Travels with The Rayman

Well, here we are in the capitol of New Zealand, Wellington. A beautiful capitol city and we so lucked out with the weather…it wasn’t windy. And that’s a big deal, we hear. And we just came upstairs from the hotel restaurant and planted threw in the towel for today. Lot’s happened since last we talked.

FIRST, THE ALL BLACKS WON LAST NITE. So New Zealand was happy today and we were happy that they were happy and so it was a good day. They defeated Argentina last nite. Argentina was dressed in baby blue stripped jerseys with white pants. Funny choice for a bunch of red hot Latin Americans, don’t you think? We did.

But I digress. The game followed the other rugby match where the Australians defeated the South Africans. You know, a rugby game consists of two forty minute halves so it goes really fast. We had fun watching both matches.

Opps. I digressed again. So, we arrived in Wellington today because our hosts, Bev and John, returned from the 7 month tour of Europe and Asia. That’s John with the Rayman in the picture above. Beside their 1700 acre sheet farm, they have a small beach house 20 minutes down the road from the farm. And John took us there to see it and the very small beach community there and that is where I snapped the picture. The place is on the east coast of the north island. I forget the name but you can be sure it started with a ‘K’. If the Maori didn’t have a ‘K’ or a ‘W’ or a ‘P’ or an ‘I’, they wouldn’t have a language. Bev and John retreat to the coast in the summer as it gets hot inland. Sounds familiar, uh? Anyway, here’s a picture of the outcropping in the ocean just off short from their little coastal village.
Also a picture of the beach.
And the coastline looking north.

John is a great guy. He runs the farm himself with help from his son, Duncan. He describes sheep farming as fairly low maintenance as farming livestock goes. Today he was planning to dock the tails of the sheep…that involved cutting off the tails of all the lambs. If they don’t cut off the tails, fly lay eggs, maggots encroach the intestines and the lamb gets sick and dies. So docking is very important. Meanwhile, Bev and her sister picked us up a the house and delivered us to the Napier airport where we had flat black coffees and muffins and a delightful time. Here they are. Bev is on the left. Actually, my description is wildly understated. We all laughed all the way to the airport.
Bev knows how to travel light. For 7 months she wore a backpack with her clothes in it. As she explained it, “I’m use to tramping about.” Tramping in New Zelandese is hiking. This woman is in seriously good shape. Her sister teaches school in Auckland and is also in great shape. They love to walk as do most NZers. And tramp, of course!! There just are not enough words to tell you how wonderful these two women were. So much fun.

So, sadly really, we boarded our prop plane and had a lovely flight at 13,000 feet which allowed us to see the countryside by air. It was sunny so we could see things. When we arrived in Wellington, we checked in early and headed right out to the museum. Like AU, the museum was free. Here is Rayman below the skeleton of a Blue Whale. Rib cage only.
And that is where we learned the haka. The haka is what the All Blacks do before their rugby match and it is derived from the Moira culture. Click the link below for a demo.

Ray excelled at the haka. Those dance lessons we took a few years ago really paid off!!

On the way to the museum, we dropped into a trailer that advertised views of NZ. It was manned by two young guys and when we told them that we watched The Flight of the Conchords on TV, we were in with these guys. The stars of the show are Wellingtonians!! So we had a great time talking with them and they gave us a lot of their time. Then we walked along the wharf, stopped and had wine

 
and cheese (Rayman really looks like Dad in this picture but don’t tell him I told you!) before returning to our boutique hotel to get ready for dinner which we decided to have downstairs because we had been up since 6 something, on the go all day and we are getting older and so the idea of walking downstairs as opposed to walking around some more really appealed to us and that way we could drink and crawl back to our rooms. Well. The dinner was stunningly good. A squid salad with rocket and lemons, red snapper fried and served with lentils, leeks, braised garlic and tomatoes, and a passionfruit bavarian cream with a biscuit, shaved almond and some wine. This chef could cook and on a Monday nite. Boy, did we luck out.

Two interesting pics. Above, some heads of god knows what and then the chocolate bus…I really loved the concept. Again, so kiwi.
And just to prove I was there…a picture of me on the wharf, quay. By the looks of it, you would think I am cold. No. Actually. I just screwed up but with limited time didn’t want to retreat to the hotel…having too much fun and it might be the first day I was actually complaining about being overdressed!

So, tomorrow we’re going to the post office and shipping home some clothes (think light-weight). Going south, we should see colder weather and I don’t think I’ll be needing short sleeve anythings, golf shoes, or shorts. For heaven sakes, I’ve been so cool, I decided to let the hair on my legs go for added warmth. TMI I know but I thought it was funny so I mentioned it.

It’s Friday here so planning was needed for our trip to the South Island. That’s because we needed to figure out what we wanted to do and where we wanted to go on Monday.

An aside. If you are gluten-intolerant, AU and NZ are perfect places to plant yourself. Everywhere we go we notice things on the menu and things on the grocery shelves that trumpet ‘gluten free’. Not sure why.

There is road kill in NZ and that’s because the poor critters have no where to run once on the road…except if you are goat…we haven’t seen any killed goats on the road yet. They roam free, apparently, and when you come upon them in the road as we did yesterday, they run up the sides of hills like, well, mountain goats. See the goat? It was in
the street’s middle about 10 seconds earlier. He really moved out. Hence no dead goats on the road.

But I digress.

We literally spent most of the day planning the trip which as I described to my cousin in an email as thus:

“So, today being Friday around 3 p.m…we leave Napier for Wellington on Monday morning and then we travel by plane, ferry, and train to get to Christchurch and then jet off to Queenstown, drive down to get on a boat for a cruise of the fjords and then we jet back to Auckland for two days before backtracking to Sydney for two days to get accustomed to the 3 hours time difference so we can jump on our plane and leave for LAX a few hours AFTER we arrive at LAX even though the flight is 14 hours long which I plan to sleep through, thank goodness for drugs, and arrive all perky for say a day and then collapse while thumbsucking until I board the train to San Jose if you’ll pick me up and then back home on Sunday so that I can do laundry and be ready to leave on Nov.1 for a drive down to the desert where we will play golf for a week even though we haven’t picked up a golf club in ages…(editor’s note – I did change one little thing…but you get the drift).

Now, we are not doing all this singlehandedly. No, we stopped at the AA place in Napier and spoke with Fran who is helping us secure the car rental, the train passage, the ferry fares to complete the planning. Bottom line… we will be there from this coming Tuesday until we arrive in Auckland, Oct. 18th. So as you an see, heavy planning was necessary. We did all this with great nashing of teeth, bashing of gums. Let’s just say that year 21 of marriage could have started out a wee better…but we made all necessary plans and none of them involve yurting, bungie jumping or river rafting. They do, however, require wool leggings (good insurance), hats, wool socks and the such that we have acquired since arriving down here in NZ out of sheer necessity. No whining…just an observation…two springs in one year is one too many.

This weekend we plan to go wine tasting in the area now that we know where the wineries are… and we plan to go to the laundromat. Yes, the laundromat. You read it right. We washed clothes yesterday and they still aren’t dry. That’s because the dryer is broken and it hasn’t stopped raining on and off. So, we have our clothes hanging on a metal hanger in the family room right next to the stove which is burning wood. Ah, the sweet aroma of burnt wood on your clothes…now there is something I haven’t smelled since, let’s say, camping. So, we decided we would take our clothes that are still damp down to Napier tomorrow and visit the laundromat as one of our adventures for the day. The other adventure will be wine tasting…while bike riding. Restated…biking from place to place while interrupting our biking with stops at wineries. What could go wrong?
Another aside. Our new friend, Richard (the one we ate with the other night) was a world champion croquet player and as such went to Sonoma to a winery where he won his trophy. He took up croquet after his rugby “tour” where he almost made the national, All Blacks team and almost went to the Olympics, I think in Canada. Anyway…he explained the All Blacks name and logo. It is all based on the fact that their uniforms have always been all black. And there is a fern that grows in NZ that is all silver on the underside. So there. My imagination took me in other directions. But we won’t dwell on it. Well…maybe we will. Most mascots are animate objects aren’t they? So why not the All Black Kiwi’s. No, I guess that won’t work. How about the All Black Crows? I think NZ has crows. Or say the All Black Coots? They must have coots. How about All Black Sheep? Or All Black Magpies? ….although there are connotations to consider. Well…I’m either stumped or I’ve managed to bore the hell out of myself…in either case…that All Black name seems to be a bit limited, now, doesn’t it?

One other thing. We drove down to the next to the nearest town for dinner last night. We were the only people in The Oak Room for dinner for about 1/2 hour. Then people started arriving. This restaurant is in a town of about 1 thousand people? and 50,000 sheep! And our dinner was fabulous. Roasted pork belly. I’m going to get a picture of it from their website and include it here. I didn’t take my camera because I wasn’t expecting this type of food quite frankly. The food, the coffee…fabulous.

Well, here we are tomorrow and you guys are still doing today. It is a kick to think about the time difference.

We just didn’t bring the right clothes for NZ. They are having an unseasonably cold spring and the rayman and I are cold. We have bought wool sweaters, thick socks but still we are cold. The funny thing is that the locals don’t seem to notice the cold. Saw a man in a bakery yesterday not only with bermuda shorts on…but also barefooted. WHAT was he thinking?

So today it’s back to the farm and on Friday we hope to finalize our plans to the south island, west coast specifically. That’s right after we complete our sun dance. More later.

 
Before I continue, I must pay tribute to Steve Jobs. Just got word that he died today. How sad. He has so changed my life in so many ways…including this blogging thing. I’m raising my glass to him tonight. Thanks, Steve Jobs.

 
So…we are still trying to figure out how to do the South Island. It is not easy. The pictures above were taken on our trip to Gisborne. The trip itself was a cross between Highway 1 toward Big Sur and the road to Hana with the additional delicacy of huge lumber trucks barreling down. See. The truck below is loaded with lumber but most of them are.
So we drove this challenging two lane road and stopped at a road side stand becuz Mr. J was sure we’d see a place to stop for coffee. Two hours later it was the roadside stand. Two women were sitting out front of the joint smoking as opposed to smoking a joint out front…and we entered the building. And we waited for a few minutes and finally the urge to see what we wanted overwhelmed one of them. We got a couple of flat whites and they were not very good. First bummer. As we were drinking them anyway, a big bus pulled up and all sorts of locals piled off and came in to order tea and crumpets. We took leave and kept heading toward Gisborne.

Gisborne is the place that Capt. Cook discovered NZ. It’s their claim to fame. Now it is the logging capital of NZ, my opinion only. We checked in and later went to dinner. Ray was so excited because he was warm. Anyway, we showed up at this restaurant before opening hour. As we peered through the window, a nice young woman from Ireland (we learned later) asked us to stop in and have a drink while they prepared for opening. So we did. And we met Richard Clarke, a retired principal that now does consulting. He actually grew up in Gisborne, however, now lives in Hamilton (middle of the north island). We had a rousing discussion about all sorts of subjects and when it was time to dine, we decided to dine together. It was our anniversary but the conversation was stimulating and how often does something like that happen in the U.S.? So, I had duck confit (oversalted) with cabbage (lovely) and potato disks cooked in butter. It was a french restaurant. Ray had carrot/cumin soup (I’m sure they used an entire bunch of carrots, it was so big) and risotto with seafood. It was good…not great. The NZ wine was delic.

 
If any of you are wondering what rayman is doing as I write…he’s watching a program about breast reduction. A man of many interests. Did I mention that it is very graphic. OMG. And right after dinner.

Anyway, back to my blog. Where was I? Oh, yes, dinner at the french restaurant. We did have a very good time with Richard. He was a man of many interests himself and a many good stories. And he was gracious enough to snap this picture. Not my best, but a picture of us starting our 21st year!!
Today we drove back to Napier using the same hair-raising road with the addition of rain. Wow. So here are a few pictures.
In this shot, you get a lot going on. The speed sign, the big mountain in the distance, and plowed fields. Now this.
We’re very high…up in the clouds and we came across these cows in repose. The cows here a lucky…lots of grass. They do not feed cows corn (which makes cows sick, did you know?). Here is another picture of the road from the driver’s point of view.
There was also pretty things. We came upon this river valley. So, we drove from sea level, up curvy hills/mountains/back down to ocean level…back up to clouds. This land is very dramatic in so many ways.
Then we came upon flowers.
I enhanced this a bit because there was no sun but there were miles of these flowering bushes.

When we returned to Napier we decided to explore Cape Kidnappers as there was a golf course there. First they had to buzz you onto the property. That is a first for entry to a golf course. Then when we drove about 3 miles up to the pro shop, we met John from Boston who ran the place. The least-friendly person we’ve met in NZ. From the U.S. Oh, dear. After we found out that the green fees were $455 without a cart or club rentals, we sheepishly left the premises and snapped these pictures.

The above pictures were taken on the golf property. It was way up high on a plateau. Fabulous scenery…for a price

So, we are back on the farm and planning our south trip…we’ve just about settled on it. Off to see the fjords, some wine tour (leader led), a train trip from Picton to Christchurch and the rest of it involves flying. We’ve just about ruled out all rental cars. And I’m looking forward to that…Later to all of you.

This morning we got a tour of the farm and it was a hair raiser. I was sitting next to Keith on the ATV and Rayman was hanging off the other side. We went up and down, hill and dale. No seat belts here. I thought I was a goner several times. I literally held on for dear life and my camera. Ray did too. It was a definite E ride. Do they even have those anymore?

It is a few minutes after 7 p.m. and it is really raining. Poor lambs. They are stuck outside in the mud. We have a cozy fire inside and are listening to the cloud burst. Given that this farm is higher in elevation, I’m thinking it rains here more than the flatter land. But I digress.

So, this morning we jumped on the ATV and off we went. Let me show you where.
It’s hard to get perspective here. I named this shot ‘top of the world’ but we went higher still. Here’s another picture.

 
Here’s Ray at the very top. Too bad it was cloudy this morning…actually it felt like fog as we’re not too far from the ocean here. And below is a picture of Ray and Keith and some of the dogs.
These dogs are amazing. As soon as Keith took them off their leashes, they started running and they rarely stopped. He would yell a command and they would follow orders. And Keith had various whistles which meant different things to the dogs. Keith did us a favor of having the dog on the right, Bob, herd the sheep from the side of the mountain to us. Here’s the progression. Note: the first two pictures are taken with some zoom.

 
And as soon as the dogs were called off, they headed for the water. There are ponds located here and there on the farm and the dogs love them for a bath to cool off. It was so much fun to watch and part of that was because we weren’t moving!!!

That was the highlight of our day. So impressive.

Tomorrow we head for Gisborne, NZ. This is the closest city to the international date line so we need to get up before dawn on Thursday to watch the sun come up so we can say we saw it before anyone else on earth. So, we will spend tomorrow night there. And it’s our 20th anniversary so we will find a good restaurant and celebrate…because it has been GREAT!!

The World Cup for rugby is being held in New Zealand. Their national team, the All Blacks, are an obsession with everyone here. They took Canada to the wood shed last night on the tele. We watched the match which included lots of kicking, pushing, scrumming, running and there was probably a pinch in there somewhere too. We don’t understand the rules but one fellow told us most people don’t. What was that penalty for? Who knows? It often involves a scrum. That is where both team face off in a big circle and push each other. There is a goal line, there are extra points. But the scrum is the most entertaining to me. And all the leg garb. These guys adorn their legs with all kinds of stuff. Bandages? suspenders? bands of elastic? long socks. And probably a long list of ortho-type bands. Their shorts are fairly short so you can admire their muscular legs…thigh rich. Many wear gel in their hair. There are tattoos and they sport facial hair, both long and short. There isn’t a “typical” look in the fashionista department. It is very interesting. The fans paint themselves up and wear funny wigs. Quite a party. Quite a sight. And very, very big. As you drive these mostly uninhabited hills (not counting sheep, of course), you will see All Black signs on fence posts, tacked to trees, on mailboxes. You name it. And the All Blacks have a logo of a fern. Go figure. Haven’t asked for an explanation yet. But, it is intriguing. It almost more fun that knowing….I suspect. Oh, and one other thing. Before the game started, the teams faced off each against each other in the middle of the field. Then the Canadian anthem was played. Then the NZ anthem was played. Then the All Blacks stuck their behinds out by flexing their knees, raised their arms half way and grabbed their elbows. Then they started chanting and dancing and at the end of their “routine”, some of them stuck their tongues out. OMG. Too funny.

So. Today we met Keith, the man in charge of the farm while the owner of the farm is globetrotting. Keith is a very big man. Looks like he could throw a lamb across the farm if he put his mind to it. What a gentleman he is…and very, very tech savvy. Was explaining how they can use gps to keep up with cattle. But on a more elemental level, he explained why they cut the tails off the sheep…which he is going to demonstrate tomorrow and we’re give it a go as the engaged tourists that we are.

You know, I think we are the only nation on earth that uses garbage disposals. Here, however, we are keeping our scraps to feed to the chickens. They love all scraps according to Keith. We did have a delightful visit with Keith. And he has a dog and when he left the house to go tend to things, he ordered his dog up. Up to the top of all-terrain vehicle they use to motor around the 1700 acres here. So…here’s big Keith revving up the ATV and his dog is riding on the back and off they go. That’s the last we saw of Keith today…he was very busy.

But I digress. Duncan, the son of the farm owners, met Keith at the house. Such a great guy. He’s the one that fixed the battery problem yesterday. So, we got a chance to thank him before he jumped on his motorcycle and went with Keith to bob tails and other stuff.

So while Keith and Duncan, drove off into the sometimes sun, we got ourselves ready to go wine tasting. It was forecasted to rain today and we thought…why not wine taste. And so we immediately got lost. This upset me (so unlike me). For some reason the fact that we didn’t have a map with us really got to me. Only we did but we forgot we did because we were so busy getting lost. OMG. How does this happen? We don’t know. If you have ideas, we’re all ears. But be nice, please…Anyway, we drove and drove and drove and all we saw was sheep and cows. We did not see any vineyards. So we consulted the map that we had not forgotten…and we turned left and then right…and lo and behold, we were still lost. At long last we found Highway 2 and turned left. The thing about HIghway 2 is that it led back to Waipawa, our home base. So, when we arrived at Waipawa, we ducked into a BP gas station….and explained that we had been driving around looking for wineries and had yet to find one. One of the customers informed us that Lime Rock was right up the street. She would take us there. We said we were sure we could find it (what were we saying?). She insisted. “Follow me”. She got in the car and then got out of the car and came up to our car. “I know another winery that might be better. I’ll take you there.” Okay, we said. So, she drove ahead of us for about 20 minutes and we arrived on the top of a hill and found an old building that looked like an old hospital. No one was there. So we drove around it and saw a sign that said the winery had moved to the building next door. So, we went there. Nobody. And it was raining. Well, our new friend insisted that she take us back to Lime Rock. So, off we went where we had come from. We turned left at the BP station that we had just been at 40 minutes earlier. Up the road about 5 minutes and we arrived at Lime Rock. There was one car out in front parked in front of a sign that said, ‘Open Nov. thru April every weekend’. We jumped out of our two cars and found the owner inside. Sure he would pour us some wine. We invited our new friend Tina to lunch. We offered her a bottle of wine. To no avail. She was just a wonderful, helpful New Zealander trying to find us some wine. We hugged before she took off.

And then we tasted wine.

The World Cup for rugby is being held in New Zealand. Their national team, the All Blacks, are an obsession with everyone here. They took Canada to the wood shed last night on the tele. We watched the match which included lots of kicking, pushing, scrumming, running and there was probably a pinch in there somewhere too. We don’t understand the rules but one fellow told us most people don’t. What was that penalty for? Who knows? It often involves a scrum. That is where both team face off in a big circle and push each other. There is a goal line, there are extra points. But the scrum is the most entertaining to me. And all the leg garb. These guys adorn their legs with all kinds of stuff. Bandages? suspenders? bands of elastic? long socks. And probably a long list of ortho-type bands. Their shorts are fairly short so you can admire their muscular legs…thigh rich. Many wear gel in their hair. There are tattoos and they sport facial hair, both long and short. There isn’t a “typical” look in the fashionista department. It is very interesting. The fans paint themselves up and wear funny wigs. Quite a party. Quite a sight. And very, very big. As you drive these mostly uninhabited hills (not counting sheep, of course), you will see All Black signs on fence posts, tacked to trees, on mailboxes. You name it. And the All Blacks have a logo of a fern. Go figure. Haven’t asked for an explanation yet. But, it is intriguing. It almost more fun that knowing….I suspect. Oh, and one other thing. Before the game started, the teams faced off each against each other in the middle of the field. Then the Canadian anthem was played. Then the NZ anthem was played. Then the All Blacks stuck their behinds out by flexing their knees, raised their arms half way and grabbed their elbows. Then they started chanting and dancing and at the end of their “routine”, some of them stuck their tongues out. OMG. Too funny.

So. Today we met Keith, the man in charge of the farm while the owner of the farm is globetrotting. Keith is a very big man. Looks like he could throw a lamb across the farm if he put his mind to it. What a gentleman he is…and very, very tech savvy. Was explaining how they can use gps to keep up with cattle. But on a more elemental level, he explained why they cut the tails off the sheep…which he is going to demonstrate tomorrow and we’re give it a go as the engaged tourists that we are.

You know, I think we are the only nation on earth that uses garbage disposals. Here, however, we are keeping our scraps to feed to the chickens. They love all scraps according to Keith. We did have a delightful visit with Keith. And he has a dog and when he left the house to go tend to things, he ordered his dog up. Up to the top of all-terrain vehicle they use to motor around the 1700 acres here. So…here’s big Keith revving up the ATV and his dog is riding on the back and off they go. That’s the last we saw of Keith today…he was very busy.

But I digress. Duncan, the son of the farm owners, met Keith at the house. Such a great guy. He’s the one that fixed the battery problem yesterday. So, we got a chance to thank him before he jumped on his motorcycle and went with Keith to bob tails and other stuff.

So while Keith and Duncan, drove off into the sometimes sun, we got ourselves ready to go wine tasting. It was forecasted to rain today and we thought…why not wine taste. And so we immediately got lost. This upset me (so unlike me). For some reason the fact that we didn’t have a map with us really got to me. Only we did but we forgot we did because we were so busy getting lost. OMG. How does this happen? We don’t know. If you have ideas, we’re all ears. But be nice, please…Anyway, we drove and drove and drove and all we saw was sheep and cows. We did not see any vineyards. So we consulted the map that we had not forgotten…and we turned left and then right…and lo and behold, we were still lost. At long last we found Highway 2 and turned left. The thing about HIghway 2 is that it led back to Waipawa, our home base. So, when we arrived at Waipawa, we ducked into a BP gas station….and explained that we had been driving around looking for wineries and had yet to find one. One of the customers informed us that Lime Rock was right up the street. She would take us there. We said we were sure we could find it (what were we saying?). She insisted. “Follow me”. She got in the car and then got out of the car and came up to our car. “I know another winery that might be better. I’ll take you there.” Okay, we said. So, she drove ahead of us for about 20 minutes and we arrived on the top of a hill and found an old building that looked like an old hospital. No one was there. So we drove around it and saw a sign that said the winery had moved to the building next door. So, we went there. Nobody. And it was raining. Well, our new friend insisted that she take us back to Lime Rock. So, off we went where we had come from. We turned left at the BP station that we had just been at 40 minutes earlier. Up the road about 5 minutes and we arrived at Lime Rock. There was one car out in front parked in front of a sign that said, ‘Open Nov. thru April every weekend’. We jumped out of our two cars and found the owner inside. Sure he would pour us some wine. We invited our new friend Tina to lunch. We offered her a bottle of wine. To no avail. She was just a wonderful, helpful New Zealander trying to find us some wine. We hugged before she took off.

And then we tasted wine.