rugby played a critical part in the battle against racism both in New Zealand and across the globe.
New Zealand rugby played a huge role in helping to bring about the end of Apartheid in South Africa, however, it was not a smooth process and it caused some of the greatest internal political strife in New Zealand’s history that led to several years of violent protests and the country never really healed until New Zealands’ victory in the first Rugby World Cup in 1987 - a highly emotional 29-9 pummeling of France, by the way.
Rugby is one of the main areas of New Zealand culture where Caucasians and Maoris stand shoulder to shoulder as equals. The All Blacks even perform a haka before each match. A haka is a traditional Maori dance that was performed before battle to hype up the Maori warriors and intimidate their enemies. The haka really is pretty intimidating. Imagine yourself on the field at about your own 40-yard line and the other team in on their own 40-yard line staring you down before the game starts and then they do this:
- The All Blacks are just about as dominant and “bad ass” in a sport as you can be. Since their international debut in 1903, they have a 77% winning record, and are the only international men's side with a winning record against every opponent. They have played matches against 19 nations, of which 12 have never won a game against the All Blacks. They have also played against three multinational all-star teams, losing only 8 of 45 matches. Since the introduction of the World Rugby Rankings in 2003, the All Blacks have held the number one ranking longer than all of the other teams combined. They have won 3 out of the 8 Rugby World Cups (including the last 2 in a row) and they are the favorite to win this year’s World Cup which is taking place in right now in Japan. In fact, the All Blacks have a semi-final match against England later today, so check it out!
We are looking forward to our next, and last, month in New Zealand. We will be joined by my parents in Whanganui for several days and then we will all head south together to Wellington, the capital of NZ, and then continue on to explore more of the south island including a second try at cruising Milford Sound. Until next time, kia ora and GO THE ALL BLACKS!
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