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Monday, May 31, 2010

Australia

Kristen writes:

We made it to Australia!

We then had some disagreements with the Sydney Airport, our car rental company, the lack of maps out of the Sydney Airport and the highways. So we decided to get out of the city as fast as we could and drove south to a city called Nowra.
We found a nice campground in the national park on Jarvis Bay and though the rain threatened to float our tent away a couple of nights, cancelled the SCUBA dive we set up and made us spent a bit more time in the small spaces that are our tent and car, we were able to enjoy the area pretty well. We spent two days in the nations capital, Canberra, trying to stay dry and find ways to amuse ourselves, realizing we had spent quite a bit of time just the three of us recently.

We've discovered a food item called the 'Bee sting' which is a delicious pastry filled with an incredible cream that we've quickly become addicted to. Taken in a couple of movies in Canberra when the rain threatened to overwhelm us (including a cute little Aussie film called I Love You Too). Toured the National Art Gallery with a funny little tour guide named Rachel. Visited the house of parliament where we were able to sit in and watch the 'question hour' where politicians are allowed to laugh and heckle at each other while they ask and answer questions about each others practices and politics, that was overwhelmingly amusing!

We're currently at our first WWOOF hosts outside a town whose name I cannot spell (Queanbeyan?). They have cows and a gynsing farm and are a really fun family. We've spent today, our first day, with their son Andrew walloping tussocks out of the pasture, putting together fence posts, and washing out their meat trailer (it was muddy not bloody or anything).

Australia was a little bit hard for us to love at first but the sun has come out again and life seems to be looking up. We're looking forward to our next three months on this island continent.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

A Word About Food

Erika writes:

We have made it to Auckland. We were totally out of touch while we toured the North Island. We didn't stop anywhere with internet access for a week. We left Wellington last Wednesday and drove up the east coast. We toured wineries and breweries and cideries (probably my favorite), were among the first to see the sunrise on Saturday (thanks to the old date line being so close), had a wonderful time staying in a friend's beach house and toured the Coromandel Peninsula, which is a gorgeous place with beautiful coast roads. We have mostly been working on logistics for the Australia segment of our trip since getting to Auckland but we've been able to see the city a bit. We are currently staying with old friends from Roanoke, Dale and Joan Furbish. It's been wonderful to end this segment with friends and in a relaxed manner. They've been very understanding, being great travelers themselves. We called our parents for the first time in 3 months today! That's by far the longest that we've ever gone and it was so refreshing to hear their voices. Thank goodness for email but there's nothing like hearing a loved one's voice. If only they would get on Skype, we could see their faces!

My friend, Lo, reminded me recently that it's about time to hear a little about the food here. Kristen and I are pretty dedicated to eating and to seeking out new food experiences. That has certainly remained true here. Our food on the trip has varied a lot because of the vastly different ways that we've been spending our time. I think it's fallen into four categories, so I'll say a little bit about each of those now.

1. Road food. Listen, when we were on bikes, all of our food had to fit into 2 panniers. Sometimes it had to last us for days. We also were limited in cooking facilities--2 pots and a stove that burns really hot. We ate gigantic helpings of pasta, peanut butter and honey sandwiches and fruit, concocted some very strange rice recipes (mostly adding veges and powder flavor packets) and discovered the mightily restorative powers of boiled eggs. I'm actually pretty proud of the egg thing. We were pondering snacks on the road and I realized that for less than $5, we could boil a dozen eggs and eat on them for days. They are a tremendous food and even have their own handy little carrying containers. Yep, life on the bikes was limited but we sure appreciated every mouthful.

2. Us cooking for real. Both hostels and campgrounds usually have kitchens and often have kitchenware as well. When we stay in one of these, especially for more than one night, we take advantage of these facilities. Please consult the food chronicle we compiled after one particularly gluttonous episode at Jewel's blog www.legitadventure.blogspot.com This illustrates both how many calories we need when biking and how truly crazy we've become. When traveling, the one privation we feel the most is the absence of Mexican food from our diets. You can sometimes find Mexican restaurants but they are always pretty expensive for us and end up being disappointing. My mom makes incredible food (of all kinds, of course, but especially stuff she learned growing up on a reservation) and we come to crave that food above all else. We have a rule that no one is allowed to mention Mexican food, of any kind. It's very hard to hold to that rule. Recently, in Wellington and our stint at the beach house, we've treated ourselves to some Mexican food of our own making. It is not the same. In fact, it's often not even that good. But we convince ourselves that it is similar and it fits within our budget. Our last venture starred guacamole because avocados are grown here and are delicious and cheap. That part was great. The part where we flavored processed meat with taco seasoning was incredibly weird. Still...oddly satisfying. Definitely looking forward to real beans again, though.

3. Food at restaurants. We mostly eat out at lunch and we've found some delightful restaurants and cafes throughout our time here. We've eaten lots of meat pies, something we don't really have in the States but is a product of British influence here. I would not have classified myself as a meat pie person before this trip but New Zealand has done some great things with the pie and I've enjoyed them a lot. We've had venison pies, steak and cheese pies, mince (the word for burger) pies, lamb pies, chicken, apricot and brie pies...been on a little bit of a pie tour, really. One small chain called Trisha's makes pies with very flaky crust and interesting flavor combinations. They are always fresh and the middles aren't the weirdly gelatinous stuff I objected to before but gravyish without being too drippy. We've had fun exploring the options there.

We've had fantastic food in organic/vegetarian restaurants (surprised me a little--I'm a meat eater, for sure). We had a meal up on the Coromandel that stunned us with how delicious it was. We shared pancakes and a sandwich and dahl plus a couple of milkshakes, which sounds fairly commonplace but was, in fact, food that had been stolen from the table of the gods. It was incredible. I have a page of description in my journal.

The other meal that we've tried to sample pretty frequently is fish and chips. We are not huge seafood people and, actually, Jewel is allergic to fish, but we love the chips and we like the fish a lot. Most of the shops that serve fish and chips also make burgers so, being a meat lover, I often get one of those. The burgers come with beetroot (sometimes pickled) and a fried egg on them. I love this. We ate at one burger place in Queenstown, which our friend, Andy, assured us served the best burgers in the world. Honestly, he might be right. They were incredible and came with all kinds of fascinating toppings. They were also HUGE. Very satisfying, even for us.

4. Food given us by hosts. And this is where life goes from pretty great to a recognizable gift from God--the food kind people have cooked for us. In general, food in NZ is a meat and potatoes kind of affair and we have had some beautiful roasts: venison, lamb and beef. We've also had great sandwiches made with leftovers from those roasts. We're here in the fall and we've had delicious pumpkin soup in a couple of places. We've developed a love of seafood that has taken us by surprise. A friend worked at a salmon farm and had just built a smoker so we ate lots of freshly smoked salmon. It was awesome. I've never liked one taste of salmon before and I was suddenly eating it by the pound. We also ate crayfish that were pulled from the ocean hours before and stabbed through the head, right next to me, moments before I ate it. It was also great and I've never liked shellfish at all. I guess everyone was right when they told me the key was to get fresh fish--it's made all the difference.


I made a list a few days ago with the long title, "things I'll miss from NZ" and realized that most of them are food related so I'll post that here to close.
  • Tui (brand of beer)
  • Speight's (same)
  • Steinlager (ditto)
  • Sunshine Beer (yeah, so there's a pattern)
  • pavlova, lollycake, hokey pokey anything (these are desserts, pav is a kind of egg white confection, lollycake is a crazy, no bake cake that is really sweet and kind of addictive and hokey pokeys are little bits of crunchy goodness in ice cream and other desserts.)
  • meat pies
  • flat white coffee (a little more foam than I'm generally a fan of but pretty and tasty. incidentally, also seems to have caffeine, isn't that awesome?)
  • banana milk (do we have this at home? they have banana flavored milk and it's actually really good.)
  • Razorback wine (the vineyard we worked at. we drank more than we probably earned)
  • burgers with eggs and beetroot
  • giant crayfish (I guess we would call them lobsters. They can be almost a meter long.)
  • L&P (a drink that might only be available here. kind of like ginger ale. my new favorite)
  • Moro bars (incredible candy)
  • men in stubbies and chaps (stubbies are short shorts and men here really wear them to work in. Seriously)
  • men in stubbies and gumboots (those are galoshes, folks. picture it. it's a real thing.)
I'm still working on the list. I'll let you know if I think of anything else interesting. I'm planning to post pictures soon. We'll see how that works out.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Wellington

The lake at Mt. Burke Station where we stayed through the rain.
Our cheerful host Todd, working in the rain.

We spent a lot of time in first Andy's car and then in Si's borrowed car.


Milford Sound was awesome because there had been so much rain! We were rather damp and uncomfortable- it was worth it!!!



The beach at Timaru with Andy.




We're in the big city and ready to see the north island!

We're looking at selling our bikes and gear after a few day trips around the south of the north island and renting a car to explore the rest. We're sad to see the bikes go but ready to move on to the next part of this adventure.

We already miss the south island and all our new friends there, we're going through withdrawals! There are just so many people and places that we've really come to love!

Saturday, May 1, 2010

South West Road Trip

Kristen writes:

There's quite a lot to catch you all up on.
Leaving Goat Hills Station was very difficult. We very quickly came to love the family we were staying with, the beautiful farm, the delicious meals, the musters and tractor driving.
Still, we did have to move on and after a night in Christchurch we picked up a rental car and headed west across Arthurs Pass. We took a couple of days to go down the west coast. Seeing Franz and Fox Glaciers was pretty incredible! Standing at the base of a mountain of ice quickly makes you realize how small you are. The landscape along the coast is so dramatic and such a change from where we've been on the north east corner of the south island.

We turned in our rental car and met up with Andy, a friend we met at Goat Hills Station, in Queenstown and had a personal tour guide for our trip through the south.
And what a tour guide he was! We went four wheeling through the most beautiful countryside through all the changing colors of the trees. Of course we sort of killed Andy's Land Cruiser in the process but we take no responsability for that. It caught on fire before we ever got in it!
We stayed at another Station called Mount Burke with friends of Andy who were kind enough to put us up, feed us and then lend us a car since Andy's had bitten the dust. It was great to stay warm and cozy inside as the rain poured steadily for several days.
Then we all went on to Milford Sound where we learned that they had had a meter of rain in the last four days! It made for wet sight seeing but the most incredible and dramatic scenery yet! Waterfalls coming down on absolutely every side, in every way and place they could. It was incredible!
From there we drove on through the lakes, enjoying the mountains, the lakes and the drive.
We ended up at Andy's parents in Timaru for the last night of our southern tour before a very early morning drive up to Christchurch. We made it just in time to catch our train to Blenheim!

So, now we're in Blenheim again with the ever incredible Speedy family.
From here our plans have us taking the ferry to Wellington, renting a car to get up the island to Aukland, taking time to bike around where and when we can. We're getting used to going with whatever comes our way as everything about this trip seems to change with who we meet and all people have offered us.