Cape Palliser

As part of a free festival in Wellington we saw a heavy metal band that sings in Maori called ‘Alien Weaponry’. They were pretty impressive, especially considering they’re all younger than 20.

Our next trip was a last minute weekend stay around the coast from Wellington. This bit of the coast is sparsely populated; here’s the view from the lighthouse at Cape Palliser.

There’s a big seal colony on the cape, where we saw about 200 seals. They were obviously pretty used to people being around because they didn’t seem to mind you taking pictures of them.

We stayed at a hotel on the coast and watched the sun go down with a couple of beers.

Finally, we took a hike out to the Putangirua pinnacles, which were created by different types of rock eroding at different speeds.

South island road trip

Mum and Dad came over to New Zealand in mid-march to join us for a trip around the south island. We took the ferry over and saw a pod of dolphins from the top deck, which swam with us for a while.

The first stop was Blenheim, where we checked out the aviation heritage centre. While it might sound like Dad and I dragged Ash and Mum along to this, everyone was actually very impressed with it. They had these really cool dioramas created by Peter Jackson (as a lot of things seem to be in this country!) Most of the planes were from his own collection, and a lot of them are in flying condition.

On the drive down the coast the next day, we had to stop at roadworks a few times, but every time we did we got to see seals lying on the rocks. The next stop was Tekapo, where we went for a walk by the lake at night and Ash got this cool photo of the Church of the Good Shepherd.

Next we headed on through Lindis Pass on the way to Te Anau. 

Here’s the view from our hotel in Te Anau.

The next day, we got on a boat over lake Manapouri, as our next destination was isolated from the road network; there’s only one road on the other side. We took a shuttle bus on the other side and got this view from the top of the ridge, looking down into Doubtful Sound. 

We boarded our boat for a tour of the sound, and stayed on board overnight.

The next stop was Queenstown, where we got this view from the top of the luge track (this is a kind of go-kart track down the side of a hill that uses gravity for propulsion – they’re great fun).

The end of summer

A while back we went out to a restaurant called Hia Kai, which serves modern versions of traditional Maori food. Some of the flavours were a bit out there, and I wasn’t a big fan of the mussel-flavoured ice cream, but it was definitely a new experience. We got three dessert courses – here’s the last one.

We checked out the terracotta warriors exhibition at Te Papa museum. I didn’t know much about Chinese history so it was an interesting topic to learn more about.

We got a free pass to the zoo through our friend Hayden. As well as all the standard animals, we saw the Kea (a parrot native to New Zealand) and a Dingo. The signs warning children against climbing over the fences were pretty hilarious. 

Next up was the Newtown festival, a street party across ten different streets, with all sorts of crafts, food and drink on sale. We managed to come away with gin, port and limoncello.

Finally, we checked out a concert in the Wrights Hill Fortress, which was built in the Second World War as a gun emplacement to protect Wellington from invasion by Japan. The acoustics were pretty unusual.

Cricket and a penguin

 We began the year with a visit to Levin for our friend Hayden’s birthday, which we celebrated with a barbeque and boardgames. In the morning, we went to the A&P show in town, which is a kind of showcase of farm animals, machinery and crafts. Here are some of the prize piglets:

The winning entries in the baking competition:

And the results of the wellington boot decorating competition:

The next weekend, we caught the ferry over to Somes Island in Wellington harbour. The island was previously a quarantine zone for sick immigrants and was also used to house prisoners of war. It’s probably about half a mile across, so it only takes a couple of hours to walk around, but it was nice to feel like we were out of the city while still getting fantastic views of it. We even saw a penguin on the way back.

Next up was the fair in Martinborough, a little town that was a 90 minute drive out of Wellington. While we ended up buying some handmade mugs, we just enjoyed soaking up the atmosphere. When we finished having a look around, we headed over to a winery for lunch. Ash got into the spirit of it and ordered a tasting tray – suffice it to say that there’s a lot more alcohol in one of these than a beer tasting tray! She made me try some wine, but as you can see from my expression wine is still wasted on me.

The following Wednesday was Waitangi day, a public holiday that commemorates the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi between the British government and the Moari chiefs. This treaty is considered the founding document of New Zealand. As having a day off in the middle of the week is a bit awkward, we decided we would stay in town, so we bought tickets for the New Zealand vs India twenty20 cricket match. I’ve never been to a cricket match before but I had a great time.

Nest up was the Makara mountain bike park with my friend Adrien. Visiting a proper mountain-biking area was another first for me and I’ll definitely be checking out some of the other rides around Wellington. I rounded off the day at the Chinese New Year celebrations in town, where I caught a performance by an acrobatic troupe and watched the fireworks on the waterfront.

Christmas

Another beer-themed post this time – there’s just a lot of good beer in this country!

We started off December with a trip to Beers at the Basin, a festival at Wellington’s cricket ground. About 20 breweries set up stands where you could sample their beers, and there was live music throughout the day. We had a great time and would highly recommend it.

You might remember a while back that Ash got me a ‘brew your own beer’ voucher for my birthday. It has now finished brewing and we are drinking our way through it. I’m really happy with how it turned out – I wouldn’t feel mugged off if I payed for it in a pub.

Next we went for a walk with our friend Harriet to Orongorongo. This is only ten miles out of Wellington but it feels like proper wilderness. 

We have driven up to Ash’s family in Tauranga for Christmas. To break up the journey, we stopped at the NZ army museum, which was surprisingly good. They had this model of New Zealand’s attempt to manufacture a tank (the short story – it wasn’t very good) and these examples of art that soldiers made in their spare time out of old ammunition cases.

We had taken our friend David along with us for the drive as his family lives in Hamilton, which is the same general direction that we were going. 

On Christmas day, we sat outside and drank a lot of champagne and beer. Ash’s parents gave us some folding camp chairs, a gas cooker and a kettle so we need to start planning some camping trips.