Travels with The Rayman

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.

A glorious day today. It’s Sunday in New Zealand on the Pukerangi Station sheep farm, high in rolling hills out 30 minutes from the nearest grocery store. Heaven. It is so quiet we slept in until 8:45 a.m. And then before ever putting a foot on the floor declared it a day to not get in the car. This proclamation was made for several reasons. Mostly, it was my back. I wretched my back schlepping my bags in Sydney and haven’t been the same since. That and we just want to luxuriate in these surroundings we find ourselves in. As far as we know we are only sharing our digs with two cats, about 10 dogs that help with the 6000 ewes and who knows how many baby lambs and men lambs(?) and a group of chickens which I mentioned earlier.

Here’s some pictures.

 
The vistas pictured above is what you see looking out from around the house. We walked down toward to lambs and the babies ran to their mothers and they all headed away from us so the picture I took involved the zoom.

So, here I sit with the kitty next to me in front of the fire which we hardly need. And did I mention the lamb shanks I have braising? Oh, I do love lamb in oh so many different ways.
Yesterday the weather changed about 12 times. It was very cold when we got up and got ready to head into Napier. Napier is pronounced just like it is spelled. It is not pronouced Nap e yea. It is Nap e err. My own special phonics treatment. Anyway, it is a town that was destroyed around 1931 by a powerful earthquake. And what rose from the ashes was an art-deco town. There are art-deco buildings everywhere. It is quite a throw-back that makes it a great tourist mecca. That is where we found a Starbucks that had wi-fi and actually much better coffee than in the U.S. What is it here about the coffee? So much better everywhere.

But I digress. We shopped for some warmer clothes as it does get chilly here at night and we’re planning to head off for the Southern island in a few days and figure we’ll need some insulation. Ray is wearing his new duds in the picture above…a sweatshirt-like hoodie. I bought a pair of unattractive drab green warm-as-hell fleecy pants. But who cares?

I digressed again. It is an a 75 minute trip to Napier and we had to go there to rid ourselves of the rental car. So, I drove the Holden and Ray drove the Honda back to the airport in Napier. When I went to signal the windshield wipers came on. What? I used the opposite side lever. Was I going crazy? Quite possibly. I spend the entire time going to airport noodling thru the roundabouts and the windshield wiper dilemma. Was I just confused? Well, as soon as Ray drove he noticed the difference too. So…now we have a car that has switched levers. If I want to turn left, I hit the lever on the left hand side of the steering wheel which is on the right hand side of the car. It was opposite in the other cars we’ve driven in Australia and the rental we just returned in NZ. EEEKKKKKK.

The other thing that was amazing is that as we left the farm, we noticed high peaks with snow on them that we like entirely didn’t notice when we arrived. How was that? How can you miss a entire mountain range? We have no idea. But they are there. I’ll try to snap a picture so that you, the reader, can be as amazed as we were.

We are VERY FAR OUT!!

Last night we went out to dinner and sat next to a lovely couple from D.C. They had lived in Wellington, NZ for 7 months and this was their first trip back. They enjoyed living here. So, our tables were next to each other and so we spent the entire time visiting. Very fun. The waitress brought one of their courses (it was tapas, actually) and they had ordered smoked eel. Thing was, they brought the eel all wrapped up inside a bowl, cooked of course, but unskinned. Can’t say too much about the presentation…I was thinking perhaps I should bolt for the door…but it was too funny watching him skin the thing (9 inches long perhaps) and then eat it. They offered us some and we felt it would be rude to turn it down. It was actually quite good…but the visuals were just dreadful.

Because we were eating and drinking and having fun, the clock hands just whirled around the clock face and we ended up pulling into Cottage Mew Motel around 11 p.m., threw off our clothes and piled into bed.

This morning, when I got up and checked the time it was 10 a.m. OMG. Check out time. What happened to us? A bit tired I presume or someone perhaps laced our drinks? Naaaa. They are way too nice in NZ. The lady at the front desk (owner), told us to take our time. There were 3 other units to clean, no problem. Wow. Nice.

The coffee here and in NZ is incredible. Long black is what you order if you want a cup of joe without anything in it. Then there is the flat white. That’s coffee with milk on top. Not quite a latte. The coffee is rich, unbitter, strong…we haven’t had a bad cup anywhere. So today we headed South (think colder) to our sheep farm. Well, as always, there were adventures to be had thanks primarily to my questionable planning skills in this case. Here’s a picture of the lake we stayed by in Taupo. Actually the lake resides in a caldera. About 70,000 years ago a huge volcano erupted and the caldera formed and it filled with water and now it’s where you can go and pay money to try to hit a man-made floating ‘island’ with a golf ball. Really. Here’s pictures to prove it.

 
Just had to stop. Watched these young guys with big egos try to hit the island and then I piped up and said, “You need to club up.” He was missing everything short. The kid that ran the business, if he also owned it, was laughing all the way to the bank. And there was a snorkeler out in the freezing water retrieving the balls. Too funny.

After a cup of flat white and an orange and date scone for breakfast, we headed to the Craters of the Moon. Here is a picture. It was a nice day out and the walk was great. We really enjoyed being out in the sunshine and out of the car…the world’s most expensive rental.

 

 

 

But I digress. We then headed to the sheep farm, our base camp while in NZ. It appears to me, the tree hugger, that they are clear cutting NZ at a rapid rate. Oh, there is some replanting going on but look at these pictures.

 
A bit disappointing to see this. It also explains, I think, why the dirt looks so unstable…it is …because of erosion. And cutting all these trees down is not a form of beautification. What are they thinking? Went for miles observing this. This is nothing new. There are more sheep in NZ than people, I’m sure. And they graze this land that has been relieved of it’s trees. Oh, well. I’m sure they know what they are doing…it was just a bit shocking to see this on the way down to Napier. Another picture.

 
Napier is an art-deco community. We only saw one art-deco building as we drove through. The other thing we saw was a McDonalds which we stopped at to use their free wi-fi. Who knew McDonalds provides free wi-fi? We didn’t know this. It was when we stopped along the highway at a small turn-out that advertised coffee (on the way to Napier) that we discovered that they did. Actually we split a veggie ‘loaf’ and a chocolate brownie for lunch along with coffee. We were the only people there and it was wonderful. And, get this. The owners were from Africa and the whole place was decorated in African motif and they had a retail business selling African stuff. I admired one basket but they wanted $265 for it and so I just kept admiring it. Outside, I also admired Lizzy the lamb.

 
But I digress. We needed free wi-fi because, well, I didn’t have the address for the sheep farm. Small oversight. So, we got the address but it wasn’t too specific. It was near the town of Waipawa. We wrote it down along with the phone number. Did I mention that we are not using our cell phones? So…we needed a phone. I spotted a hospital so we ducked in to the maternity ward of the Napier hospital (it was not art-deco either) and I asked the woman behind the desk if there was a pay phone. She replied, “Is it a local call”? I showed her the number and asked her if she thought it was local. “No, it not. Here, let me dial it up for you.” OMG. What fabulous people the kiwis are. They are helpful and genuine, friendly, funny and smart. And the woman behind the desk was no exception.

No one answered. Now the rayman was starting to ‘be concerned’. In truth so was I. But I put on my happy face and got back in the car and kept heading toward Waipawa. When we reached Waipawa which as about 30 or so minutes down the road, I pulled over and announced that perhaps the grocery story had a pay phone. So we went in to ask. Nope. They did not but the manager let me use the store phone (I didn’t even ask, she just volunteered). Ring, ring, ring. No answer. ugh. So, Ray asked a woman that had a name of a local fire district on her shirt and between her, the store manager and the fire woman’s husband, we got some directions. Oh, yes, the Kerr place. They knew where it was. And the directions went something like this:

I’ll fill this in later too!!

 

 

 

 

So, we followed the direction and lo and behold we found the place. It was 30 minutes from the town which had probably 300 people living it it. We were out in the middle of nowhere. When we turned onto 139……, it was a gravel road. And up and up it went. When we arrived at the house, no one was there. OMG. Now what? There was a truck in the driveway but whose?

Let me digress. The owners of this farm and farm house are in Beijing. We had arranged for their son to meet us at the house today…all through the wonders of email. We didn’t had his phone. We only had their phone and no one was answering. Panic was setting in…except my fall back was to drive back into town and get a motel. We thought we should leave and as we were driving out the driveway (it was sort of circular), I saw some people at a house a couple of hundred yards away getting into a van. Ray got out and asked them if this was the Kerr residence. A woman said, no, it’s that one…pointing to the one we had just found. So, Ray drove back to the Kerr house. Then I jumped out and headed to the driveway where I waved the woman down as she was driving by. She was taking her kids to a dance party and she said, “oh, just go inside. Duncan is probably out with the sheep. I’m sure the place is open. He’s expecting you”. OMG. This was really stunning. Fabulous people everywhere.

Indeed the house was open. Indeed Duncan was down on the farm training a new dog. He showed us around and told his he’d be back tomorrow. I can see why. This farm is about 1700 acres and has 6,000 breeding ewes…and lots of babies are running around. They are so cute! And they need Duncan. And so do we. Who knew I’d have something in common with sheep other than loin chops, dare I say. Or wool.

But I digress. This house is way out. I mean it. Perhaps we’ve never been quite so alone. Although there are two cats, a dog, 6,000 ewes and even some cattle. And some neighbors. But still, we are very isolated if you compare it to say, San Francisco.

Well, the story doesn’t end here. We needed to go back to town to get something to eat and some cereal etc. for the morning. So we jumped in the Holden, the car we are going to drive while we are here, and it wouldn’t start. And it was in the garage, a one car garage…and the jumper cables weren’t long enough. So, Ray went back in to get the keys to the rental car…and the phone rang. It was Keith, the foreman. He wanted to make sure we had arrived. Was everything okay? Did we need anything? These people are helpful. Ray had a great chat and it was decided that we’d deal with the Holden tomorrow. So, off we went. We ate, we shopped (and told the store manager we actually found the place) and returned home (saw one other car in 53 km) to find more lights on than we left on. Found a note on the counter. ‘The car is fixed…Cheers, Duncan.’

So, we arrived in Auckland on a beautiful day. And it quickly deteriorated. This is my story and I’m sticking to it. I forgot the name of the car agency I had made a reservation with. OMG. How could this have happened? Well, I made the reservation in Sydney and did not have a printer at my disposal and figured I’d just keep all the info on the computer. Only the computer did not work at the airport. Oh, it did work but they wanted about $10 for 20 minutes. So, things didn’t go well. There was free wi-fi access thru Samsung and we waited in line for that…only to find out that Samsung doesn’t support mobile me(Apple). How could that be? So we approached two women at an information booth and they tried to figure out who had our reservation…that did not go well. Finally, they offered me their computer and I found the reservation and printed it out. And you can just imagine Mr. J. He was beside himself. HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN? Well, shit happens when you travel. Right?

But I digress. It seems that autoslasher.com, the people that I booked through had the car rental agency as Fox. Turns out it was JUCY. What? Why? Who knows? Just another curveball. To make a long story short, we took the Jucy van to the Jucy off-site rental location. Stood in line and when we got to the counter and produced our licenses, the nice man said, “So you’ll return the car here in two days.” I said, “No. We made arrangements to drop it off in Napier (which is about 8 hours south of Auckland).” He said, “We don’t have an office in Napier.” End of Jucy.

Now rayman was really steamed. OMG. “Just how are we going to get to Taupo by dark? It’s already 2:30 (we landed about 1:00). And it’s at least a 4 hour drive. We don’t know the roads. Now what the @&** are we going to do?” This was challenging. A man was waiting for a ride back to the airport with Jucy mentioned that Europcar had locations around the country and they were next door to Jucy. So, Ray approached them and, yes, they would rent to us. I’m not even going to tell you how much this cost us. Arm and a leg comes to mind. But, it is just too embarrassing. But what could we do? Shop around? Okay, we did. After the nice man at Europcar gave us a ride to his terminal location, Ray went to Budget and I went to Avis and they wanted even more. OMG. So, Europcar it was and that’s how we got to Taupo today.

Oh, but I failed to how rayman kidnapped me. I drove for about the first hour. Then Ray took over because my eyelids kept closing…I was really tired. He took the wheel. About 2/3 of the way there he announced he wanted to stop to relieve himself and find the info on the hotel we had booked in Taupo. Only he just kept driving. And driving. And driving. Did I mention that I needed to relieve myself too? He was like on a mission from god to get to Taupo before dark. Which we DID thanks to things like overtaking trucks in 200 meters or less on uphill climbs? EEEEEEKKKKKK. That is when I accused him of holding me hostage in the car. To no avail I might add.

NZ is really interesting. As I sat on the wrong side of the car looking out, what got me was that the dirt looks unstable. Lots of interesting shaped rolling hills. Green. Lush, even. Water everywhere. Their rivers have lots of water (and trout) if you can believe the ads along the road. The main highway we took here was most 3 lanes. Part of time there were 2 lanes for one direction and then it would switch and there would be 2 lanes for the other direction. Plenty of traffic. The country feels more inhabited in a way than AU because they have so much less land mass. And we saw an abundance of cows and sheep. All those chops and steaks on the hoof. And they were all busy eating before the sun went down. At this point Ray had more in common with them than say, me!!

But I digress. We finally arrived in Taupo.

So, I really am wedged into my seat. Between the fuselage and the Rayman. He suffers in the center seat. On the aisle is a woman from Auckland who’s already given us ideas of what to do on the North Island. And I am looking at my individual screen that tells me things like the speed of our aircraft, estimated arrival time (12:47 p.m.). Nevermind that we left at 6:55 a.m. and it’s a 3 hour flight. We’re losing some hours here. And it shows a picture of our airplane heading south with a tailwind. Perhaps too much info?

Our last night in Sydney we went to the Opera House and listened to Mike Daisy. He was appearing there as part of a series of programs entitled ‘Festival of Dangerous Ideas’. I think the title of the festival illustrates quite nicely the Aussie’s spirit and humor. So, good ole Mike spoke to us for almost 2 hours straight. The Agony and the Esctasy of Steve Jobs was the title of his presentation.No powerpoint presentation here. In fact, he did a great segment on powerpoint presentations and how much he hates them. He was completely irreverent and reminded me as a cross between Hunter S. Thompson and Lewis Black with a bit of geek mixed in.

OMG. We’re flying toward the international dateline which I knew we were…but I didn’t realize the IDL was just east of NZ. Who knew?

But I digress. His talk was about Apple, Steve Jobs and the terrible working conditions in China. Bottom line, Apple products are made in a plant in Shenzhen that houses 450,000 workers. That in it’s self is fairly mind blowing. And this place has cafeterias that hold 25,000 workers at a time and there are 10 cafeterias that size in this complex. My beloved Apple is using slave labor to assemble it’s products. OMG. Thing is Mike is trying to expose all this through his speaking engagements and writings. And he was very funny. I mean really, really funny. While I am aghast at this, it makes me shudder to think that all U.S. corporations are doing this too. And it is not pretty.

But since I am writing this epistle on my MacBook…I’m going to change the subject because I am in charge of this blog!!

We met a very friendly N.Z. couple at the Opera House and they told us that our next trip to AU should be takens up north near Darwin etc. As natives they hadn’t been and people kept telling them about it so they took the leap…and now they are converts. Beyond beautiful I undertand.

The Opera House has a theater in the belly of the beast and that’s where we were seated. A small but very comfortable room that had plush red chairs and a heck of a lot more leg room that I have right now. My MacBook is pressing up against my “uhm”, midriff. And I’m going to have to run to the loo any minute. Anyway, the Opera House was wonderful. A great deal going on in many different theaters so the restaurants on the lower level were buzzing and the bar scene was VERY lively.

Which reminds me. Air NewZealand has the funniest safety announcement tape I’ve ever seen. It makes Southwest look tame. It was laugh out loud (LOL) funny. It featured a little old lady (yes, much older than me) trying to pry a framed picture of an almost nude male athletic into the overhead bin. And at the end, she is shown running down the aisle without clothes on (blurred out, of course). NZ is going to be fun if this is any indication.

Yesterday we were busy cleaning the house, re-filling the tank for the barbie, doing laundry and then getting ourselves to downtown Sydney to spend the night as our flight required us to get up at 4:20 a.m. so we could save money riding the public transit to the airport. Of course, never mind the fact that we had to pay for the hotel…but it was convenient for the Opera House too. So that’s what we did. The only ‘tourist’ problem we had was that the Museum CityRail entrance/exit had no lifts or escalators so we had to schlepp our bags up two stories of stairs. Does Advil have any many to you? We both took some after dinner. The luggage thing wasn’t easy especially since it was up stairs. I’m pretty sure that is the only station without a lift and with escalators. Damn we’re good. The good news was this morning it was so darn early that “dropping” them down the stairs was much easier and we were, I’m pretty sure, the only people in the station at 5:00 a.m.

What were we thinking? Well, it was the cheapest flight and we were lucky because as we checked in the lady behind the desk informed us that the Customs agents were going on strike from 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. and that we shouldn’t dilly dally or we would miss our flight. They were expecting quite a back-up today as a result. So we scurried to the Customs area and Ray was lucky enough to be randomly chosen to be searched for dangerous weapons while I watched the man prod and probe him. A check was done for gun residue…it was quite thorough. And all the time I’m thinking to myself, ‘I’m the secret weapon!’. OH, I kid immigration!

Traveling the backroads was a kick. We struck out from Bowral and followed our noses, finding a road marked ‘Tourist route’. It was lovely. And we found a road that was like Old Creek Road on steroids in that it was much longer. So, tootling along, we saw a sign for a ‘Walk Above the Treetops’. Let’s go see what this is… we said almost in unison.

We found ourselves at a very interesting exhibit.
As you can see, it was quite a big structure and, no, we didn’t walk on the top of every single tree…but we did walk on top of a lot of trees.
Looking down was an interesting sensation.

But I digress. It turned out there was a charge for this adventure. We decided to do it because, unbelievable as it might seem, we didn’t have to pay for any of the National treasures we saw yesterday. And parking was free too. So, why not pay a little now? Well, it cost $48 for both of us and we paid, Diana. Yes. Quite an informative person behind that desk. And she also refers to herself as Princess Di! We really hit it off. Here’s a pic. She’s on the left and seemed excited that she would be in my blog!!
So…she sold us the tickets. The tour involved a fair bit of walking and lots of stairs. On the way down, they had posters on polls that gave information about the flora and fauna. When we reached the one that said ‘Reptiles’, I had a look. Black snakes, lizards…pythons. OMG. Am I going to be eaten by a python? Why didn’t dear Diana mention this? OMG. So…I was very vigilant though I didn’t think I’d see one because it was a bit cold. Did I mention that we were the only ones there as it was still early? What could go wrong?

But I digress. Here’s some more pictures.
The tower we climbed up. See Ray?
See Ray again? it was quite high. But what a view. Too bad it wasn’t completely sunny but we thoroughly enjoyed it anyway.
The ocean in the distance.
Looking down from the tower to the walk way.

Oh, no snakes. However a parrot.

 
After the tour I asked Diana about the python. “Oh, yes. The gardener here found one under a bush and brought it up for all of us to see. It was absolutely HUGE.” OMG. She added, “Won’t be out for about a month. Too cold. And anyway, they are interested in us. All the snakes are looking for smaller things to eat.” Well. That was a relief.