Chaddy's Charters & Lone Star

The skies cleared this Saturday and we saw the sun again! We took a boat ride with Chaddy's Charters around the sugar loaf islands. These are islands that are extinct volcanos in the Tasman sea just off the coast. Chaddy let us both drive the boat.

Chaddy always brings his dog along for the ride. Sometimes he goes fishing while they are out and every now and again he catches something. Today he gave it a great attempt but he did not catch anything. He pulls on the line every once in a while to see if there is a fish on the end. It was pretty funny to watch.

A few days ago we were walking around the streets of New Plymouth and came across a delicious smell. It happened to be this Turkish Kebab place. So today we decided to give it a try. It was very tasty! This goes to show that a little hole in the wall can make a very great meal.

Sunday night Jilling and Janine took us out for a very nice dinner at Lone Star New Plymouth. This was a nice feel of "home" but the menu looked a bit different. They have sea food, mexican food, and of course steak. Since I have a mexican food shaped hole in my stomach I ordered one of the best burritos I've had in weeks! John got some tasty prawns.

Pizza, Rugby, Falls, and more

We had another adventurous pizza from a local kiwi place called "Hell". They have some very interesting choices for pizza toppings! We picked one called Damned, it had camembert, cashews, spinach, sundried tomatoes, avocado, mushrooms, onions, pineapple, black pepper, and we added pepperoni. It was quite tasty! And the pizza box has a cutout to fold into a coffin for your left overs. So convenient! Check out the website and see which pizza you might like to try. http://hellpizza.co.nz

Friday night we attended our first Rugby game! It was at Yarrow Stadium, which lucky for us is about 3 blocks away. Taranaki played against Waikato but lost in the last few minutes. We enjoyed beer in the can and some tasty little donuts with cinnamon and sugar. They were like mini donut shaped sopapillas. We also got our hands autographed in very permanent marker by the mascot, Ferdinand the Bull.

Saturday we took a drive around the east side of Mt. Taranaki to Stratford. From here we went into Egmont National Park, the Dawson Falls area. There we saw the oldest operating simple hydro-electric power station. It was built by General Electric Company, New York, no earlier than 1896. Originally used for power generation in Tasmania, it was sold to the New Zealand Army for use at the Trentham Military Camp near Wellington until the eventual arrival of mains power to the Wellington Region in 1922. The Dawson Falls power station has provided heating and lighting more or less continuously since 1935 by way of a pelton wheel, which turns 300 revolutions per minute, giving an output of 27 kilowatts of electricity. We then took a short but very wet, muddy, and chilly hike into Dawson Falls.

A little north of the falls is where the Manganui Ski Club (ski field) is located. The field is closed and has been for several weeks due to lack of snow. When people ski here they have to park in the lot then hike about 30 minutes to get to the base lodge. From there they have the choice of two lifts or one trail with a lift to bring you back to the lodge. This is the highest point on Mt. Taranaki you can drive.

In order to prepare us for our upcoming adventures with Black Betty we decided to add a little prep-table to the back. Jilling had the wood for us so we just had to track down the hinges, screws, and bolts. This from now on is our "kitchen".

Waitomo Caves & Bridal Veil Falls

We took a little adventure north of New Plymouth to the Waitomo Caves and camped (with Black Betty) near the caves. This is a Maori name, wai means water and tomo means cave, so waitomo is water cave. There are several cave tours with different companies, but we went on the most popular Waitomo Glow Worm cave tour. It is a really interesting cave because the river (about the size of the Fraser River) flows right into the solid rock! That is how the entrance to the cave was discovered. We entered through another entrance into a very large cave system. There was some really huge caverns and spaces with lots of stalactites and stalagmites. As we descended the cave we got onto a boat that floated upstream along the river (through the original entrance) to view the glow worms hanging from the ceiling. It was amazing seeing these small worm like animals glowing in complete darkness! The glow worms looked like the stars in night sky. They glow to catch bugs on their sticky spider like string that they suspend from the ceiling. New Zealand is the only place in the world that these animals live. Pretty neat! Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures in the cave so if you want to see more pictures look at this website http://www.waitomo.com/waitomo-glowworm-caves.aspx

From the caves we traveled on some New Zealand "secondary roads" aka dirt. We went up the coast stopping in Kawhia briefly, then heading to Bridal Veil Falls. These falls were pretty amazing. They are as high (55 Meters) as Niagara falls but the river is not as big. Again the river was about the size of the Fraser, but it just got to the edge of this huge drop and then nothing but free falling water. Check out the video!

From the falls we continued up the coast on back roads to a small surfing village called Raglan where we camped the night. This was an interesting little community because it is a surf city located on a river, but just south of town is some of the best surfing in New Zealand. Unfortunately, it was raining so we did not make it to the beach so we may need to visit again this summer!

On our way back to New Plymouth we drove through Hamilton (pretty big city) and Cambridge (known for their horse racing). We then decided to take some more secondary roads to see some different parts. Our map indicted these roads as sealed (paved) roads, but once again we found more gravel roads. The one section of gravel road was one lane for about 25 km. We did not pass one car in the entire section, but lots of sheep! At one point in our drive we got stuck in "Sheep Rush Hour" and had to stop for what I would guess +/- 100 sheep to make their way down the road. We have a pretty sweet video, below. In addition, we learned that when you reach a fork in the road it is either a fork in the road, or a city listed on the map. We would be driving along looking for a city name on our map, but the "city" would consist of nothing more than a blue sign indicating distances to the next "city." On occasion there would be a local farmers house near by, but by no means a city. Literally just a fork in the road!

Pizza and Parking Adventure

Tuesday night after a somewhat hectic day with the kids we went out for a night on the town. It was beautiful and sunny so we had a nice walk down the coastal walkway. One of our new friends suggested a restaurant called Arborio for dinner. It has great big windows that look out to the water where we enjoyed our pizza and beer. This was not ordinary pizza....

Pizza #1 seared beef, red onion, roast pumpkin, zucchini, marinated feta, and pesto. Even though the picture doesn't look like it, this pizza was very tasty!

Pizza #2 moroccan spiced lamb, tomato, eggplant, spinach, citrus creme fraiche. This pizza was a little weird with the citrus creme fraiche. It was like a sweet orange/lemon sauce on the top. We think it would have gone better on a cake.

After our delicious pizza we went back to retrieve Black Betty from the city parking garage. Those of you who know the downtown Denver parking garage story, you know where this is going. Evidently the only parking garage in downtown New Plymouth closes at 6pm! Boy were we in a pickle now! Both gates were chained and pad locked. After spending 30 minutes brainstorming on what to do (call the security to make sure we weren't going to get towed, leave Black Betty here for the night, try to break the chain, have Jilling come pick us up, walk home, etc), we found the one other person who's car was still there too. He said, "Have you tried the exit at the top of the garage?" What! There is an exit at the top! Needless to say Black Betty made it home safe and sound and she got to park for free that night. :)

After the parking garage adventure we had to make a stop at Tip Top (our new favorite ice cream) for an ice cream bar. We got Memphis Meltdown BIG NUTS! Just to make your mouth water a little bit here is what it has, a whopping serve of the smoothest caramel, rippled vanilla ice cream, covered in nuts and plunged deep into delicious thick milk chocolate. On the package it says "WARNING: This is an ice cream product, it is not to be used for directing aircrafts, or increasing fertility."

For those of you who need another laugh. This was Tuesday's headline for the local paper. The cat (pussy) was stuck in a palm tree for 4 days before they figured out how to get her out!

Rain then sun...

We used our day off on Saturday to venture down the beautiful coast. A storm was pounding the West side of New Zealand so we got to experience a NZ downpour! The clouds and rain gave the landscape a mystical appearance. Along the way we visited Cape Egmont. There we saw a lighthouse and made a video of the waves crashing on the shore.

Here is a 54 second video of the rough ocean waves.

After our rainy drive to the cape we had a chai tea and a tasty chicken pie from Sugar Juice Cafe in Opunake.

On Sunday the clouds cleared and the rain stopped. We went tramping (hiking) at Lucy's Gulch in Egmont National Park. All the National Parks in NZ are free (maybe the high taxes pay for them?). The trees were very dense and some of them were 100s of years old! We climbed up high enough to get a great view of the ocean.

In this picture New Plymouth is to the far right.

Mexican food in NZ

We decided to make our wonderful hosts some delicious Mexican food for dinner. So we ventured out to the grocery store and lo and behold New Zealand does not know what Mexican food is! We found "the Mexican food aisle", which consisted of an assortment of Mexican meals in a box, mild salsa, two kinds of tortillas, and refried beans. Plan A: Enchiladas. We couldn't find any enchilada sauce or anything remotely close. Plan B: My yummy green chili. No canned or fresh green chilies. Plan C: Fajitas. Beef fajitas are clearly more tasty, but we had to settle for chicken. Unfortunately chicken is "out of season" so says Jilling, so that was quite pricey. Luckily they have cheese and sour cream to add to the top. It will be a tasty meal anyway. Here is a funny thing.... When we were leaving the grocery store we saw a sign that said: Please do not take the trolleys from the car park. :)

New Plymouth

On Sunday (9-6) we went to Pukekura Park with Jilling, Jack, and Jill. This is one of the top parks in New Zealand. Inside of the park they have a small zoo with a handful of animals. The kids got to play at the park and look at the animals. In the afternoon Janine took us to the Mt. Egmont (also known as Mt. Taranaki) visitors center. Mount Egmont is a very large volcano that can be seen from their house. Scientists find this volcano especially interesting because it is due for a major eruption. In the visitors center they were saying an eruption would be bigger than Mt. St. Helens.

Yesterday (9-8) we climbed Partutu. This is a very old volcanic mountain a few hundred feet high. It was a very steep climb, but well worth the ocean and Mt. Egmont views.

After our hike we ventured down to the shore to walk along the beach. All of the sand is black because of the volcanic activity. We watched the sun start to set out over the water.

This is a photo of Partutu from the beach. (the tall pointy one)

Angela has been practicing her driving on the left side of the road with our manual van (Black Betty). You have to shift with your left hand and keep it on the left side of the road! It's a bit weird but we are managing just fine. She stalled the van and flooded the engine only once:)

New Plymouth is a very beautiful little town along the Western coast of New Zealand. It attracts surfers and skiers alike. It is quite hilly because it was formed from the volcano's past eruptions.

Black Betty got her name from the German couple that we bought her from. She has Betty Boop stickers all over her. Jack thinks it's fun to pick them off:)

This is a 10 day old lamb at a friends house. He feels like carpet!

362 KM from Auckland to New Plymouth in "Black Betty"

On Friday we spent the morning hiking around Auckland. We found a really pretty park that overlooked the city. After checking out of our luxury we met with Henrik and Sabrina "the German couple". They bought Black Betty for their travels and fixed her up really nice. She has 3 seats up front and a double bed in the back. We picked her up for only $3,250 NZD! We decided it was time to get out of the busy city of Auckland, so we headed South. As we began our adventure out of New Zealand's biggest city we realized that it was rush hour. It's tricky business navigating and driving out of a packed city on the left side of the road with a manual drive car. We managed to make it to one of the southern suburbs and found a Holiday RV park just as the sun was setting. We camped our first night in Black Betty.

Saturday we started our 362km trek in our new (to us) Mitsubishi L300 van to New Plymouth. For those of you who are not familiar with the metric system, 362 Kilometers is about 225 miles. We are staying with the Zwart family here for the next 4-5 weeks. The drive down the coast was amazingly beautiful. There were rolling hills with cows and sheep, lots of farms, steep mountains with many different types of trees (palm trees included), and little communities along the way. We got a great view of Mount Egmont (also referred to as Mount Taranaki) just outside of New Plymouth and it is still an active volcano.

Five reasons we know we are in a foreign country:

1. Everything is in the metric system.

2. We are driving on the left side of the road.

3. When we were paying for a coke at a gas station John asked me for a "dime" meaning a 10 cent piece and the lady behind the counter looked very confused.

4. We decided to figure out our gas mileage, it came to 9 kilometers/Liter. Hum.......is that good?

5. It's winter, we are wearing winter clothes, but everything is green and people are mowing their lawns.

We made it!

We left DIA at 5:47pm (MST) on Aug. 31, 2009. After two tasty airplane meals, free drinks, a few hours of choppy sleep, crossing the Equator, over 200 pages of vampire reading, 2 movies, crossing the International Date Line, watching the moon turn into an almost full moon, a few more hours of choppy sleep, and almost 16 hours of total air time we arrived in Auckland, New Zealand at 4:55am (New Zealand Standard Time) on Wednesday September 3, 2009. New Zealand is 18 hours ahead of MST. So the easiest way to figure out what time it is for us (if you live in MST) is to add a day then subtract 6 hours. For example, if it's 4pm (MST) on Tuesday, you add a day, so it's 4pm on Wednesday then subtract 6 hours. So it would be 10am NST on Wednesday. :)

We took a shuttle, the scenic way, from the airport to our hotel. Luckily they had a room available at 8am. THANKS DAD!!! Since we arrived so early in the morning we decided to stick it out and stay up all day so we can start adjusting to the time difference. Sitting down sounds like a recipe for sleepiness, so we tried to stay very busy in our zombie form. We had a very tasty lunch at an authentic New Zealand Wendy's, set up a bank account, found the library, visited The Sky Tower (the tallest tower on the Southern Hemisphere), went swimming on the roof (it was a little chilly), and ate at Mexicali (the best mexican restaurant in Auckland). Then we watched our first sunset

in the Southern Hemisphere.

Things we have learned so far:

1. Bathrooms are called Toilets.

2. Elevators are called Lifts.

3. When ordering coffee with cream you need to specify pouring cream not whipping cream and that it should be a little bit added not half of your drink!

4. Looking both ways before crossing the street is as important as ever.

5. Ordering lunch meat from the deli in grams is very tricky!

6. It is difficult trying to figure out how much fruit costs when it says NZ$ per kg.

Stay tuned for our upcoming adventures....buying a van, driving on the left side of the road, and navigating through New Zealand's biggest city :)