2 Glaciers and a winner in Blackball...

Fresh (hot) Dutch Apple Pie from the Wanaka Farmer's Market (yes it is apple season here right now)

Random picture perhaps, but this might be a chestnut tree (that was growing in the parking lot of our hotel)

We finally left Wanaka on Saturday.  We managed to hit their farmer's market on the way out of town and it really summed up Wanaka for us.  While there aren't many people in Wanaka (7,500) they do a great job of covering all the bases...and then some.  Of the 7 stands at that farmer's market, there were fresh cupcakes, face painting ;), beautiful organic produce, fresh (as in a couple hours and hot) bread, organic/free range eggs/meat, organic honey, fresh dutch apple pie (by the slice or whole), and more organic fruit.  Not bad for the end of the season!

Our "goal" was to make it to Blackball which is a hole-in-the-wall-type town, north east of Greymouth or about 500km away from our starting place in Wanaka.  "Why Blackball?!" was later asked to us about 5 times throughout the day...truth of the matter was our friend Kashi had told us they had delicious, humble food in a hole in the wall type tavern where it "looked like a bunch of Harley folks might be".  The drive that day was epic.  Aside from the beautiful terrain, the weather added a whole new dimension.  Within an hour of leaving Wanaka, which is high desert mix of Colorado and Wyoming, we were passing through tropical areas with glaciers.

 

The East side of Lake Wanaka on our way out of town...

Within an hour of departure, the weather and terrain dramatically changed!

The clouds and weather made for great scenery...

The weather turned even a bit rainier and stormy and, well, a bit romantic!  We drove past Fox Glacier, then Franz Josef Glacier...serene and beautiful.  We drove up to the trail head of both glaciers and they have markers on the road labeling, "glacier was here in 1750", then a bit up the road, "glacier was here in 1935", then the glacier trail head to the glacier.  Just observing the facts and trying to refrain from any global warming doom and gloom, the fact is that the distance between 1750 and 1935 was the same distance as from 1935 to now.  Draw your own conclusions (or not), but those were the facts (for those glaciers).

 Almost looked like the floating islands from Avatar...

Some neat bridges over the glacial gorges...

Fox Glacier, in the rain!

We continued north and rolled into Blackball at about 6pm.  There is one restaurant/tavern called Formerly the Blackball Hilton and this is the one Kashi had recommended.

 Formerly the Blackball Hilton was worthy...of dinner and a good night's rest!

The building is 100 years old this year and very special.  The name of it had to be changed from the Blackball Hilton as some Hilton folks in the US had a problem with it, so the owners fixed it by adding the "formerly" at the beginning.  The food, which was reason for our detour, was fantastic.  We had a Thai dish and a curry dish that was unpretentious and simple and amazing.  They had rooms open upstairs, so we treated ourselves to not camping for the night (good call as the rains continued).  The room came with a great breakfast the next morning so we were well fueled for another long (300km) day/drive to Nelson.  (Zeph has been doing all the driving thus far and I am indebted to him as it has been really nice to take in the scenery and take pictures however I am well aware I am going to have to repay him soon and drive LOTS!)

Technically speaking, is a one way bridge still called a one way bridge if there is an active train track going down the center of the one way road?

So happy this was not the two of us riding through glacial passes in the rain!

We have had a mountain biking guidebook, written by the Kennett brothers, who know there way around New Zealand.  We found a great trail in Nelson and were (really) excited to get on the road to enjoy it sooner rather than later.  We rolled into Nelson (and a campsite right by the trail head) and went for our ride...only to find one trail closed after another.  Such disappointment!  They were either closed for logging or for for spraying or for someone baking banana bread....(kidding, we could only be so lucky!)  This might be the point where we refrain from explaining that in certain parts they spray a poison to kill the possums because there are SO many.  While everything seems to grow really well and really fast in New Zealand, so do things that get a little out of control, such as their rabbits (really- they destroy many farmers' land) and possums...both seem to outnumber the sheep.  New item on our list of where we live...no spraying anywhere nearby!

After being somewhat defeated by the lack of open trails in Nelson, we took Graeme's advice and went for a nice drive down the coast to Takaka.  Takaka is known for its "Bohemian" culture, or as some in California might relate better to, a "Big Sur" type culture.  It was a little hippy, very laid back, and quite beautiful, located on Golden Bay, which is on the northern tip of the southern island.  We had an amazing lunch at a cafe called the Wholemeal Cafe.  The food was light and fresh and perfect.  It was quite a drive to get to Takaka as there was a windy climb of a road, consisting of a good 20 miles (up and another 20 miles down) which was impressive as we are quite sure the entire mountain was solid black marble.

Black marble outcropping on Takaka Pass...

 Solid marble...the picture really doesn't do it justice!

The next morning we rolled out of sunny Nelson and made our way closer to the ferry while camping a final night in Blenheim.  More to come!

More Wanaka Singletrack and Warbirds...

We ventured out for what was to be an outing to Queenstown for a night or two.  While most people here in NZ seem to avoid it because there are so many tourists, we thought we would be able to make the best of it to find some good trails and camp for a couple of nights.  On our way into Queenstown, we stopped at Peregrine Winery for a tasting (or two) of their tasty wines.

 The roof of the Peregrine Wines' cellar was impressive...

And the entrance into the cellar...

We then ventured up the road to Gibbston Valley Wines, where we seemed to find our way into the Cheese tasting shop next door and enjoyed a nice cheesy picnic over more wine!

 A perfect picnic at the Gibbston Cheese tasting shop...cheese won over wine this time around!

Arriving into town we discovered the campsites to be full and congested, and at $50/night, not exactly a bargain!  We drove through town and it was obvious it is a beautiful area, but the frenzy of tourists was, well, quite overwhelming.  Long story short, we beat it out of town faster than most people can spell Queenstown and took the hour jaunt back to Wanaka.  It was a nice drive over the Crown Range, which is the highest paved (public) road in NZ.

 The road into Queenstown from Wanaka was impressive, this picture was taken at the top of the switchbacks below...very tempting to ride on the road bikes when it is "closed" for Winter...

As we drove back into Wanaka, we felt relaxed and at ease again.  There was a certain energy in Queenstown that we were definitely not attracted to!  After three more nights in Wanaka, and three more days of fun singletrack, and the Wanaka farmer's market tomorrow morning, we will finally be heading out and north, via the West coast tomorrow.  Wanaka has a lot of strong points to revisit, and possibly re-live.  Aside from the abundance of year round outdoor activities, they have an equal (if not greater amount) of local resources than where we previously lived in California, with only a fifth the amount of people.  They also have fantastic restaurants, an amazing local bakery, their own locally made ice cream, and rivers and lakes so clean and clear you can drink out of  them (and see the to the bottom). 

Great sculpture in Wanaka

It is about a 500 mile drive up to Nelson, which is on the very northern tip of the southern island.  "Sunny Nelson" as she is known is a beautiful spot with sunny weather and (so we've heard) lots of good riding.  It is also backed up to the Abel Tasman Park which, from the pictures, looks amazing.  From Nelson, we will be taking the InterIslander ferry back to Wellington for a couple nights to visit Graeme again, then north to Rotorua.  Rotorua marks the last of our list of potential places to live as we managed to visit it twice the last time we were here.  The mountain bike World Championships were held in Rotorua a few years back and the single-speed World Championships are being held there this year.  It is a geographic hotbed as well, so to speak, as there is an abundance of geothermal activity which is awesome and translates into amazing hot springs to soak in everywhere...we like that!

This afternoon we ventured out to the Wanaka Airport, which is just a few kilometers south of town.  They are ramping up for their infamous Warbirds Over Wanaka, international airshow, which is in a couple weeks on Easter weekend.  It would be something else to be here to see that!  For today we ventured to the airport cafe and watched a fluster of activity ranging from the variety of helicopters buzzing around us like bees to the skyjumping airplane we watched do "laps" to 15,000 feet before booting a handful of skyjumpers out and watching them fall like rocks from below, before their parachutes deployed.

 Skyjumpers landing overhead...

The cafe at the airport had great food as well...I had a fantastically fresh salad with roast chicken and bacon in it and Z had a lamb burger with grilled eggplant (called aubergine), zuchinni (called courgettes here), and hummus, all on fresh (locally made bread from Wanaka's own amazing bakery) ciabatta bread.  We sat on the porch of the cafe and watched all the activity before venturing over to the Wanaka Warbird Museum.

 Inside the Warbird Museum...A Hawker Hurricane...

DeHavilland Vampire...

New Zealand had over 100,000 soldiers in World War I (for only having a population of 1,000,000 at the time this was a lot of soldiers) and over 200,000 in World War II (at this time their population had only grown to 1,500,000), which accounted for 2/3 of all men.  Needless to say their efforts contributed to "winning" the war.  It was neat to see the warbirds in the museum however it was especially neat because a couple of the planes were being prepared for the airshow, so the models were actually still fully operational!

As much fun we have had traveling around for a full month now, we are excited to come to a stop!  The scenery has been amazing, the trails have been fantastic, the food has been memorable, and we are ready to slow down enough to be able to call/Skype our lovely friends and family at home a lot more as it is near impossible while on the road.  Getting into a bit more of a normal schedule sounds quite nice as well!  So, good thoughts and enjoyment of the next couple weeks before this part of the journey wraps up to begin the next chapter...whatever that may hold, we are excited to find out!

Wanaka, Hokey Pokey Ice Cream, and TBE list...

 Another shabby sunrise in Wanaka...

We have been thorough in our journey covering the terrain between Dunedin and Wanaka, which is only a good three hours drive west from Dunedin. 

 The drive from Dunedin to Naseby was filled with amazing rock outcroppings...

The first night out from Dunedin we camped in the Naseby forest, known by locals for its fun mountain bike trails through its forest.  While the trails were fun, we wanted more.  We continued on to Alexandra, known for being the stone fruit capital in New Zealand as well as having the least amount of rain.  Alex, as her friends call her, is on the Otago Rail Trail, a 150km long (dirt, perfectly maintained) rail trail stretching from just outside Alex toward Dunedin.  People from all over the world come to ride this "trail" through the beautiful terrain on the south island.  Alex was a cross between Colorado and Santa Fe, New Mexico.  It was obvious there were trails to be ridden, however when we woke in the morning, the weather had made a bit of a shift to blasting chilly winds, rain, and after we ditched the riding idea altogether and start driving toward Wanaka, snow in the not so distant mountains.  We also learned that the weekend we were heading into Wanaka, so was the rest of the world.  There was a large A&P Farm Show, similar to a state fair in the US, and a very large point to point mountain bike race, the infamous Matutapo finishing on Saturday. 

 A beautiful, left hand drive Impala parked at the A&P show gave us great joy...

There were no accommodations within the town so we ventured a few kilometers (forgive us for referring to distance in kilometers but we are doing our best to make the transition and any little bit helps) out of town to the quiet domain of Luggate. 

 Quite possibly the largest bellows we've seen in the historic Luggate Hotel

We also met up with some friends of Zeph's, who were on holiday on the south island as well.  With Rich and his wife Raven, there were now four of us to camp and tramp around exploring the area together.

 Gluten-free crepes/clatitas make camping not too rough...

It is funny because Wanaka is the younger innocent sibling to the highly commercialized and internationally known Queenstown, which is only an hour through the mountains south.  And, Luggate, is the younger, innocent, understated sibling of Wanaka.  Beautiful and quiet, Luggate is surrounded by the same beautiful mountains as Wanaka, minus the lake and this weekend, all the people. 

 Can't measure wind chill in photos but we assure you a bit too chilly for us to ride...

The next day Zeph and I ventured out on our mountain bikes to see what kind of success we would have exploring on our own (with local maps but no local recommendations).  At the same time, Rich and Raven ventured out on their own for a hike to the Rob Roy Glacier.  Our ride ended up being just what we needed being a nice, three hour "spin" on the Outlet Trail, all the way to Lake Wanaka's neighbor, Lake Hawea.  It was a beautiful ride next to the Clutha River, over bridges, completely on a relaxing, rolling track...We came back into town to meet up with Rich and Raven again for one of the best dinners we have experienced in New Zealand at The White House in Wanaka.  We'll apologize now for not providing (or taking for that matter) any pictures of this meal as it was too good...we were so consumed...too consumed to even take pictures (it does, evidently happen).  I had a salad with grilled Haloumi, roasted beets and carrots, hazelnuts...and Zeph had a venison meal over lentils that melted (literally) in your mouth.  Brilliantly enough all four of us had dessert and it was a bit like a dessert lazy susan as we all got to sample one another's finishing plate.  Rich had a Chocolate Apricot brownie with fresh ice cream, Raven had a roast pear with fresh ice cream and carmelized hazelnuts, Zeph had Avogado, which is fresh vanilla ice cream with an espresso shot and a shot of frangelica liqueor, and I had poached figs with blue cheese and cumin shortbread.  Again, our apologies there aren't pictures.

A little bit of flowing singletrack is never a bad thing...even walking!

We are a bit besides ourselves with Wanaka.  It originally wasn't even on our itinerary until we went to the Alpine Epic bike race and met a handful of people from this amazing little spot (we have since noticed we have yet to meet anyone from Wanaka that aren't blissfully happy and in phenomenal shape).  Then, along our travels, we met more and more people who had lived or owned or vacationed in Wanaka and all of them got this glazed over look of love when they reflected on Wanaka.  We'll do our best to describe her but please keep in mind sometimes words can only go so far.  For outdoor enthusiasts such as ourselves, there is a never ending list of things to do here.  It is in the mountains and it does have four seasons, however it is also high desert and only snows in town a couple times a year.  It is minutes to snow fields and amazing, flowy singletrack (trails) are EVERYWHERE.  It also has good personality and only about 7,500 people residing here.  The second day here our new friend Ollie, took us on a fantastic (four hour) sampling of Wanaka's best trails.  We had a fantastic time and even after the first day we were now understanding why everyone seems to love this place. It is set on the edge of Lake Wanaka, offering water sports to the long list of other activities.  Fun times. 

 Lake Wanaka...season duration- October 1 thru Septermber 30

We also managed to find a fantastic place in Wanaka serving fresh fruit ice cream, which has become one of our favorite delights.  They take fresh (or frozen) fruit (such as blueberries and blackberries), then combine them with either ice cream or frozen yogurt (the real stuff without the three hundred ingredients and preservatives the frozen yogurt in the US has) and push it through this extractor to make...fresh fruit ice cream (or yogurt).  It is heaven.  It only got better as they served Hokey Pokey ice cream at the same joint so we could each get one and share the other.  Heaven...especially after a 3 or 4 hour ride!  Hokey Pokey ice cream is second only to vanilla as far as flavors consumed in New Zealand.  It is a confection made out of golden syrup, that when mixed into ice cream leaves these perfect little crunchy pockets of carmel here and there.  If you ever have the opportunity to try this flavor, do it!

 Fresh fruit ice cream all the way...blueberry & blackberry to be more precise

And a little Hokey Pokey ice cream makes for a complete meal...

We have also noticed that in the three days we have been in Wanaka, we have been going non-stop.  Wanaka has almost worn us out (in the best of ways)...A three hour ride the first day, a four hour ride the next, and today we did a 3 hour hike that was, at last straight out of Lord of the Rings scenery, up to the Rob Roy Glacier.  Rob, is a hanging glacier that words (again) cannot give justice. 

 The drive up to the Rob Roy glacier was beautiful...

Swinging bridge, maximum capacity of 5 people...a little sketchy even with 2!

 The beautiful glacier gorge below Rob Roy

 Rob Roy's beautiful glacier waters

Imagine a Yosemite-type canyon with the Bridal Veil Falls to the 10th power, and a glacier on top, feeding all the falls, all about 1,000 meters above the trail.  Breathtaking and beautiful, Rob delivered. 

Picnic of deliciousness...we'll refrain from telling you how much of that fresh, warm bread we ate...

We enjoyed a picnic of fresh baked bread (from the bakery this morning), local cheese and salami, organic apples, and some infamous RJ's licorice.  Quite an epic picnic spot only about an hour's drive north of Wanaka. 

This brings us to our TBE (The Best Ever) list...otherwise known as a top ten list...thus far!

1. The Best Ever ice cream- Tie between Tangos fresh fruit ice cream and Hokey Pokey ice cream
2. The Best Ever seafood- anywhere in this country, just not fried fish on the Cormandel Peninsula
3. The Best Ever river- the Clutha river, winding from Lake Wanaka to Lake Hawea with its pristine turquoise color and clearness...you can literally see to the bottom of the river where it is 15-20 feet deep
4. The Best MTB trails- thus far tied between Rotorua and Wanaka, more research needed in both places
5. The Best Ever whooping on a mountain bike- Day 1 of the Alpine Epic mountain bike race...5 1/2 hours of heat, strong (70+kph) winds over undulating (famous word used to describe most this race by the race organizers even when they were over 1,000 meters off in describing the vertical ascension for the day)
6. The Best Ever venison- The White House, Wanaka
7. The Best Ever farmer's market- Otago farmer's market in Dunedin on Saturday mornings...sorry SLO, but more organics, fewer people showing crack, and the smell of nitrate free bacon won us over
8. The Best Ever hot springs- tied between Hanmer Springs and Lake Tekapo on the south island with Rotorua's hot springs on the north island
9. The Best Ever seafood restaurant- Fleur's, fresh off the boat (no exaggeration), understated, simple, amazingly fresh to the core, Fleur's delivered and then some
10. The Best Ever licorice- Tie between RJ's licorice roll and RJ's chocolate filled licorice roll

Dunedin and Penguins!

Dunedin gets a big thumbs up.  Don't know if it is a place we want to live (even the locals bring up the weather issue) but it is definitely a great spot, especially for a "city".  The population is about 120,000 with a university and some really neat old cathedrals scattered about.

 

St.Paul's Cathedral in the center of Dunedin

 Dunedin is set in a harbor/bay on some really steep hills.  5 minutes and you're out of town, which is a nice feature for those of us who tend to get a little claustrophobic even in nice cities... One of the streets, Baldwin Street, is claimed (Guiness Book of World Records) to be the world's steepest street.  We have been mountain biking on some trails just past it and it is funny to see the tour buses unloaded, with people wandering around staring at the street.  It is (for the record) really steep at 35%.

 

Baldwin Street at 35%- is it steeper up or down?!

 

The view from Derek and Kashi's office sucks- A joke only because it is one of the most beautiful train stations they get to look at every day.  The only downside for them are all the tourists' backs they have to look at every day who are taking pictures of the beautiful train station, leaning against their office window.

 

Treehugger. In her defense, it was a Redwood.

We have been fortunate to be house sitting for new friend Derek (who we met at the Alpine Epic race last week) and his family while they had to make an emergency trip to Australia.  The house has been quite a treat as we were needing and wanting a place to relax for a few days.  While it has been nice camping from one spot to the next, it brings us great pleasure to be in this lovely home with a lovely kitchen and a lovely fireplace and most importantly (after camping air mattresses) a lovely bed!  The home overlooks St.Clair, which was voted one of the top 50 surf spots in the world which doesn't mean that much to us (yet) aside from watching the beautiful breaks.  Just down the street, and almost inset into the ocean is a saltwater swimming pool.  We were expecting saltwater similar to what we used to experience at the Kennedy pool however, this was the real stuff! It is, literally, filtered, heated, ocean water!

 

View from our kitchen...kidding! Good aerial of Dunedin...

 

Tempting hot, fresh date scones are Everywhere!!

On Saturday, we were fortunate enough to go to Dunedin's Farmer's Market.  Now, carnivores hear us out on this one...it smelled like bacon!  Not only was there amazing produce (it is their high season) of all varieties, but there was bacon.  These folks know their bacon like no other.  Even the average grocery store has at least 5 brands of nitrate-free, preservative free, (-ate) free bacon in a variety of cuts.  It is leaner, lovelier, than one can imagine.  So we are walking around the market, smelling the bacon aroma, then the fresh coffee aromas, then the baker's and all their fresh delights and their aromas, and the real question was what were we going to have for breakfast?  Or, what weren't we going to have for breakfast?  We ended up having fresh crepes (we'll call them crepes for now because they were being made by a french woman but my Romanian ancestors will be proud that the rest of the time we call them clatitas).  She even had gluten-free crepes that she was making on a large (20-inch) cast iron crepe maker.  I got the cheese and egg version and Zeph got the ham and cheese version and we'll both testify now that they were indeed something to write home about!  Not even time to take a picture...Fantastically fresh and delicious.

My mum asked the other day if it feels as far south, or as close to Antarctica as we actually are, and the answer is, not really...except for the penguin signs and the summer wind that feels like California's winter wind.  New friend Kashi sent us to Sandfly Beach the other day, which we were hoping wasn't a dirty trick as sandflies can be ferocious!  But we set out for a picnic adventure to Sandfly Beach because he said it was a good spot to see the penguins come in.  We saw one penguin, which still makes our day and a handful of happy, napping, furry seals.  No pictures of the penguins yet as they are still too far away even for Zeph's zoom lense...We are thinking the Sandfly name comes from the 50mph winds blasting the sand down the valley onto the beach, giving us some awesome natural (much needed) exfoliation!

 

Z's Birthday celebration spilled over into March- he got a hall pass because of the race!

The wish in progress...funny lighting due to the fact it was in the tent!

We continue to meet unbelievably nice people here.  This makes missing our favorite people at home a smidgen easier...just a smidgen though.  We leave Dunedin tomorrow to head back for the mountains.  We have been hearing over and over about some trails in the Naseby Forrest, which is near Ranfurly, on our way toward Wanaka and Queenstown.  Queenstown is known for its tourist-trapped-ness and wild bungee jumping, jet boating, heli-skiing/biking, (don't worry folks, none of this for us as we are plenty excited with just exploring the mountain bike trails) escapades but we are most excited about the fun trails we keep hearing about.  We will be meeting up with some new and old friends in Wanaka, which sounds like a beautiful area, on a lake, in the middle of the mountains.  From there we will be making our way up the west coast, but until then, we will keep writing and keep taking pictures, and well eating for that matter.  Best to all and thanks for reading!

The missing pictures!

Here are a few pics that go along with our last update. Unfortunately, slow internet didn't allow us to put them in the first time around. Enjoy!

Heading out of the mountains toward the Pacific Coast

Happy cows live in New Zealand

The view from the outside seating at Fleur's Place. The boats you see bring the seafood straight to the restaurant.

Unassuming and amazing!

Foreground: The fresh seafood platter

Background: Bacon wrapped Blue Cod

Dessert: Pavlova

Our post feast walk

Boulder pieces

One of the 'Giant's Marbles'

Moeraki Boulders


Stay tuned for more!