On the road again!

My oh my... only 3 weeks after getting home from New Zealand... and I'm out again!!! :p

I guess I can't keep still! ;o)

Not my fault this time! Well, not completely my fault... I mean, who could resist the chance to go the Athens for a weekend for a big crazy Greek wedding? Not me, that's for sure! :D

Kiwi Bites! vol.3

• Ouch! I’d forgotten about the “Roaring Forties” :s Crossing Foveaux Straights from Bluff into Stewart Island made me feel very queasy! You’d think crossing that region (and back) two years in a row to the Antarctic would have taught me that lesson… Thankfully the one trick I did remember –getting fresh air and eating an apple- did help. Felt better real fast, and the sea spray in my face was fabulous! As were those sooty shearwaters (called muttonbirds here) flying just above the waves.

Muttonbirds flying over the waves of the Foveaux Straights

• This trip is confirming my previous assessment from 3 year ago, that (most) Kiwis are some of the friendliest people I’ve ever met! Whether it be the girl at the Te Anau DOC centre talking about Fiordland penguins and other birds and the advantages/disadvantages of their various Nature guidebooks, or the skipper on the dive boat who used to work on fishing boats out of Bluff telling me fishing tales and good tidbits about Stewart Island. Ditto the 3 bus drivers today who conveyed me from Te Anau to the Stewart Island ferry at Bluff. They helped clear some of the confusion about not being on "the" bus I had booked (but one run by a different company) and being passed along to another bus twice (when we thought we had a direct “drive”). The 2nd driver was particularly fun. I sat behind the drivers on all three rides and he was chatting with me most of the way, talking about his job, things along the route, the beauty of Stewart Island where he’d live if the missus would consent! ;o)

• On the other hand I think I’m going to stop listening to the advice of the STRAY bus drivers on places to stay… ‘cause this backpackers I’m in now at S.I. is pretty bad! No internet (even though they say yes on the website, but 2 old computers who don’t work well don’t count! I'm in the bar of the gorgeous little South Sea Hotel using their Wi-Fi and drinking cider), problems with the gas oven and stove… and outdoor access to the bathrooms in a place where it’s very chilly!!! :s

• LOTS more sheep in the fields crossing Southland… rolling hills with good pastures it seems. Ditto with deer. Still seems weird to see those behind a fence like cattle!

• Stewart Island is FABULOUS! Great place to relax… and wait ‘till I tell you about the birding paradise that is little Ulva Island, and going kiwi spotting at the beach at night! :o)

gazing across the harbour of Oban, Stewart Island's main township

Stewart Island Shags nesting on a rock in the harbour

Kiwi English:

• A dish towel is called a “tea towel” (but Brits use that as well, I never did get it…)

• You leave your car in the car park, and you don’t rent a car, you hire one!

Flying South for the Summer

Well, I’m here now. And it's a lot cooler than up North!  :s

Down in the South Island and on my own. Sniff! I loved my two weeks with my sister, we had a fabulous time (as proven by my state of fatigue and lack of time for blogging!), but her holiday is over so I’m letting her get back to her thesis (yes, there are two of us in the family crazy enough to have started a PhD) and I’m going to take in the southernmost part of the South Island,

Kiwi Bites! vol.2

Argh!!! Blogging problems… travelling with a “local” (i.e. my sister and friends) means staying in all the good spots, off the beaten track… but with no internet access! Add to that exhaustion at the end of the day and socialising (i.e. hang out with people and not glue yourself to a computer and completely ignore everyone else) means I’ve been behind in my blogging about this trip pretty much since Day 1! Sorry ‘bout that. But I’ve been making little notations in a notebook I carry on me, and whenever possible copy them out onto a Word doc and choose the photos in iPhoto so that when I do have internet time I can spew out (hopefully) interesting blog posts about this adventure! And I’m “back-dating” them to the date I would have written them if I could, so don’t be surprised to see posts appearing dated before this one. Namely posts on the Tongariro Crossing, Mt Taranaki, the Forgotten World, Veil Falls, beer tasting, surfers in Raglan or Cathedral Cove in Coromandel.

As of tomorrow I’ll be travelling on my own which means nobody to hang out with (sniff!!!) so more time for the blog. I’ll try whenever I connect to post something recent and something “late”.

Kiwi English:

• Tea towel -> dish towel

• Slips are rock falls or land slides on the road
  
  
  
  

• A Dairy is a small convenience or grocery store

Random shot from the road:

sheep in a quarry!

Beer Tasting in Taranaki!

While most people think of the visual senses (landscapes) when it comes to New Zealand, there is plenty to entrance the other senses as well: songs of odd birds and the crashing of waves (hearing), wild flowers or hot pools (smell), texture of boulders or sand through your feet or grass under your feet (feel) and last but not least: food and drink (taste)! There is some excellent cuisine to be had in many restaurants and cafés around the country, but the most interesting way to tempt your taste buds is by visiting the small wineries or breweries and see where the wine/beer your enjoying is being grown and talk to the people involved in it!

When I was here 3 years ago we stopped at Rimu Grove winery in the Nelson region and ended up buying several bottles of the delectable red and white wines we tasted. 

 

This time it was an organic brewery that crossed our path, so my sister and I pulled into their driveway and decided to try Mike's Premium Organic Beers (from left to right: dark mild Ale, malty Lager, Bohemian Pilsner and the hoppy Double India Pale Ale, with a glass of cider as a bonus -clicking on the names takes you to their tasting notes-):

Here's the result of that tasting:

Oh, perhaps I should have told you that I HATE beer? lol!!! So don't judge them by my faces (full screen is even scarier)... my sister said they were fabulous, particularly the ales! All I can say is: thank God there was a delicious light apple cider to wash it down with! ;o)

And as a bonus, here's what I thought of their blue cheese:

Kiwi Bites! vol.1

Random kiwi thoughts:

• So much for the stereotype, I was here for a whole week before seeing a single sheep (today)! Saw lots of these instead:

             Including road warning signs:

• Kiwis drive like madmen!!! And on 2-lane roads where in most places a reasonable speed limit would be 80 km/h - tops!-, but here the speed limit can be 100 kph... and you still get drivers speeding past you!

curves in deadly Dome Valley

• Oh, and apparently you also have to watch out for strange things on the roads here, lol!:

Kiwi English:

• flip-flops are called jandals

• mosquitos are mozzies

• a bach (pronounced batch) is like a second (holiday) residence... traditionally just a roof over a place to sleep and cook, sometimes without running water or electricity etc., but can be a fully equipped place as well.

More Kiwi English in future Kiwi Bites! For Americans, I've come across a blog chronicling a Round the World Trip with an interesting post on US vs Kiwi English. ;o)

Diving Knights

Ahhh... what a great way to start a trip! With a couple of days in one of New Zealand's best Marine Reserves right after Christmas. FA-BU-LOUS!!! :o)

The Poor Knights Marine Reserve was created in 1981 and was New Zealand's second Marine Reserve. It extends 800 metres offshore from the Poor Knights Islands, volcanic remnants which are located off the west coast of Northland (northernmost region of NZ), just off the harbour town of Tutukaka.

map up on a viewpoint overlooking Tutukaka harbour

Since the water around these islands is sub-tropical (temperature in the water was 22ºC when I went in!) there are a lot of sub-tropical species of fish and invertebrates that you don't see elsewhere in New Zealand. Also, since the islands basically end in steep cliffs that dive down into the ocean (sometimes to 100m depth) there are plenty of vertical walls to explore for invertebrate species, isolated columns or underwater archways which are a lot of fun to play around!

We headed out of Tutukaka Harbour early in the morning, under a beautiful sky and no wind, and quickly surrounded by a pod of playful bottlenose dolphins who were entertaining the local kayakers! :o)

After hanging around for a bit we sped away from the coast

and towards the islands.

As you can see, the sea was flat as a pancake! HUGE improvement on my previous trip here with my sister 3 years ago. The sea was so rough then I got seasick even in the water and actually vomited underwater! Not a pleasant experience, although I was compensated by being immediately surrounded by fish! lol!

On this map from New Zealand's Department of Conservation you can see our two dive sites for the day: Northern Arch and Middle Arch on the NW coast:

Northern Arch was both scary and fun!

northern side of N.Arch, I dove towards this shot, then around the head back to the cove

It's considered a premium dive spot but very difficult because of the strong currents through the Arch and around the headland. In fact it was all I could do to keep myself within the arch long enough to shoot a photo of this fabulous sponge,

and this scary yellow moray eel!

On the other side I found myself popping up through a beautiful green forest of stalked kelp:

Peaking through the kelp to the rock hidden beneath was rewarding since I spotted (among many other critters) a camouflaged scorpion fish:

this fabulous firebrick starfish:

Even better was coming up out of the kelp at one point and practically bumping into this short-tailed stingray! lol!

  
Was a short dive (1/2h) because my air ran out sooner than usual since it was such an effort fighting the current to get around the headland. In fact, I'm not sure I would have been able to make it around in a couple of points if I hadn't been pulling myself along with the help of the kelp! Now those are some sturdy stalks! ;o)


The second dive was at Middle Arch,

and since on this one I went down with my sister and her boyfriend (they were free-diving at the first spot), we mostly stayed under the arch so we could all practice our underwater macrophotography, or taking pictures of each other like this one my sister took of me at the entrance to the arch:

I enjoyed taking in all the details, like this school of fish following the archway up to the surface,

or this stalked kelp outlined in the blue waters:

There were some gorgeous sponges and gorgonias like this one:

and a several more moray eels hiding amongst the rocks

Also among the fishies, yummy (according to my sis) pink mao mao

and blue mao mao:

But the highlights were definitely all the small nudibranchs (small shell-less molluscs) we were searching for on rock and algae surface. Like this little (~5 cm?) clown nudibranch:

or these interestingly active Verco's Tambja nudibranch (huge! almost 10 cm!):

You can get a better idea of their size in these two pictures my sister took:

Then there was the fun of chasing after stingrays trying to get a decent photo, only got one, but it ain't half bad! ;o)

Almost as good (and lots of fun), following a trail of bubbles down the wall, into a little cave, and finding myself in an air bubble!

Awesome!

'Twas a fabulous day! Wish we could have gone again but the weather was against us the next day so we only went out in the afternoon along the coast for some free-diving and spear-fishing for the spearos...

I'll have to see if I can get another dive day in when I'm in the South Island! (if I can afford it, gulp!)

Sources:
Wikipedia
NZ-DOC
Interesting little video on the DOC website.
Want more info/photos/stories? Seafriends NZ

Haere-mai Aotearoa!

Or in other words:

WELCOME TO NEW ZEALAND!!!

Welcome to a land proud of its Maori heritage.

To a land of magnificent beaches,

Karekare beach