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).

New Zealand - 1st afternoon in Christchurch

Thursday, February 10, 2011

We're back on the move again and left Australia this morning to fly to Christchurch, our first stop in New Zealand.  As much as I looked forward to and subsequently enjoyed the time in Australia, I was looking forward to New Zealand just as much, if not more.  You don't hear about it as often as a destination spot but I'm going to let my inner nerd loose and admit that ever since I saw Lord of the Rings (all 3 in director's cut version which were even longer that the theatrical versions), I've wanted to visit New Zealand.  The cinematography and scenery just looked amazing and I wanted to see some of those vistas for myself.

We arrived in Christchurch this afternoon, straight into more gorgeous weather, in the 70s and sunny.  Absolutely perfect!  We did a very brief walking tour (Christchurch isn't that big) and visited the Blue Pearl Gallery which is a jeweler who makes jewelry from the pearls harvested from abalones as well as from abalone shells themselves.  We got an interesting video and talk about how the process works then were set loose on the showroom floor to look at and purchase any jewelry that captured our fancy.  I haven't been much of a tourist in that I haven't bought more than the random magnet here and there and a few gifts to bring home since I'm not into as much "stuff" anymore and don't need to buy something just because I'm on vacation.  But I really liked some of the pieces and ended up buying a couple of rings, one for me and one for my mom.  I'll let her pick which one and I'm deliberately writing it publicly so I can't change my mind and keep both for myself, lol.

We have a little free time this evening so I had dinner with some of my fellow travelers at a pub.  Got the fish n chips again but was disappointed.  The fish was tough.  The fries were okay but the fish wasn't as good as what I had in Australia.  That might have cured me of fish n chips for the remainder of the trip.  I think I've had them 4 times now and that's more times than I usually have fish n chips in a year.

The most exciting thing (to me) that I've discovered about Christchurch so far is there's a local shop called the Fudge Cottage and they give hour-long tours every weekday on how they make fudge.  We have a city tour tomorrow morning but it should end in time for me to make the fudge tour as long as they have open spots - our tour director was still trying to get me in.  It's a geeky thing to be excited about but if I could travel to the jungles of Belize for a weeklong chocolate tour, I can do a one-hour fudge tour in New Zealand to see fudge being made.  Told you I was letting my inner nerd out.

Christchurch Cathedral

Australia - last day in Sydney

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Today was our last full day in Sydney and we had the morning free from any tour activities so I was fortunate enough to meet up with my cousin, Ate Maris, and her husband, Kuya Vlady.  They met me at my hotel and we set off on foot to head towards the Sydney Opera House and walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge.  Along the way we stopped at St Mary's Cathedral to peek in and took many pictures at the Opera House and along the harbour (getting into the spirit of the Queen's English and adding those "u"s in).

Ate Maris (left) and me with the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the background - she told me I had to have at least 10 pictures taken to prove I was there, haha

We had a bit of an adventure trying to find the entrance to where we could begin to walk on the bridge but we eventually managed to find it.  Ate Maris and Kuya Vlady have lived in the Sydney suburbs since 1994 but they've never walked the bridge either.  They told me they were probably more excited than me to finally walk across it, lol.  I've lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for most of my life and still haven't ridden a cable car so I know how they feel.

Kuya Vlady and Ate Maris on their first walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge

It was a great day and we were blessed with both beautiful weather and even more beautiful views.  The view from the bridge was excellent and it was nice to see the Opera House from across the water.  I don't think I've seen a bad view in Australia yet.  We had an early lunch at a cafe overlooking the harbour and I enjoyed fish n chips once again.

After the bridge walk we caught the train back near my hotel and Chinatown and browsed through Paddy's Market.  It was similar to the Victoria Market in Melbourne but without the foodstuffs.  A quick walk through Chinatown and we were back at the hotel in time for me to catch our next tour excursion of a walking tour of Sydney through St Mary's Cathedral, the Botanical Gardens and the art galleries.  Then back to the Opera House where we got a guided tour inside.  It was very informative and fascinating to learn the Opera House was originally proposed to take 3 years to finish and cost $7M.  Instead it took 16 years to finish at a cost of $102M which, when adjusted for inflation, in today's dollars would have cost over $1B.  Yikes.  It's too bad we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the 3 theaters they toured us through as they were seriously impressive.  Almost impressive enough to make me reconsider going to see Madame Butterfly tonight but not quite.  Besides, I'm meeting my Aussie cousins again, this time for dinner, on my last night in Sydney and that'll probably be more fun.

View of the Opera House from the Harbour Bridge

St Mary's Cathedral

All in all, a great day in a great city.  Tomorrow, it's on to New Zealand for the last leg(s) of our tour.

Australia - the Blue Mountains & the Three Sisters

Tuesday, February 8, 2011 - Blue Mountains & the Three Sisters

Today I went on an optional excursion to the Blue Mountains to see the rock formation called the Three Sisters.  It was an all-day trip as it takes a couple of hours’ drive outside of Sydney just to get to the Blue Mountains.  On the way we stopped at Featherdale Wildlife Park where we got a chance to see a number of birds, marsupials, koalas, penguins and, if you wished (but I didn’t), crocodiles, snakes and other reptiles.  I can’t even begin to identify what all the animals were but we did see emus, wallabies, kangaroos, more koalas, penguins (finally was able to take pics of the penguins since we couldn’t on Phillip Island).  I also saw the Common Wombat for the first time.  I never knew what a wombat was but it turns out they look like a cross between a hairy pig and a piggy-looking big furry rat.  There was also an 11-month-old koala named Mikey who we could get our pictures taken with.  We couldn’t hold Mikey but we could pet his back.  Mikey’s fur wasn’t as soft as I expected, it was more wiry.  I don’t know if that’s because he’s still so young or not.  The koala I held in Kuranda was softer and presumably older.  They had a number of koalas but they were all pretty much sleeping.  Cute as heck though.

After Featherdale, we made it to Echo Point to get our first look at the Three Sisters.  I will never cease to be amazed at how beautiful the scenery is here.  It’s mind-boggling the millions of years it took to get to what we’re seeing now but it’s well worth the wait.  Pictures can’t begin to capture how amazing it is to see in person and how beautiful. 

After Echo Point, we were driven to Scenic World where we had lunch and, if you wished, you can take a scenic railway ride down or a scenic skyrail (gondola) ride back up.  I’ve already done both in Kuranda so I elected to take on some of the walking trails and hike the Blue Mountains.  I didn’t go as far as I would’ve liked as I hadn’t known about the walking trails before the trip and only had sandals on.  The trail was pretty well defined but since it goes up and down the side of a mountain, I didn’t want to risk slipping.

On the ride back to our hotel, our driver stopped at Olympic Park which was built for the 2000 Summer Olympic Games.  Pretty huge venue and I can imagine how exciting it must’ve been during the Games.

Our weather today was absolutely perfect – sunny and mild temperatures, a little cooler in the mountains than in Sydney but very pleasant nonetheless.  We’ve really been blessed every step of this trip with great weather and dodging the extreme conditions like Cyclone Yasi (Cairns), flash flooding (Alice Springs), and heat waves (Melbourne and Sydney).

I walked around our hotel area before and after our trip today to get a better look at Sydney.  Like Melbourne, there’s some impressive architecture here and a beauty that appeals to me coming from a bay area.  Sydney has some eye-catching bridges and there’s always something appealing about a river running through or a bay against a metropolitan city.  I’ve been enjoying the sights but I have to admit, I think I lean towards Melbourne, simply because it doesn’t feel as crowded or the pace as frenetic.  Sydney channels its inner New York City with the plethora of taxi cabs, traffic and sidewalks choked with people.  And like New York City, I love visiting and enjoying the city but I would probably max out and need some breathing room after 3 days.  

Australia - Sydney: first impressions

Monday, February 7, 2011

I'm starting to lose track of days and dates but I'm pretty sure it's Monday the 7th.  We left Melbourne this morning and boarded a flight to Sydney, the last city in Australia on the tour.  After we landed, we got bussed around to see a bit of the city and did a brief stop at the Sydney Opera House for anyone who wanted to get tickets for a show then went to Bondi Beach.  I passed on getting a ticket - although I'm sure it would be awesome to see a production at the famous Sydney Opera House, I have to admit that opera's not really my thing.  They're showing Carmen on Tuesday and Madame Butterfly on Wednesday.  I've already seen Madame Butterfly long, long ago and I'm going to Blue Mountains tomorrow for the whole day and didn't want to worry about getting back in time for Carmen.

The opera house was very impressive though.  We have the official tour on Wednesday so I'll reserve my commentary for then.  On the way to Bondi (pronounced bond-eye) Beach, our bus driver toured us around the city and gave an interesting talk on the sights and history of Sydney.  The ocean view from Bondi was spectacular.  Being from the Bay Area, I love any views involving an ocean and this was no different.  We also lucked out incredibly on the weather during this entire trip.  Sydney had been under a heat wave prior to our arrival then cooled off considerably just before we got here.  Temps are in the 70s which is perfect for me.

First impression of Sydney is it's very much a combination of New York City and Hong Kong.  As in literally, if Manhattan and Hong Kong ever got married and had a child, they'd name it Sydney.  It's definitely got much more of a big city, bustling feel than Melbourne although they're approximately the same population (Melbourne is about 2.1M people and Sydney is 2.2M or thereabouts).  It also feels more crowded with tighter streets, more cars and more people moving faster.  Where the Hong Kong impression comes in is there are a ton of shops here.  I can shop but I conceded defeat in Hong Kong as I couldn't possibly shop enough there to even hit a fraction of the stores.  I get that same sense about Sydney.  There are also a number of foodie shops along the streets and many places to eat although I'd have to give the nod to Melbourne on that.

I keep looking for "real Aussie food" but in Sydney, it looks like the plethora of Asian and Middle Eastern food is "real" Sydney food.  Coming from the diversity of the Bay Area, this doesn't strike me as anything new.  I had to concede my search for barramundi fish n chips tonight and go Italian with a really good slice of bbq chicken pizza.  Heavy Italian influence here as well so that's still technically "Australian food".  I think.

Tomorrow: the Blue Mountains and the Three Sisters