Merry Christmas!!

On Christmas Eve we went out toward Raglan. Near the coast is Bridalvail Falls. This 55m (180 foot) falls tumbles off beautiful green cliffs and into a deep pool. The weather has been very rainy recently so we figured the falls would be spectacular – we weren’t disappointed!

Bridalvail Falls through the forest

Beautiful!!

 Christmas is certainly different in New Zealand! While people still decorate Christmas trees, we didn’t find any homes decorated with lights or wreaths, etc. Also, instead of milk and cookies for Santa…Santa eagerly awaits his beer and cookies. No wonder he visits New Zealand first! Must be why he has rosy cheeks by the time he gets to the States too! One other difference that left us a bit sad was the lack of Christmas songs on the radio. No 24 hours of the Christmas Story either. We would have enjoyed even one showing J We did open the eyes of several friends to the awesomeness that is Elf.  

Santa like's Mac's!

Our GIANT Christmas tree - about 6" tall!

 This Christmas we were invited to David Hamilton’s house to join David and his wife Debbie and their kids for Christmas dinner. David is the professor at the Uni with which Kevin is working. David did up the turkey on the BBQ – something that’s fairly common down here. It was a beautiful day – we enjoyed Christmas dinner on the deck sipping wine and enjoying the sunshine!

After dinner we went for a walk and David showed Kevin his bee hives. David keeps two hives and Kevin and David added another row of combs to them. The hives start out with at least 1-2 layers on them – this is where the queen is kept and where the Papua are hatched from. As the bees increase their honeycomb production they need new layers added to the hive.

Kevin putting on David's extra bee suit.

You sure this thing is bee proof?!

David taking the top off of the hive. The two columns of boxes on the right are where the two bee hives were located. Each needed a new layer of combs (behind David) added to them.

Pulling out a comb - the bees are busy at work!

The active combs - these two hives produce about 20kg (~45-50 lbs) of honey a year!

On Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, we went out to Raglan to friend’s house there. We’re still not sure exactly what Boxing Day is all about – apparently it’s the day that people ‘box’ everything up from Christmas! Our friends Bronwyn and Regan live (literally!) about 25 feet from the water - Raglan harbor is their backyard! Boxing Day was another beautiful relaxing day!

We hope you all enjoyed the holidays and got to spend time with friends and family. For both of us this was our first Christmas not spent with family. It felt weird to be in shorts and T-shirts on Christmas! While we missed everyone back home, we don’t miss the weather!! (-:

16 December 2010: Coromandel East Coast Adventure

Hello, hello! The Christmas holiday season in New Zealand is a little different than in the states. Here people actually take holiday and a lot of businesses shut down from about 17th of December through just after New Years if not longer. The Uni is shutting down from the 17th of December through the 10th of January. Which makes research a bit more difficult for Kevin as this is his primary field time down here. Oh well time for a little extra exploring right?

During this holiday season, quite a few Kiwis, especially North Islanders, make the Coromandel Peninsula their holiday destination. So we decided to hit it before it got busy and the prices jumped quite a bit. So last weekend we headed north with two friends, Lydia and Tim, to the Coromandel.  Saturday around noon we hit the road with Lydia, as Tim had some very important cricket to attend to and would join us later that evening.

After checking in at a super cute motel/backpacker in Hahei, we grabbed our spades and buckets to hit up the world famous Hot Water Beach (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Water_Beach and http://www.mercurybay.co.nz/activities/hotwaterbeach.php). Within two hours of either side of low tide people gather at Hot Water Beach to dig their own personal hot pool as toasty water percolates right through the sand thanks to two magma heated springs just 1-2km below the surface of the beach. Awesome! We managed to get to the beach about 2.5 hours before low tide and staked out an area near some rocks close to the breaking point of the tide. Kevin started digging as soon as he could but quickly overheard a guy next to him telling others how to truly fashion an awesome pool. This was not his first rodeo for sure. In the end we teamed up with this guy and a few other people to dig a truly amazing hot pool fortified with drift wood sea-walls and the one boulder forcing the hot water straight into our pool. Ahhhh, lovely.

Merging our pool with our neighbors, looking good Kevin and Lydia!

Kevin observing the invaders in our pool

Hot Water Beach gets thousands of people during low tide during the summer, this was near the end of low tide and low attendance as well

This is how a weekend in December should be spent!

Later that evening after Tim arrived there was a mutual decision to get up super early as low tide was perfectly coinciding with sunrise. So at 5am we got up, packed up pots of coffee and tea and headed back to Hot Water Beach. We built another amazing and deep hot pool for the four of us and settled in for the sunrise with cups of warm goodness. The amazing this was that we had this beautiful beach almost to ourselves with only a couple other people a little later on. Very much worth the lack of sleep!

Kevin and Tim building something amazing at around 5:15am

We were 4 out of 6 people on the beach :)

Everything is better when you bring tea and coffee

Here comes the sun...

After showers and breakfast at a local cafe we headed down to another very famous beach, Cathedral Cove or Te Whanganui-A-Hei  Marine Reserve (http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-visit/coromandel/te-whanganui-a-hei-cathedral-cove-marine-reserve/ ). This beach and cove area was recently used in The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and for good reason. It is beautiful!! Although this spectacular beach does get busy, we are convinced it would be more busy if it wasnt for the 30 minute track to get out to it. This walk was beautiful in itself and made the whole day complete!

Takes more like 25/30 min

The view from the walk

Technically this is Mare's Bay, to the left and through the archway is Cathedral Cove (all beautiful)

Tim and Lydia enjoying the beautiful beach

There are sea caves along the water's edge

Kevin deemed the closer island Rose Island and threatened all those who dared invade :)

The early day and swims at Cathedral Cove left us all hankering for some yummy food so we headed down to Cooks Beach and grabbed a ferry ride over to Whitianga for some shopping and local fish and chips. Yum! And what day is complete without tasting the local agriculture, so we hit the Mercury Bay Winery on our way home. The best pinot noir we have tasted here yet!

So that was our east coast of the Coromandel adventure. We know that we will probably be back in January to enjoy more of this beautiful area, but for now it is time to let the Kiwi vacationers enjoy. This week has been a busy one with Kevin prepping for some major sampling/experimenting on Rotorua and Megan lining up some final sponsors for Orientation Week at the Uni. We are headed north above Auckland startin Saturday for a 5-6 day surfing holiday with our friend Bronwyn and Reagan. Hope you all are doing well and getting into the Christmas spirit. We still aren't feeling it too much here with the insane humidity and warm temps (not looking for sympathy but it is really hard to feel Christmasy when you expect to be bundled and enjoying fires not bbqs). However this Friday we will be introducing some friends to our favorite Christmas classics, Elf and A Christmas Story; so hopefully the Christmas spirit will abound after that.

Love and hugs to all of you!

8 December 2010: What's a Jersey?

So today at work Megan got asked two very disturbing questions by her boss's boss while discussing the Bon Jovi Concert he was at last weekend. First, "What's a Jersey?" Second, after that was explicitly clarified, "So, is New Jersey part of New York?" Punch in the stomach right?

While you are digesting that loveliness, enjoy this amazing classic Kiwi commercial:

Amazing Dancing Kiwi

Update:  Here is another favorite:

Who gets to drive the new Toyota?
Love, Laughs and Hugs!

1 December 2010: Lake Waikaremoana and Napier

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! We had a great time on our trip out to Te Urewera National Park and Napier. The weather was awful on the day we drove out to the national park and was supposed to be awful the first day of our hike but it cleared up just in time for us to hit the first lookout on our hike up to the top of the bluffs above Lake Waikaremoana. Not our picture, but this gives good perspective on the Panekire Bluff: http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkinglegends/4070654191/

After staying Monday night at the Waikaremoana Motorcamp we took a water taxi to the start of the great walk (car break-ins and thefts are a real issue at quite a few trailheads, so at a lot of the major trailheads you leave your car at a more secure carpark and take alternative transport back and forth from the trail starts and ends). We decided for our first day that we would tackle the most difficult part of the hike, going up and over the Panekire Bluffs. This was an 18km (about 11 miles) hike with a 600m ascent and descent. We found out that about 80% of people who hike to the top of the bluffs never get to see the lake due to fog and mist. As I said, we got very lucky and had beautiful cool weather. That night we stayed at the Waiopaoa Campsite.

The Start at Onepoto

Waiting for the Water Taxi

Went up to the top of this on Day 1, across the ridge for a while, then back down to the base

Look how lush it is?!

80% of people don't get to see the lake from the top....yeah!  PS Kevin wants people to know this lake has a PAR Kd of 0.14, for the rest of the world....it's pretty stinkin clear

The 9hr hike took 7, thank goodness :)

This was a lovely campsite to stay in. Great day shelter to cook in and we slept lakeside, so we were greeted by quite a chorus of waterfowl in the morning. Day 2 of the hike was spent hiking around the lake edge and going up and over small hills that make up little arms of land that reach into the lake (about 17 km). This was another beautiful day with a couple of light showers which made the vibrant crystal clear green of the lake even more spectacular when the sun shone. This night we camped at the Waiharuru Campsite with two young German men who were hiking in the opposite direction. This site had two very new huts, which we snuck in to cook.

Cute guy on a "flexy"bridge

Fully clothed lights are more than welcome

Ate lunch at this cute little hut

Day 3 was a much shorter day with only 11km of easy trails easy several gorgeous bays. We got to the water taxi pick up spot about an hour early and enjoyed lunch on the beach. This was a great hike. We climbed through a mossy, lush jungle on our way to take in the entire huge lake at the top of the bluff, we walked through fern-filled forest that felt more like the Jurassic Park set than anything else, and we took in Lake Waikaremoana from every spectacular angle possible. Awesome!

Waiharuru Hut and Campsite

One of the beautiful bays we walked around on Day 3

Last hut before our pickup

Lunch at the Water Taxi Pick up beach

Tramp's End

So after our Water Taxi back to the Motorcamp and a slow drive down to Napier we settled into our hostel, Archie's Bunker. Nothing special in terms of accommodations but the owner, Doug, was super nice and helpful. We were given excellent recommendations for our Italian Thanksgiving Dinner, yum! Then they set us up with a wine tour for the following day. However, later that night we found out the despite our signing up for the lowest level package the other people on our tour signed up for the super deluxe package, so we got a free upgrade (in the end we both agreed we would never in a million years pay almost double for this so-called upgrade, but free upgrades are nice :) )! So Friday morning we enjoyed a leisurely late brunch at a local cafe then were picked up for our wine tour. This tour included tastings at three local wineries (Mission Estate, Crossroads Winery, Moana Park), a tour of the wine-making facilities at the last boutique winery and a stop at a gourmet chocolate shop. Overall it was a nice afternoon and a great way to find out more about the Hawke's Bay wine region. 

Oldest Vineyard in New Zealand and our first tour stop

Lots of wine at Moana Park Winery, our favorite

That's right random hot pools in the middle of nowhere

Roadside waterfalls, thank you NZ Frenzy

Quick view of Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe (Mount Doom) on our drive home

The last little tidbit we wanted to share was about the International Ski Competition that was held in town the day after we got home. The annual Bridge to Bridge Ski Competition was based in Hamilton but involves almost 85km of the Waikato River from Cambridge on north. This three day competition includes ski boat races, jet ski races, various skiing competitions, but the culmination is the 82km long race.Two skiers get behind different types of jet boats going up to 100mph along this route on the Waikato. They raced past where we sitting in Hamilton twice. It was insane! There was even one boat toting a 14 yr old and 16 yr old together. They were great! Fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon :)

These skiers are going up to 100mph! (and occasionally there are logs in the river...)

Look at how little of the boat is in the water!

Slow week of work and work here. Hope you are all doing well. Amazing that it's December already!

Love and hugs!

20 November 2010: Smelly, Hot and Amazing

So this last weekend we explored the Rotorua region. We briefly explored this area when we visited in Jan/Feb 2009 but really didn’t leave the town itself (which itself has plenty to keep you busy). This area is extremely wet with lots of lakes and streams/rivers of varying sizes. It is also EXTREMELY geothermally active.  Our goal for the weekend was to enjoy the town a bit on Friday afternoon/evening, then explore through some short treks the beautiful landscape and the thermal features.

Friday night was lovely. Kevin spent the day assisting the Chris, the buoy guru, with several buoys on lakes in the Rotorua region. Megan met him down there in the evening. We finally got some delicious fish and chips, followed by a few drinks and live music at a local pub. Great night!

Saturday we started early down to Rainbow Mountain or Maungakakaramea, meaning mountain of colored earth.  The hike to the summit of this mountain is a 5km return (3 mile roundtrip) with some amazing crater pools and fumarole laden cliff-faces along the way. At the summit you get a spectacular 360 degree view of the Rotorua region including Mount Tarawera (we will get to this later), Lake Tarawera, Lake Rotorua, Lake Rotoiti, Lake Rotomahana, Lake Taupo, several geothermal parks and even the peaks of Tongariro National Park to the south. In other words, on a clear day...wow! And this day was pretty clear.

One of the crater lakes

Fumaroles

From the summit

After this hike we headed south in search of one of the other cool features of the area, hot pools in the bush.  In different areas all over the North Island there are areas where water bubbles (and sometimes boils) up from the ground and mixes with flowing fresh or ocean water. Many of these places are commercialized but there are many areas that are tucked away on remote beaches or in the forest. Here in Rotorua there are lots of bush hot pools/streams.  We went in search of 4 different locations to pick our favourite to soak in for a while. However, there are a few things to keep in mind: 1- Don’t get your head wet in these thermal areas (right Steph and Mark J). There is a very, very small risk of contracting amoebic meningitis (see here for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_amoebic_meningoencephalitis ) but this disease has a fatality rate of almost 97%; and 2- Try to find a hot pool area that fits into the Goldilocks principle (not too hot- ouch, not too cold- no thanks, and not too acidic- bummer). After checking out all four sites we actually settled on the most popular area because of the waterfalls and the fact that it wasn’t actually busy that day. Kerosene Creek was wonderful.

As if boiling water and mud aren't enough, let's throw in a fatal parasitic disease

Next we journeyed back north and to the east past lakes Rotorua, Rotoiti, Rotoehu, and Rotoema to the town of Kawerau to get a permit to drive on logging roads to get to the Lake Tarawera Outlet campground for the night. What a pretty spot. It was wickedly windy that night and the next morning but still beautiful  and a lovely evening.

Sunset over Lake Tarawera

After a nice night’s sleep we packed up our gear and decided to hike out to Tarawera Falls before heading out. This hike was a fairly flat 10km return and it did not disappoint.  This track offers quiet time in the bush with views of the crystal clear Lake Tarawera outflow river, 3 different waterfall areas, and the climax is when the river disappears into a hole in the ground to gush out of the middle of a cliff face in the final waterfall area. Amazing!

First set of falls, we almost stopped here b/c we though this was it...lesson in persisting/exploring

Gag if you must, but I thought it was a nice pic

Welcoming us to the second major waterfalls

Beautiful

The river just disappears into this hole! (Not a a small river either)

And here is comes!

Little side note here: Mount Tarawera is kind of looming in the background in this area at all times. This “dormant” volcano has an interesting recent history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Tarawera  You can now take helicopter tours through the 7 craters on the top of the mountain or visit the Buried Village where they are attempting to excavate. This is a popular painting made by one of the survivors of the eruption from a local Maori village:  http://www.clearwater.co.nz/PicsHotel/clearwater/GeneralPresentation/ID6926Pic1.jpg  . No thanks right? Thankfully it’s a little quieter now.

Our last stop on our way home to Hamilton was in the town of Okere Falls where we hiked along a short track to the Kaituna Falls. For those of you who enjoy whitewater rafting, this is world renown. This short raft trip takes you over the highest commercially rafted falls, 7m (about 21 ft). Kevin is going over these falls as we speak as part of a buddy’s Stag Party (Bachelor Party for us Americans).

Insane!?!

Well that’s all for now. This week has been kind of boring with Megan and Kevin both working.  As a little teaser we will share a bit about where we are headed this next week. Next week is Thanksgiving week back in the states, so we considered doing a big potluck but everyone we are close with are heading to the South Island for a conference. No worries though, time for an adventure. We will be heading out to our first Great Walk, the Lake Waikaremoana Track (http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/tracks-and-walks/east-coast-hawkes-bay/aniwaniwa-area/lake-waikaremoana-great-walk/ ). There are 9 Great Walks (including one canoe journey) in New Zealand. When we finish on Thanksgiving Day we will be heading down to Napier which is in the Hawke’s Bay wine region (yeah!) for a relaxing day of winery tours on Black Friday. 

Thanksgiving Side Note:

We hope you all know how thankful we are for all of you. Each of you brings so much to our lives. Thank you for being amazing. We don’t know where we would be without the love and support of our family and friends.

Lots of love and hugs!