Video Killed the Radio Star

 Ok, that one is stretching it.

I finally had time to figure out how to post videos. Turns out I have to select “insert video” on the toolbar. Go figure. So here are some videos from the past few days.

The first waterfall of the trip, just south of Auckland

Boiling hot springs in the Waimangu Volcanic Area

Another waterfall, also in Waitangu

Boiling hot springs at the edge of the lake during the boat tour (you can hear the guide)

Māori music and dance at Whakarewarewa

Mud pots at Whakarewarewa

Surf at a black sand beach

Dawson Falls in Egmont National Park/Mt Taranaki

Fly Me To The Moon

Catching up on the last three days now that we have reached decent WiFi again.

Today is Sunday in New Zealand. It’s still Saturday in the US so the Super Bowl has not happened yet. Kickoff will be 12:30 PM on Monday our time, when we will be hiking in Taranaki National Park. Go Birds!

On Friday we went to Waimangu. Rotorua, where we stayed, is in the midst of an active geothermal zone. You can tell because much of the town smells of sulfur. Waimangu Valley is the area around Mt Tarawera, which last erupted in 1886 (the blink of an eye in geologic time). We hiked down through the valley to the lake, took a boat ride, and then took a bus back up. There was a lot to see, and some of it looked like the moon.

Be glad those don’t come with Smell-o-Vision

We came back, showered, and went to dinner in Rotorua. Then we took a geyser tour at night. I didn’t get many picture because it was, well, dark.

Saturday we visited a living Māori village at Whakawerarera. No, I can’t pronounce it. This village took in the survivors of the 1886 eruption and the women of the village learned about guiding tourists from the women who started guiding before the eruption. The Māori still live in the village, cook in the steam box and hot pools, and bathe in the water that runs off from the cooking pool. 

Māori carved figure with a bowler hat. The melding of cultures is fascinating.

We took a break to eat lunch and then did part of the geothermal walk. It would have been warm enough without walking through clouds of sulfur steam. Even the geologist had enough after about half of the walk.

These are the geysers we saw the night before.

We cooked fresh fish and corn back the ranch (or farm), and got up this morning to pack and head south to New Plymouth. This was supposed to be a rest day after two fairly strenuous days. Well….there was this black sand beach…

And this other black sand beach with sea stacks called the Three Sisters…

And a two km round trip walk to a waterfall.

We landed in New Plymouth a little before five, started laundry, and walked a few block to a yummy dinner. After dinner we strolled along the waterfront. The view from the apartment does not suck.

Now settled in for more laundry and some well-deserved rest before tomorrow’s adventures!

Shine, Little Glowworm, Glimmer

I wrote this on Thursday and had wonky internet at the delightful little farm cottage that was our Rotorua home. Posting on Sunday.

I doubt I’ll come up with song titles for every post. We’ll see.

We packed up and headed south out of Auckland this morning. David is relieved to be done with city driving for a while. He’s getting pretty good at the left side of the road and has navigated quite a few rotaries without incident. And he’ll eventually stop turning on the windshield wipers every time he wants to signal for a turn. Full disclosure: I have repeatedly walked around to the wrong side of the car. The passenger seat is on the left.

It took us about three hours to get to Waitomo. We drove out of the basalt formations that formed the base of yesterday’s waterfall into karst topography - limestone that has been dissolved and eroded by water. When limestone dissolves, it often leaves caves, and there are three large caves in Waitomo. We skipped the high-adventure tour that starts with abseiling (rappelling) down into the cave and ends with a long stretch of crawling out through a tunnel. The accessible 90-minute stroll was much more our speed. The cave is spectacular with huge stalactites and stalagmites and rooms that are 50 meters high.

That would have been worth the price of admission even without the glowworms. Yup. Glowworms.

The river that formed the cave still runs through it, and the worms live on the walls and ceilings near the river. Insects are drawn in to the water and can’t get out, so they fly toward the light thinking it’s an escape and the glowworms literally reel them in with tiny fishing lines. 

Oh, and more formations.

We left the caves and headed back north a few kilometers to the Otorohanga Kiwi House where we did indeed see a kiwi. We can’t share that with you because kiwi are nocturnal and we saw it very dimly in a habitat designed to mimic nighttime. We also saw parakeets, ducks, eels, geckos, and one heron with an attitude.

We’re now checked into a lovely little cottage on the grounds of a working farm. See? Working farm. 

The only way this could be more different from our Auckland high-rise would be if we were in a tent. Civilization isn’t far away, though. We drove into Rotarua for dinner at Atticus Finch. Yes, it’s a tapas bar inspired by “To Kill a Mockingbird” and it’s in New Zealand. Our cocktails were the Harper Lee (me) and the Mr Radley (David). The food was excellent - the highlight were subtly flavored pork dumplings - and as far as we could see had nothing to do with the book. 

Tomorrow: all geology all the time.

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

 We left Honolulu at 1:00 PM yesterday. Well, no. We left Honolulu at 1:00 PM on Monday. Today is Wednesday. We landed at 8:40 PM Tuesday after a 9 hour flight. The International Date Line makes my head hurt. Even my Apple Watch was confused; for most of the day today it insisted it was Tuesday. 

We had a bit of a panic when we got to the airport on Monday because we didn’t know we needed permission from New Zealand immigration to enter the country. Turns out there’s an app for that. We downloaded it, filled it out, and after we submitted the info it said “Most are approved within 72 hours.” Yikes. Luckily for us they under-promised and over-delivered: we were approved less than thirty minutes later, walked through TSA pre-check, and found some lunch with a much-needed cocktail.

New Zealand is also very careful about protecting their agriculture and ecosystem. The carry-on luggage was sprayed with an insecticide after we landed (we were assured it was completely safe and non-toxic except, I presume, to bugs) and we had to declare not only any food items but also any hiking or camping gear that had been previously used. Our boots passed inspection, they let David keep the turkey jerky, and we got to the rental car about 90 minutes after we landed.

I am very grateful that David is doing the driving because even as a passenger, this left-side-of-the-road thing terrifies me. We had no difficulty finding the AirBnB apartment, which is a few blocks from the water in an up-and-coming neighborhood. This place has all mod cons, including USB-A and USB-C outlets on each side of the bed. We got everything plugged in and fell into bed.

View from the balcony (in the morning)

This morning we walked across Victoria Park to a supermarket that opened early, acquired eggs, ham, cheese, and butter, and returned to make our breakfast. David had coffee with a local glassblower and I went to the coffee shop on the ground floor for a latte, did the dishes, and figured out where to buy a cooler. We prefer to stay in apartments rather than hotels so we have a bit more space, someplace to sit other than the bed and the ability to cook our own breakfast. Since we’ll be in New Zealand for just over three weeks we will cook some of our dinners as well - even I can’t imagine a whole month of restaurant meals - and so we need a cooler to keep food safe in the car. When David got back, we headed south a little ways to Mauku to see a waterfall. Have I mentioned how much I love waterfalls? This one is on private property with a small entry fee and they’ve built a water garden and event space as well as a café. It’s not the most peaceful place - the waterfall sits right next to a busy lumberyard  - and much of the water garden is dilapidated. The waterfall itself was lovely and we had a delicious lunch in the café.

We drove back to Auckland and ended up at Mitre10, which is the NZ equivalent of Home Depot right down to the orange signage. They had the cooler we needed, and we made it back to the apartment and walked over to a closer grocery to stock up on a few other things. We couldn’t resist a stop at the local bottle shop right across the street for a couple of bottles of New Zealand white wine.

We spent some quiet time at the apartment and went to the QT hotel for drinks at the roof bar and dinner at Esther. Sooo good. Now time to re-combobulate our suitcases and get ready for Rotorua tomorrow via the glowworm caves!

Westward Ho!

 We flew out of Seattle at 7:00 AM, which meant we had to leave for the airport at 4:30 AM, which meant the alarm went off at 4:00 AM. Yawn. And then there was de-icing, for which we are grateful, so we took off about 20 minutes late. Since we didn’t have a connection, that was fine. What was less fine was the hour we spent in the airport waiting for our checked bags. I am grateful they finally arrived intact.

This is an overnight layover in Honolulu, so at first I figured we’d stay in an airport hotel. It turns out that  Waikiki Beach is about the same distance from the airport as the airport Hampton Inn, so….we took a cab to Waikiki Beach, quickly change our clothes (OK, maybe that was just me) and headed out for fish tacos for lunch. Yum.

After changing into bathing suits, we headed to the beach and into the water to convince ourselves that we had really left frigid Pennsylvania (and only slightly less frigid Seattle) behind. Floating in the Pacific in the shadow of Diamond Head. What’s not to like?

We cooled off at the poolside bar and then put our feet up in the hotel room for a while before heading to dinner at the Hula Grill. Pumpkin hummus (I know, but it was really good) followed by fresh fish with ginger pesto. The “pesto” didn’t have any cheese or nuts. No complaints. It did have lots of pickled ginger and fresh cilantro. So good. The view didn’t suck, either.

The evening ended with a nightcap on the balcony of our hotel room (small, overlooking a main drag, still fun). Tomorrow we find our way back to the airport and then finally off to New Zealand!

Seattle!

 It was a long day yesterday. I woke up early, ran around a bit, and then we left for the airport at 2:15. Our flight left on time and after a fair amount of turbulence landed in Seattle a little early, so the gate wasn’t ready…eventually we got to the gate, took the train to the main terminal, retrieved our bags, and got a cab to the hotel. By then it was after 11:00 Pacific time. We hadn’t had dinner. Tried the bar in the hotel and a bar across the street, chose not to walk three blocks because it was seriously windy, and ended up ordering Thai food, which arrived at midnight. Yawn.

Today we had a lovely breakfast near the Pike Place Market and then wandered around the market before heading toward the Pacific Northwest Ballet. We stopped for lunch at a Japanese restaurant and watched the weather change from windy and cloudy to pouring rain to wintry mix and then to sun. It wasn’t a long lunch, trust me. We took a Lyft to the ballet, which was amazing. I never thought Sleeping Beauty was connected to the archetypes of Pacific Northwest Native mythology. Then again, I’m not Preston Singletary.

After the ballet we started to walk back to the hotel through Seattle Center - museums and fountains and public art.

See the whales?

We found ourselves near the Chihuly Glass and Gardens exhibit center. We had to go in, of course. And then we had to have a drink at the bar. 

See? We really were in Seattle.

From there we went to Le Coin for dinner - oysters and venison for David, French onion soup for me. Yum. Now back at the hotel getting ourselves organized for a very early flight to Honolulu tomorrow!

This is the Dull Post

I hope this will be the most boring post I write! I’m using it to make sure this actually works from my new iPad. This will get more interesting, I promise! We leave today for New Zealand and Australia via Seattle and Hawaii and return March 10 after a few days in Kauai.

Six weeks is a long time. Neither of us has ever taken a trip this long (unless you count David’s summers in the field during grad school). We already have a long list of places we want to return to - Iceland, Alaska, Croatia, Italy - and we doubt that we’ll ever get back to New Zealand, so we wanted to give ourselves time to see everything we could plus extra time to break up the travel to and fro. First leg: Philly to SeaTac. The flight leaves at 6:20 and the car is picking us up at 2:15.

This is the very clean refrigerator. Why, yes, we do have a lot of condiments. Not shown: the entire shelf of cocktail syrups in the door. The ham and cheese will go in the freezer before we leave. Everything else will be available for the housesitter. Not sure what he’ll do with the preserved lemons.

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Back right: the large suitcase with outdoor gear: Camelbacks, boots, wool socks, poles, hats, swimwear, Croakies, dry bags, and a few things I’m forgetting. Front right: large suitcase with clothes and full-size shampoo, conditioner, and other toiletries that can’t go in our carry-ons. Center: David’s daypack with various cables and chargers, his laptop, water bottle, earbuds, and snacks. Back left: David’s carryon luggage with clothes for Seattle and the other things that need to be in the carryon. Mirror: not my clothes for the plane.

My personal item, which will hold my iPad (newly acquired iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard. Not sure it’s really Magic, but whatever), camera, various cords and chargers, small-ish cross-body purse for daily use, snacks, water bottle, and the one physical book I’m bringing with us (Rick Atkinson’s “The British Are Coming” which I started on our road trip 18 months ago). I have also downloaded the Kobo app and purchased a bunch of mysteries, which I’m more likely to read. On the iPad, I downloaded the last four episodes of the third season of “Only Murders in the Building” and the most recent season of “Queer Eye.” My carry-on bag holding clothes for Seattle, etc, etc. And the clothes for the plane. Not shown: black sweater because planes require layers.

Tomorrow we have tickets to the Pacific Northwest Ballet’s production of “Sleeping Beauty” with scenic design by Preston Singletary. We won’t have enough time to explore the amazing glass art in the area - we’ll have to go back (see?). On Sunday we finally get to warm weather in Honolulu. It’s just a layover, but it is overnight, and Waikiki Beach is only fifteen minutes from the airport….

More to come!