Create Every Day

Elm Wildlife Tours Guide: “We have note sheets here in various languages if you’d like them.  We have German, Japanese, and of course English.  No Italian I’m afraid. ”

Me: “Do you have any in American?”

Guide (without missing a beat): “No, but we do put pictures on for the Australians.”

28-March-2010

I thought I was getting better. I was pretty much over this cold. And then I woke up with a raging sore throat and hardcore congestion. It’s baaack….

Dore and I spent the morning trying to get me better. We went to an urgent care pharmacy/doctor’s office, and after talking to the pharmacist were able to determine that this is probably not strep throat, but more likely just a nasty cold. So that’s good. But it still doesn’t make me feel better. Looks like I’m just going to have to tough it. We did get some lozenges to make my throat feel better, though. And we didn’t have to pay sixty-some-odd dollars to see a doctor. It always pays to talk to pharmacists.

Our original plan had us checking out Lanarch Castle, New Zealand’s only castle, but because we were feeling so wrung out we decided it would be best to just rest and save our energy for the wildlife tour we had booked the previous night. We headed back to the B&B and napped for the rest of the morning and into the early afternoon. We got up about 1:30 to grab a bite to eat and get ready for the three o’clock tour.

The tour met us at our B&B, and we were off. The tour was really cool. We got a chance to see a ton of wildlife ranging all over the Otago peninsula. Our first stop was at the very tip of the peninsula, at the Albatross Center. We saw two albatross on the way in, but then once we got there there were only a very few albatross flying way out into the ocean. Our binoculars were only barely powerful enough to see the birds, and using the camera was hopeless (not that I’d really be in any position to get any reasonable shots anyway). It was awesome to see the birds even from that distance, however. They have such a unique, effortless way of gliding over the water. They’re fascinating creatures. I highly recommend reading the Wikipedia article on them. Really neat stuff.

Since there weren’t really too many birds to see, we spend a good bit of time just talking about them. Dore and I decided that it might be best to try to get some birds to come closer, so we devised a plan:

Me: “I think I’ll call them in.”

Dore: “How in the world are you going to do that?”

Me: “With an albatross call, of course.”

Dore: “Oh yeah? And what does that sound like?”

Me: “Like this: cuh-caw! cuh-caw!”

(You’ll have to imagine a really crappy cartoon crow noise here.)

Predictably, the albatross were not being very well behaved, and the call didn’t work very well. I think the wind was carrying the sound away from them or something. At any rate, the birds didn’t come any closer, so we headed out to our next site.

Along the way we drove across the peninsula on back-country roads and stopped to check out a number of native bird species. The scenery was really lovely, and the birds were pretty interesting. I think the pukako (I’m guessing on the spelling here) were my favorite, for being the most “foreign” looking of the species. The kingfishers were also pretty cool for their bright plumage, which is actually rare amongst New Zealand birds.

We finally arrived at our destination: a wind-swept farm high up on the bluffs over a private stretch of coastline. It was absolutely gorgeous, and felt completely remote. Other than a few fences here and there there were basically no signs of human habitation anywhere as far as the eye could see. This was the New Zealand I had come to see.

We first went down to see a colony of fur seals, which were completely adorable. We also happened across a number of albatross, who must have heard the call a bit late and come around to meet us. That was nice of them.

Next, we climbed back up and then down to the beach we had seen before, where we saw yellow eyed penguins as they came in from sea and some sea lions wrestling each other on the beach. We watched both of these until dusk, then headed up to the bus just as the light was fading. There was a brilliant nearly-full moon coming up over the ocean as we climbed the slope back to the top of the bluffs. It was quite gorgeous. And quite cold. By the time we got back into the bus Dore and I were almost completely frozen. It felt really good to get in out of the wind.

We chatted with the guides as we rode home. They were quite fun to talk to, just like guides everywhere tend to be. There’s a certain relaxed, fun-loving attitude that almost every guide I’ve ever met has shared, and it’s really fun to talk to them at the end of a trip, then their responsibilities are basically complete and they get a chance to relax.

We finally arrived back at the B&B around nine. As we got inside my cold, which I’d managed to mostly forget about on the tour, came crashing back in full force. I think it was a combination of the extended cold and exhaustion, but for whatever reason I came down with a fever, and was suffering from a pretty massive chill. I took a hot bath, then jumped into bed, shivering, while Dore went downstairs and ordered us some Chinese delivery. I incubated for a while until the food came, then went downstairs to eat. The food was pretty terrible, but it was the best Chinese food I had at the time, so I ate until I was stuffed, then we headed back upstairs to bed.

I prayed that I would be better in the morning.

27-March-2010

Travel is funny. Some days you just don’t accomplish much. Some days you feel like you did, but in the end all you did was tick things off of a list. And on some rare days, you don’t do anything you planned, yet somehow you feel most accomplished of all. Today was one of those days.

After a lovely continental breakfast (the Highbrae B&B just keeps getting better!), Dore and I went down to the local farmer’s market after hearing about it from Steven, the B&B owner. While we were there, we bought a really nice smoked cheese and heard an awesome band from Vanuatu. The weather was a bit cloudy and drizzly, which added to to overall feeling that this town really did deserve the description being a little Scotland.

After the farmer’s market, we had a few hours until we were going to go to a tour at the Speights brewery, so we decided to check into taking a tour of the Cadbury chocolate factory. As it so happened, however, the factory wasn’t open on the weekend, and we decided it would be kinda lame to see a factory when it wasn’t factorizing. So we went to plan B: figure something else out. But as luck would have it, my seat belt became jammed, and I couldn’t get it to extend, so we limped back to the B&B to see what we could do.

I went in to ask Steven if I could borrow a wrench to try to get the belt free, but he did me one better.

“The seat belt, you say? I actually just replaced the one in my van last week. Do you mind if I take a look?” he asked me.

I nodded, dumbfounded. I followed him out to the van, where he proceeded to open up the panel and readjust the entire mechanism (the seat belt assembly was mounted at an angle, which threw off the internal pendulum, causing it to jam). As he worked, Steven told us that he had actually gotten a mechanic’s certification, despite not really wanting a career in that field. You gotta love Kiwis. After the adjustment the seat belt worked perfectly.

The van now fixed, Dore and I went inside and got ready, then headed out for the brewery tour. It was, predictably, not that interesting. Beer making is, by and large, the same the world ’round. Yeast meets malt. Yeast eats malt. Yeast makes alcohol and carbon dioxide. Hops make a brief appearance. Tasty beer comes out the other side.

I did actually enjoy the heavy handed self-promotion that came in the repeated commercials that came throughout the tour, but most of all I liked the tasting room at the end of the tour. It was pretty cool to be able to pour our own tastes from the various taps. Dore and I also met a couple that had been traveling around for something like eight months! We ended up having another beer with them at the ale house that was connected to the brewery.

Nicely filled, we walked back up the hill (once again) to the B&B, where we relaxed a bit before dinner. We ate dinner at the Customs House, which was in the original harbor customs house — go figure. While a bit pricey, the meal was really good. Dore got a lamb steak, and I had venison. Both were really awesome. For dessert, we had a delicious brownie tiramisu.

Fully satisfied, we drove home and spent some time going over pictures, writing in our journals, updating our emails, and generally enjoying doing all of the little administrivia that comes with traveling. Finally we called it a night, and went to bed.

26-March-2010

We woke up the next morning at our usual 8:00, and were pleasantly surprised that we were quite refreshed. The bed in the van, despite the thin layer of padding, is quite comfortable. We took quick showers, then headed in to the common room to eat a quick breakfast of Greek yoghurt, jam, honeydew melon, and tea.

After we had everything packed up, I decided that it was time to teach Dore a bit about driving a manual transmission. The car park seemed the perfect place for it, with few impedences and little traffic. I explained the basics to Dore, demonstrating a little, and then let her have the reigns. I have to say, I was very impressed. She took off in first gear without a single stall, driving around the loop as if she’d been driving stick all her life. She did end up stalling when we came to a stop, but all in all not bad! She was super excited, and was looking forward to doing more. To quote Dore: “I may actually learn to drive stick on this trip!”

Our original plan was to take several days to drive down the coast from Christchurch to Dunedin, stopping in at the towns along the way and generally meandering our way along. As we drove, however, we found that we were making much better time than we had originally anticipated, and the towns were considerably less interesting than we had imagined. Most of the towns were quite small, mere wide spots in the road, really.

We passed several less interesting towns before deciding to stop in Timaru for lunch. The guide books were almost silent on the town, but we actaully found it to be quite charming, with a fun little downtown and a fantastic park by the beach. We walked across the wide expanse of grass to the beach, where we walked along the sand with our feet in the water. The day was beautiful and sunny, a it felt really nice to get our feet wet. The water was a little bit warmer than I’m used to in Santa Barbara, and a whole lot clearer.

After Timaru, we continued down the coast, ticking off the kilometers at a rapid pace. Around 4:30 we stopped to see the Moeraki boulders, an attraction that I’d read about and wanted to see for myself. They are basically huge limestone boulders that formed in nearly perfect spheres. There are about fifty of them down on the beach, and they are really just an odd and fun little thing to see. We played around with the camera for a while, taking silly tourist photos, and then headed back to the van. It was nice to stop for a while, and we were both really happy.

In the beach parking area we did a bit more practice with Dore driving, and she was doing well, switching from first to reverse and back. She only stalled a couple of times, probably fewer than the number of successes she had. There wasn’t quite enough room to go from first to second, so we shelved that for the moment and continued on our drive.

As I said before, our plan had been to stop at a campground along the way, but we found that we were making such good time that we might as well just get to Dunedin a day early. We pushed on, and crested the hill overlooking the town about 5:30. It was absolutely gorgeous. The late afternoon sun was casting fantastic light over the city, which is perched on the hills overlooking the Otago harbor and peninsula. Dore and I were both immediately reminded of San Fransisco, only smaller and more colorful.

The drive into the city was beautiful, with old stone buildings, hundred year old Victorian homes, colorful painted houses, and trees everywhere we looked. Because of all the hills, however, the roads were a bit crazy, and it was only by having our trusty GPS that we managed not to get completely lost. After a few wrong turns (and Garmin yelling “Recalculating!” and other directions) we finally made it to the B&B that we were going to be staying at. We actually had reseved it for two nights in the future, so we weren’t sure if we’d be able to stay, but we’d decided to wing it and see what happened.

As luck would have it, the owners not only had the room available, but they didn’t have any other guests for the entire time we would be staying there. We basically would have our own private B&B! When we called they were outside of the town, so we arranged to meet a bit later, while Dore and I went to pick up a bite to eat.

We walked down the incredibly steep hill (High street, they call it), and went to the Black Dog pub, where we had a really good dinner. Dore got a fish pasta which, strangely enough, was served with a baked potatoe as well as salad. A baked potatoe with pasta? Apparently Kiwis love their starches. I had an amazing cream of chicken soup that was exactly the right combination of savory and lightness — delicious and hearty, but not so rich that you get full after just a few bites. Along with dinner we had our first taste of Speights Gold Medal ale (which, we later learned, is brewed in Dunedin). It was quite nice, with less of the overpowering hops flavor than is found in a lot of the British and American ales.

Done with dinner, we marched back up the hill and checked in. Our jaws completely dropped when we saw our room. In a word, it was amazing. It sat at the corner of the house, with a large set of windows looking over the harbor and city. Right next to the room was the enormous bathroom complete, to Dore’s delight, with a huge claw-foot tub with brass fixtures.

We breathlessly thanked Steven, our host, for showing us the rooms, then brought our bags up and set up for the night. Dore took a hot bath, and I a hot shower, and, snuggling up in the nice cozy bed, laughed at what a perfect day it had been.

Hi all! I just posted some pictures of our trip so far on my Flickr page. You can see a couple on the left. Click on any of the pictures or go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/ryanlavering/ to view the rest.

25-March-2010

Thursday dawned, as so many other days do, before we got up.

What, you expected something fancier? Too bad.

Actually, Dore and I got up at the crack of eight, which, by our standards, is amazing. This is actually starting to become a trend, and one I’m not entirely displeased with. We took some showers and packed everything up as quickly as we could to leave the hostel. Big things were afoot: this was the day we picked up our campervan.

We walked the short way to the town center and caught a quick, but quite tasty, breakfast at a Swiss Cafe right next door to the Escape campervan rental agency, where we were picking up our van.

I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice to say that should you plan to rent a campervan, it’s best to allocate a decent chunk of time to the pick-up process. There are a lot of little things to go over, and it doesn’t help if there’s only one person working the shop and several rentals going on at once. But we made steady progress through all of the paperwork, and I have to say that it did feel at least a little more relaxed than it would have in the states. The contract, for example, was only two pages long. I’ve signed longer contracts to adopt a cat!

As we went through the process, the woman who was helping us chattered away, regaling us with tales of camper crashes, dents, bangs, scratches, flat tires, broken windshields, running off of cliffs, explosions, and complete existence failures. Okay, so I made the last two up, but the others were real. Either these things were a regular occurrence, or this woman was fantastic at the insurance up-sell. Initially we declined the extra insurance option, but the stories kept coming. During a momentary lull (while the campervan lady was helping another group) Dore and I looked at each other somewhat wide-eyed, and decided that it might be a better option to pay up and not worry about the insurance. Between driving on the left side of the road, the manual transmission, and the horror stories, we decided that there was a decent chance that something would happen, and maybe an additional bit of expense wouldn’t be so bad. Viva el cuidado.

Finally done with the preparations, we headed down to the garage to collect our sweet ride. The van is a bit old, but it’ll get us around. It’s got a huge painting of a parrot (or some other bird) on the side. It’s called “Wood Pigeon” on the contract, so I suppose that must be what it is.

We brought our stuff down, piled it into the back of the van, and started her up. I was pretty nervous to start driving, and had a lot on my mind: the manual transmission, the new blind spots, driving from the wrong side of the vehicle, but most of all the need to keep left on the road at all times.

And of course the first thing out of the gate was a right turn (across oncoming traffic) onto a relatively busy street. I was relatively terrified that I would immediately crash, but somehow I managed to make it, and we were off!

Our first stop was the Pak ‘n Save grocery store, then we were off to the gas station. Fully loaded, we programmed the GPS and were off to the French village of Akaroa.

The drive was really fun, with beautiful scenery, and a really windy mountain pass climb and descent to reach the town. The village itself is nestled in a long inlet of the ocean that looks a lot like a long lake. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous, and the village is very quaint. Dore and I walked around for a bit, then stopped for ice cream. We were going to go for a kayak ride, but the man who rented them didn’t have any available just then. We decided to just walk along the beach with our feet in the water, which was just as well, since we still needed to drive south and the afternoon was getting on.

We grabbed some fish and chips at a restaurant with a gorgeous view over the water, then headed out of the town. The road back-tracked for a while, then we turned south on our way toward Dunedin. Our road ended at a campervan park in the town of Ashburton, some hour’s drive south. We set up the van for bed just as the light was failing, got everything in order, and went to sleep, quite happy with the day.

24-March-2010

Given how nice the weather in Christchurch had been the day before, Dore and I were surprised when we left the hostel and found the sidewalks wet and gray clouds above. We turned around and went back inside to get our rain gear. Oddly enough, despite the threatening weather, we never ended up needing the rain jackets all day. Go figure.

What we did need was a good nap. We continued our trend of doing entirely too much walking and not enough resting, crisscrossing the town in our various pursuits.

We started with a gentle stroll through the botanical gardens. Sounds easy enough until you figure out the sheer scale of the Christchurch botanical gardens. This place is enormous. It took us a full two hours to walk around the perimeter, and we weren’t really stopping that often. We saw all sorts of neat plants, but I would probably bore you (and get most of the details wrong) if I tried to do any sort of narrative. Suffice to say that the New Zealand garden and rain forest conservatories were both awesome, and Dore really liked the dahlias. She’s a sucker for poofy looking flowers, it seems (note to self).

We stopped off for some Indian food (a second choice after we were unsuccessful at finding one “Loaded Hog” restaurant from the guide book), then hit the sidewalks again. This time we dropped by the arts and crafts center, which contains a ton of little artists shops and galleries. I really liked the format of the building, where each shop had two doors, which allowed you to drift from one shop to another in a sort of maze-like way.

Unfortunately all of the art was either low quality or out of our price range. The only thing we bought was a bar of fudge from a chocolate shop. (The fudge is delicious, however.)

After the arts shop, we stopped off to fulfill one of Dore’s “must do” items: Punting on the Avon. In case you’re not familiar with this particularly English pastime, punting involves sitting in a “punt”, which is a long, narrow flat-bottomed boat somewhat like a squat canoe, and being poled up and down the river by a man in a funny hat.

Our man in a funny hat (the “punter,” for those playing at home) happened to be from Switzerland, and was rather fun to talk to. We chatted as we rode along, enjoying the scenery and taking in the sun, which happened to peek out for the only time during the entire day right as we were going on our ride. Sometimes things just have a way of working out.

Our punt came to its end almost exactly when it should have, which is to say just before it started to become boring. Dore and I set off to the Cathedral square, where we realized that we had yet to see the inside of the Cathedral itself. This, I gather, is a great offense in Christchurch (it is named “Christchurch” after all!), so we decided to rectify this situation straight away.

As luck would have it, we actually managed to time our ascent of the tower perfectly — we were literally the only ones going up or down. It felt really awesome climbing the narrow, winding staircase all alone. We felt like little kids in a castle. I think Dore summed it up best when she said, “It feels like we shouldn’t be allowed to do this. I keep feeling that someone will come out and tell us we’re somewhere we aren’t supposed to be.”

When we descended again, we were rewarded with a chocolate fish (a chocolate-covered marshmallow of Kiwi invention) and found out that the choir would be singing in a few minutes. We went into the cathedral and enjoyed the choir service, which was really cool. There’s nothing quite like music performed in a cathedral. I was really tired by this point, however, and kept wanting to fall asleep.

The final stop of the day was dinner. Our first choice restaurant — a Burmese restaurant called the “Bodhi Tree” — was completely booked, but we found a cool Bangladeshi restaurant instead. At least it was from the same area of the world, right? The food was really good — similar to Indian, but with different flavor profiles. We completely stuffed ourselves, and still had some left over that we saved as lunch for the next day.

Finally done with our day, we walked home to the hostel and crashed, completely exhausted once again.

23-March-2010

4:00 am. I didn’t even think it existed, but the new Timex knock-off wristwatch I picked up yesterday assured me — in beeps carefully tuned to the most annoying frequency known to science — that, yes, 4:00 am does indeed exist. And it sucks.

As I reached over and shut off the alarm, I considered that pre-trip me may have been a bit overzealous.

“If we’re going to be flying in the morning, we might as well take the early flight, right?” That was me a few weeks ago, talking to Dore as we planned our trip from the comfort of our living room.

“Sure,” Dore responded, “That sounds okay.”

Well, it sure didn’t feel okay. But, despite more than a few yawns, we made it to the airport, got breakfast, and made it onto our flight at 6:40 am. A quick and uneventful flight later, and we touched down in Christchurch at 8:00.

Dore and I made our way into the city on the bus. The city sits in the middle of a wide, flat plain, with mountains in the distance. There are lines of windbreak trees separating English Tudor and Victorian homes set in immaculate gardens. Even late in the summer, everything here is still green. The weather was beautiful, with clear blue skies and a nice, cool weather.

We walked to our hostel, a few blocks from the central city square, and dropped off our packs, then set out to walk around the city. By far the favorite thing we encountered was the slow-running, shallow Avon river, which winds its way through the city center along beautifully English-styled grassy banks. We walked along the river for a long ways, then headed to the library for a break and to take advantage of the free Internet access.

After a brief lunch of thoroughly unsatisfying kebabs (which tasted closer to a taco than anything of Turkish origin), we headed back to the hostel to check in and take a nap. By this time I was feeling a bit under the weather, with a slight sore throat. Dore, conversely, is feeling better, so with any luck my current malady will move on as quickly as hers did.

Rested, we set out again around 5:30 to find some dinner. We ended up walking along the Avon river again, seeing some more areas we hadn’t before. After perusing a number of options, we finally settled on a suggestion from our guide books, the Dux de Lux. It ended up being a great choice. Dore got some delicious corn fritters with a house ginger beer, and I had a spicy Malaysian fish stew with coconut sauce and a house ale. We ate in the beer garden out back with a number of locals. After dinner, we walked back to the hostel and went to bed.

22-March-2010

We got up a bit earlier than we probably would have otherwise in order to meet David and Umberto — friends of Sam’s that he’d put us in contact with — for dinner.

I’m really glad we did. First of all, David and Umberto were great. It was really fun to talk to them and hear their perspective on life, politics, and living in New Zealand. They had both lived in Santa Barbara for some time, so they were familiar with a lot of the same things we are, which made the conversation flow very easily. Dore and I found that our outlook on life matched theirs very closely, which is always very pleasant. I always find it especially nice to be able to converse with people living in a different area of the world and on different life path. It always seems to me that if you do that, and you come to the same conclusions about life, then there is some nugget of universal truth there that you can get closer to understanding.

Beyond the conversation, meeting up also gave Dore and I the chance to see a few areas of Auckland that we never would have found on our own, which is always a rare treat when traveling. We first went to a nice, hip little bar on the second floor on the back side of a building. The atmosphere was light and minimal, perfect for talking over drinks.

Next, we went to dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant in a little square nearby. The food was quite good. I had lamb again. This is starting to become a trend, and one I’m not a bit displeased with. We finished with a slice of plum pie with ice cream, a nice sweet note to a wonderfully decadent and enjoyable evening.

I think everyone was a bit reluctant to finish the evening, but lingering tiredness and the requirements of life eventually got the better of us all. We said our goodbyes and walked our separate ways. I’m not sure if we’ll have another chance to see David and Umberto again on this trip, but I’d be very happy if we have the chance.

22-March-2010

I think we may have walked a bit too far yesterday. No, let me rephrase that. We definitely walked way too far yesterday. I’m exhausted. And unfortunately, Dore’s come down with a cold. (At least, we really hope it’s just a cold. Fingers crossed!) So now we’re working on doing whatever we can to mitigate that. Toward that end, we’re taking it easy today — just taking a ferry over to one of the other areas of Auckland and a nice easy bus tour on the other side. We’ll see how that goes….

[Four hours pass.]

Well, that was exhausting. After the ferry, we had a bit of time to check out the little town of Devonport before our bus tour was to begin. So what did we do? We hiked all around the town, of course. D’oh. And, as it turns out, we managed to take about 32 minutes of our allotted 30, so we missed the tour bus. Bummer. Luckily there was another tour an hour later, but it still put us off a bit. Dore was feeling pretty tired by this point, so we went and crashed on a bench for a while. Then, silly people that we are, we got and and started walking again.

This time, however nature stepped in to make us stop. First we felt a few drops, and then the rain started to pick up. Dore and I started walking briskly back to the cover of the ferry station, making it just in time to miss the rain.

The storm was pretty short-lived (a regular thing in Auckland, I’m told), but we decided to stick around our bench until the tour started.

The tour itself was very nice. We were in a small bus with about six other tourists and a guide. Our guide was a local who had lived in Devonport all his life, and his perspective on the town was really fun. At one point he pointed out a set of trees that he had climbed as a kid, and told us how the lady whose tree it was would try to get him out with a long stick.

We wound around the sleepy little town for a while, finally coming to the top of a small volcanic cone, where we were presented with a beautiful view over Auckland and the surrounding bays. It was really beautiful, with dappled sunlight here and there. Tons of sailboats dotted the water, including a huge yacht under full sail.

The tour wound its way back down to the ferry terminal, and Dore and I headed to lunch at the Stone Oven Bakery, which was recommended to us by two locals as the best place around. I’m happy to say it lived up to its reputation. Dore got a great chicken and vegetable soup (perfect for her cold), and I had a great grilled chicken sandwich with bacon, brie and cranberry sauce. That’s a combination I’m definitely going to have to remember.

Full and tired, we headed back across the harbor. Looking up the hill we realized that we were too exhausted to make the full climb, so we hopped in a cab for what I think may have been the most expensive per mile ride I’ve ever had. The fare ended up being NZ$15, or about US$12. For one mile. At about a walking pace. Blech. Never again.

Finally home, we went up to our room and crashed for a couple of hours, completely exhausted.