New Zealand - Rotorua

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

The next leg of the trip was flying from Queenstown to Rotorua so we left the South Island (which is glacier formed) to go to the North Island which was formed by volcanoes.  Rotorua is also known as Sulphur City because of the smell.  Here the earth's crust is thin so there are natural hot springs and mud pools.

Didn't seem like much to see in Rotorua but we were also there for only 1 night and by this time I was getting pretty tired so I wasn't up for my usual walkabout explorations.  Our first stop after lunch was a place called Mountain Jade where we were given a demo of how jade is carved then let loose in the showroom to shop.  I didn't buy anything as jade wasn't really my thing and also by this time of the tour, I was pretty shopped out.  I'm not much of a souvenir shopper other than getting refrigerator magnets, Christmas ornaments if I can find them and presents to take back home.  I'm afraid the Rotorua stop didn't make much money off of me.

New Zealand - Milford Sound

Monday, February 14, 2011

For our full-day tour, we took a 4-hour bus ride to Milford Sound.  One of our stops along the way was a place called Mirror Lake, where the water is so clear, it's literally like glass that reflects its surroundings perfectly:

I've run out of superlatives and hyperboles to describe the views here.  Needless to say, New Zealand is a beautiful country with many awe-inspiring views.  The best way I can describe in seeing it all is "humbling".  As in you feel pretty small and humble when you look at the mountains, hills, peaks, valleys, and lakes.  And especially Milford Sound.  They told us Milford Sound gets 200 rainy days a year.  We happened to be there on one of the 165 days it doesn't rain and the cruise around the Sound was just gorgeous.  We cruised out of the Sound just to the border of the Tasman Sea and back.  Along the way were some waterfalls.  Apparently, it's also good to see Milford Sound when it is raining because then you see more waterfalls.  The ones we saw were pretty good already though and I even captured a shot of a rainbow in the water.

And if that wasn't enough, after the cruise, most of the tour group went back to Queenstown via another 4-hour bus ride but I opted to go with several other folks for a flight back in a tiny little airplane to see New Zealand from the air.  The plane was even smaller than the puddle jumper I flew in in Belize last year and I experienced what "wing and a prayer" meant as we took off (really, can something that small launch itself into the air??) but the views were worth it.  Not to mention the 40-minute flight was way better than a 4-hour bus ride.

This is some of what you don't see from the ground.  That small of red-roofed buildings in the bottom picture is the Walter Peak Station as we flew over it, nearing Queenstown.

New Zealand - Walter Peak

Sunday, February 13, 2011

As part of our itinerary in Queenstown, the optional excursion was a trip to Walter Peak, a sheep station across the lake.  We took a steamship to chug across the water and get to Walter Peak.  As always, the view was magnificent - that's Walter Peak below.  That's as close up as my camera could zoom from the boat but it's far more majestic in person than any picture can capture.

On the boat ride, I met a couple from England who had been traveling in New Zealand for a month in a camper and were going wherever their fancy took them.  They loved traveling and it was fun talking with them.  They were retired and seemingly had been all over the world.  One of the fun aspects of this trip for me is the number of travelers I'd met, both on my own tour and outside of it, who had been to so many places and loved seeing them all.  Most, if not all, of them were couples who had been  together for some time and that was a wonderful affirmation for me that many relationships and marriages really do last.  It's not something the media ever talks about, dwelling instead of high divorce rates, but many of the couples I met on this trip had been married for decades, not just years.  And they hadn't just been married for forever but they also loved  traveling together.  It was wonderful to see their sheer enjoyment of life and the world.

One we reached Walter Peak, we herded into the building where they served us a buffet dinner.  First course was a creamy vegetable soup which even I could eat since everything was pureed, lol.  Then each table was tapped in an orderly fashion to line up for the buffet where they had fish, salmon, roast beef, lamb, chicken, potatoes, vegetables and later on, dessert, fruit and cheese and crackers.  Overall, it was a pretty nice spread.

After dinner, we all went outside for the sheep shearing demonstration.  Our demonstrator, Lindsay, was just hilarious.  First he did the demo of how his sheep dog herded the sheep and then he sheared an actual sheep.  I took videos of both and tried to post them but blogger isn't letting me upload so I'll have to try again later.  Regardless, the sheepherding was impressive as the dog doesn't bark since that scares the sheep and you don't want to startle or scare sheep who are grazing on the side of a hill.  But he still herds them quite efficiently.  The sheep also move as one when they're being herded.  It was almost cartoonish how synchronized they were in moving as a bunch.

The sheep shearing itself was very expertly done.  Lindsay used something like the sheep's version of a razor or shaver and once he sat the sheep down, it didn't struggle or even bleat.  During his whole humorous spiel, Lindsay expertly sheared the sheep in a matter of a couple of minutes.  I was surprised how much wool actually came off the sheep.  Seemed like a lot to my untrained eye.  Sheep shearing always reminds me of Little House on the Prairie and the book "Farmer Boy" since there's a chapter on Almanzo helping during shearing time.  Back then they used manual shears and I can only imagine how much more difficult that would've been.

New Zealand - exploring Queenstown & Bob's Peak

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Today we had a free morning in Queenstown.  Some people signed up for different activities but I preferred to walk around Queenstown and soak up the sights.  The town center itself is fairly small and was mostly shops and eateries so I made several rounds of it and it didn't take up much time.  But it was nice to walk around and be leisurely for a bit.  Most of the tour days are filled with some kind of activity or another but I like to walk around and soak up the atmosphere when I can.  I'm starting to flag on being a tourist.  I don't think I can handle one more souvenir shop full of tsotchkes.  Fortunately I've traveled enough times that I no longer feel the need to buy a bunch of stuff from the places I've visited.  I usually buy a refrigerator magnet from each place I go to but I've been cutting back on that too since we've gone to so many places.  Now I'm focusing more on appreciating each area we go to while we're there and don't feel the need to fill every minute with activity or buy some token memento of it.  I'm taking pictures to capture some of the sights and memories and that's probably the best thing I can do right now.

This afternoon we met as a group and took a gondola ride up Bob's Peak.  After the world's longest gondola in Kuranda, this one was pretty short and not that high.  At the top of the gondola, there were various activities you could sign up (and pay) for such as luge, bungy jumping, and paragliding.  I toyed with the idea of paragliding since I'd never done it before but it was going to be $200 for a brief ride in the air and I couldn't bring myself to do it.  I stayed on the deck and admired the view instead.

The trip itself is actually reasonably priced considering what is included in it and the places we've stayed at but you can spend a lot on extras like the excursions and meals and they do add up.  I'm staying off my credit cards as much as possible, given the foreign transaction fees Amex would charge me.  I did break down though and opted to pay extra for a plane ride tomorrow back from Milford Sound instead of the 4-hour bus ride back, mostly because we fly out over spectacular scenery and I want to see that.  I can't get over the beauty of New Zealand.  It's pretty incredible and makes this is a return destination for me.

Tonight we're taking a steamship to Walters Peak where we'll get a sheep shearing demonstration and dinner then tomorrow is Milford Sound all day.  I've heard the views there are even more spectacular and I'm looking forward to that.

The trip so far has surpassed my expectations and if anyone is considering traveling to this part of the world, I would highly recommend it.  There's so much to see and experience and I'm glad I got the opportunity to do this.

AU & NZ - flora and fauna

I need to insert some pictures of the flowers I've been taking.  In both Australia and New Zealand, we've visited botanical gardens as well as parks and local gardens that have some amazing flowers.  I'm not much of a flower or plant person but I certainly admire their beauty.  Maybe it's just traveling and being in a new place but I've become hyper-aware of the beauty of my surroundings, especially here in New Zealand and want to document some of that beauty.

One of the ladies on the trip, Eileen, got me started on taking pictures of the flora and fauna.  Eileen said what she does with the pictures is print them out on notecard paper stock and use them as notecards.  Coincidentally, she and I even have the same camera so when I started taking closeups of some of the flowers, I liked how they turned out.  I don't know if I'll follow Eileen's lead in making up notecards with the pictures but I like looking at them and remembering how pretty the real things are.

New Zealand - journey from Christchurch to Queenstown

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Today was our first of 2 "long hauls" in New Zealand.  We left Christchurch by 8 am to drive to Queenstown, a journey that would take us more than 9 hours' drive, including stops at the Tin Shed (a store that sells NZ wool products and really was housed in a tin building), McKenzie's for lunch and Mrs. Jones for ice cream and to admire her rose garden.  Although I'm not fond of long drives, the views helped to pass the time pretty well.

Coming out of Christchurch, we drove through the plains of Canterbury which were, well, plain.  I could almost imagine driving down I-5 in California to travel through Central California.  The landscape was pretty flat and well dotted with sheep.  We did pass some small rivers that provided some interest.  And one section where our bus driver told us they did film several scenes from Lord of the Rings there, namely where Eomer had to "muster the Rohirrim".  My inner nerd perked up at that.

After some time, we turned towards the mountains and the views started getting pretty spectacular.  There's something about the majesty of mountain ranges that are both humbling and awe-inspiring.  Not much I can say and the pictures never do the real thing justice but here are a few examples to share:

In Queenstown, we're staying at another Rydges hotel, this one the Rydges Lakeland Resort.  The various Rydges hotels have been pretty good places to stay at with good service and clean rooms.  I have to give top marks for this one just for the views alone.  It's situated facing the water.  Here are some shots from my 8th floor bedroom balcony - imagine waking up to this sight:

Pavlova - Australia or New Zealand?

We interrupt the travel journal to insert a recipe and commentary about pavlova....

Pavlova was invented by a chef who named it after Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova when she visited Australia and New Zealand.  It has a meringue base traditionally topped with fruit.  I've always thought the dessert originated in Australia but the New Zealanders (Kiwis) set me straight and even Wikipedia backs them up.

In any case, as mentioned, I finally got to try pavlova at our local Kiwi dinner so I can now say I've tried the real thing.  Pavlova is a very pretty dessert, especially if you like meringues and fruit.  Unfortunately, if you've read my blog with any regularity, you know I have a prejudice against fruit desserts except for a few notable exceptions.  I'm also not a big eater of kiwi but when in Rome, er, New Zealand....  The pavlova Gay served us for dessert looked very professionally done but both Eileen and I were too shy to ask if she had made it herself.  In case she didn't, we didn't want any awkwardness about having a "store-bought" pavlova.  As pavlovas go, I'm sure it was one of the better ones.  The meringue base was crisp, the fruit (kiwi and mandarin oranges) were the perfect complement to the fluffy meringue and the dark chocolate chunks on top also added greatly to the texture and flavor.

But I have to confess I'm not fond of meringues.  We made them in culinary school and it was one of the few things I couldn't get into nor understand why they were so popular.  They're generally too sweet for me.  Our pavlova last night was done to perfection but even in that perfection I did find it a trifle too sweet for my (diminishing) sweet tooth.  The fruit and chocolate, however, did help offset that sweetness and overall it was good but I don't think I'll be making this myself.

However, for anyone who does want to make it, here's a recipe I found on a New Zealand tea towel that I bought for a gift.  I haven't tried it but if anyone does, let me know how it turns out.  I've added the conversions needed for US bakers.

4 egg whites
1 pinch salt
1 cup castor sugar (superfine sugar)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence (vanilla extract)
2 teaspoons cornflour (cornstarch)
1 teaspoon vinegar

1. Preheat your oven to 150 degrees C (300 degrees F).  Beat the egg whites and salt until stiff peaks form.  Gradually add the castor sugar, beating all the time.  It is important to ensure all the sugar is completely dissolved.
2. Lightly fold in the cornstarch, vanilla and vinegar into the mix.  Turn the mixture out into the center of a round baking tray lined with parchment paper and shape into a circle but don't let it touch the sides.
3. Turn the oven down to 140 degrees C or 284 degrees F and bake for 15 minutes.  Then turn the oven down to 120 C or 248 F and bake for a further 1 1/4 hours.  Let it cool in the oven.  Top with fresh whipped cream, strawberries and kiwis.

Note: Gay said she's tried them with strawberries but found that the best flavor combination was with kiwis and oranges.  I'd go with what she said.

New Zealand - dinner with a local Kiwi couple

Friday, February 11, 2011

As part of our tour itinerary, we got an opportunity to dine with a local Kiwi family who live near Christchurch.  There's a program that the locals sign up for and they host 4-6 tourists about once a month for dinner.  The tour guidelines say they must serve New Zealand lamb and pavlova but I guess the rest of the menu is up to them.

Our tour group of 34 was broken up into 7 groups of 4 and 1 group of 6.  I went with my fellow travelers, Eileen & Richard and Nancy, to dinner at the home of Ted and Gay.  Ted picked us up from the hotel to drive us to their house.  He and Gay live about 30 minutes away from Christchurch on 5 acres of land, planted with olive trees which Ted mostly tends himself. He drove us around their orchard to give us a tour before we went to their house.

It was a truly enjoyable evening.  They couldn't have made us feel more welcome and were both very gracious and entertaining.  I can't help but think of the word "gentility" as a way to describe them.  They used to be teachers, are retired now and have done any number of things since retirement such as own and operate a motel and move to their current home tending to their olive orchard.  Gay served us a delicious dinner.  I confess that I don't usually eat lamb as my prior few experiences have led me to believe lamb is greasy and/or stringy.  Not so - at least, not when it's cooked to perfection which this was.  I think Gay roasted it but I didn't think to ask.  She started the dinner with a first course of tomato soup - another surprise for me as I ended up really liking the soup.  Normally I'm not big on tomato anything unless it's making up the sauce on a pizza but this was quite delicious.  Perhaps the difference is the tomatoes were fresh from their garden.

The rest of the dinner was no less delicious.  I even ate vegetables, I'll have you know :).  Steamed cauliflower with a cheese sauce, carrots and steamed or baked potatoes that were delicious.  I did pass on the green beans though, had to draw the line on healthy food somewhere.

For dessert we had pavlova.  The funny story about pavlova is my friend Cheryl told me I had to try the pavlova in Australia as it was "their" dessert and my cousin, Ate Maris, said the same thing and meant to bring me a pavlova on my last night in Sydney.  But she forgot and pavlova wasn't something I really saw being offered in the bakeshops or on restaurant menus so I didn't remember to try it in Australia either.  But it turns out to be just as well because once we entered New Zealand, we were told by the local kiwis that pavlova is actually a New Zealand dessert even though the Aussies try to claim it as their own. (See next post on pavlova.)

I wanted to say special thanks to Ted and Gay for a very enjoyable evening.  We had great conversations and they were graciousness itself in opening their beautiful home to 4 American tourists and providing a delicious meal and interesting conversation.  This is one of the highlights of the tour for me and something that will make New Zealand more memorable than ever.

New Zealand - tour of the Fudge Cottage Kitchen

Friday, February 11, 2011

I did the hour-long tour of the Fudge Cottage kitchen this afternoon.  There were about 11 of us on the tour, 9 adults and 2 kids.  We met at the Fudge Cottage and our demonstrator took us through a circuitous route to get to the kitchen itself.  Normally it was more accessible, she said, but the recent stron earthquake they had a couple of months ago rendered the part of the building with the normal doorway unsafe so while the kitchen itself was unaffected, they have to access it differently until the building is fixed.

The kitchen was fairly small with a glassed-in room called the cooking room.  This is where the boiler sits and when we walked in, a vat of their "hokey pokey" fudge mixture was bubbling while being stirred with a giant mixer to keep it from getting too hot.  In terms of fudge making, the steps were pretty much the same as anyone who makes homemade fudge - you heat the ingredients to boiling, stirring constantly to prevent burning, then once it's reached a certain temperature, they lift it off the heat, insert a thermometer and mix it some more to cool it.  Part of the cooling mixing was done by hand by the fudge lady while our tour demonstrator gave us a talk about the fudge making process, the history of the Fudge Cottage and how it started and passed out samples of fudge.

The samples were cut small which was a good thing as there was quite of few of them.  The Fudge Cottage has 20 recipes for fudge in their cookbook but only make 13 year-round.  We sampled about 10.  The texture of the fudge was a bit surprising to me - it wasn't the smooth creaminess I'm used to from something like See's fudge but was a bit more crumbly, although not grainy.  They also had relatively few chocolate flavors that we sampled.  Most of them were like penuche or brown sugar fudge. 

After the fudge had cooled sufficiently, Lee, the person making it, and our tour person (sorry, I forgot her name), upended the huge bowl of hot hokey pokey fudge onto a rectangular table already set up with bits of hokey pokey (which is like aerated toffee, like in Australia's Violet Crumble) and smoothed it out in an even layer over the table.

Lee spackled the hot liquid fudge with a couple of spatulas to force out the air bubbles and make an even layer.  She had to work quickly before the fudge set. 

Then she scored the fudge with a metal template to score squares into the fudge and ran a rolling pin to cut the fudge into the rectangles they sell in the shop.

Some of the extra from the spatula she poured into a bowl and we got to sample the warm liquidy fudge.  YUM.  While I found the cooled pieces of fudge a bit crumbly, the liquid fudge was good.  The hokey pokey fudge wasn't chocolate but when it was warm, it tasted similar to butterscotch but without being overly sweet.  Our tour demontrator suggested if we want that kind of texture again, just warm up the fudge in the microwave.  Yeah, I'm going to have to try that next time.  The Fudge Cottage uses local ingredients for their fudge except for their chocolate (I forgot where she said they get that from) and their maple syrup which they source from Canada as the best place to get it.

Maybe because they didn't have a lot of chocolate flavors but I actually didn't buy any fudge for myself afterwards.  The samples were more than enough for me.  They did give us a small square of caramel fudge (again, not chocolate but more like penuche) after the tour to take home but I'll save that for tomorrow as I might've hit my sugar quotient for the day already.  I did buy a box of fudge and chocolates from the Fudge Cottage for tonight - part of our tour includes a dinner hosted by a local New Zealand family.  We're split into groups of 4 and have dinner at a local Kiwi home.  I bought the chocolates as my hostess gift for tonight.

New Zealand - bus tour of Christchurch & surrounding area

Friday, February 11, 2011

This morning we took a bus tour around Christchurch to the neighboring area to Lyttelton.  The views were beyond amazing.  We wound our way through some mountain paths and I have to take my hat off to our bus driver as he navigated those hairpin turns, horseshoe bends and switchbacks with seeming ease.  The roads were quite narrow, one lane each way, and along the way were cyclists tackling the mountain.  There were few guard rails and at times we were right near the edge by a sheer drop into an abyss.  I'm not bothered by heights but even I was getting a little queasy at how high up AND close to the edge we were.

But the views were worth the risk.  I can't even do justice in describing how magnificent they were and we were told we "haven't seen anything yet".  If that's so, then it's mind boggling how beautiful it is here.  I can't even begin to describe it and will wait until I can post a few pictures to give even a poor semblance of what I mean.  So far I'm really enjoying New Zealand and as a destination place, it seems even more ideal than Australia if you don't want a lot of crowds and want some wide-open space to relax in or be as active as you wish.

We all grabbed a quick lunch at a stop in Lyttelton, at a local bakery.  They had a nice selection of savory pies and I enjoyed another meat pie.  If Australia was known for its fish n chips, I have to give the nod to New Zealand for its meat pies, at least at the Lyttelton Bakery. The crust was flaky, the gravy was good and there were honest-to-goodness chunks of beef in that little pie. I also tried a dessert bar called a Sploge.  Which I'd never heard of before but the girl at the bakery explained it was a chocolate layer underneath a caramel layer.  'kay, twist my arm to try it.  At the first bite, I wasn't sure I liked it as it seemed a bit more crumbly than I expected which always connotated dryness in a bar cookie to me.  But the flavor was quite good and I liked the caramel layer over the chocolate layer.  It wasn't caramel the way I normally think of caramel as it wasn't free-flowing gooeyness but rather it was like the chocolate layer in a brownie texture but with a caramel flavor.

After we got back to Christchurch, I walked around the botanical gardens then browsed amongst the Art Centre shops until it was time for my fudge kitchen tour at the Fudge Cottage (next post).