Whanganui

While in Whanganui we stayed at the most adorable B&B, The Gumnut House. The B&B was beautifully decorated inside and out, attention to detail was their specialty! Our hosts were such wonderful people (with sweet restored vintage American –Ford- Muscle Cars). They also make the most deelishus breakfast and coffee-all organic and fair-trade foods!

That evening we went downtown to dinner at Angora-a Mediterranean and Turkish restaurant. For appetizers we ordered fried Halumi cheese and scallops in a creamy, dreamy white wine sauce. For dinner we shared a Mediterranean pizza which was only ok-we wish we would have ordered the eggplant, it looked fantastic!

In Whanganui there are jet boat races on the river and sprint car races (if you time it right), we were a WEEK early/late! SHOOOT!

Raglan

Raglan is a quaint little surf town -so we were excited to check it out! When we arrived it was pouring down rain! SHOOOT! We stayed at Solscape Eco Retreat in an old converted caboose. They are in a great location (on the side of the hill overlooking the ocean) with a fantastic view. Solscape is filled to the brim with surfer peeps and hippie dudes with cute puppies.

Solscape Eco Retreat

View from Solescape

For dinner we headed to town. Nothing was open for sit-down dinner yet…at 6:30pm…craziness! We were starving so we decided to go to a takeaway place that served fish and chips. Oh my goodness we had the best fish and chips (pronounced “fush an chups” here) in the world! We nommed it down so quick, we forgot to take a picture! We ordered ONE order of snapper “fush an chups” and it was HUGE! Four GIANT pieces of fish and fries for miles wrapped up in newspaper for SIX DOLLARS-our cheapest meal to date (if you are not including our Weetabix/soymilk breakfasts). After dinner we headed to Orca, a cute restaurant right across from the ocean. We sat on barstools right by the window- Joh had a Spites Dark Ale and I had a decaf flat white coffee. We ended our lovely rainy evening looking out on to the stormy ocean.

@ Orca

The next morning on our way out of town we went to check out Bridal Veil Falls-pictures say it all!

Giant fiddle head

Spiky flower guy

Mushroom man

Bridal Veil Falls

Bridal Veil Falls

Beautiful Fox-Gloves 

After the falls we headed to Mike’s Organic Brewery which is in the middle of f’ing nowhere!! There would be absolutely no reason to go anywhere near that brewery unless you were going to the brewery. The whole time I was wondering to myself…”Where in the hell do these people live?” The brewery is situated on an old plantation setting with beautiful hard wood tables outside. Their beers are made with all organic, local ingredients and pure New Zealand rain water. I had the Strawberry Blonde (no sugar was added to this beer, just local organic strawberries) which was totally pink! Joh had their ale and we had a taste of the Chestnut Liqueur (which was deelishus but doesn’t hold a candle to Charbay Walnut Liqueur, of course). We also purchased one 750ml bottle of their 9.3% Double IPA. Our plan is to bring it home with us, but we will see –we are just such thirsty peeps!

Mike's Organic Brewery

Tasting Room

Deelishus

Warkworth. Matakana. Sawmill Brewery.

I have nothing nice to say about Sheep World, so I am not going to say anything at all. (c-bird)

The owner guy was a hilarious nutter and we did hear a kiwi in the bush while camped next to a pond with a waterfall (Joh).

Tent site at Sheep World

On a better note-we went to Ascension winery and had a lovely wine tasting. Our favorites were “The Rogue” Matakana Flora, “The Ascent” Reserve Matakana Chardonnay and “The Bell Ringer” Matakana Pinotage. They are a dry farming winery with no soil amendments.

The next morning we went to the Matakana Farmer’s Market up the road (about 5 miles) and were in absolute heaven. Their farmer’s market was what all farmer’s markets want to be when they grow up! The cutest little booths set up in a horse shoe shape, live twang-y guitar folk music (which was fantastic), right next to a little river-it was absolutely wonderful! There was so much for sale at the market: beer, cheese, crepes, raw foods, smoothies, produce, flowers, honey, crafts, smoked fish, tons of pastries, and yummy breakfast and lunch foods. We picked up some veggies and water buffalo blue cheese-damn tasty! There was a cute restaurant called the “Matakana Market Kitchen”-adorable. I had a glass of crisp Sauvignon Blanc, Joh had a pilsner from Sawmill Brewery and we shared the most deelishus veggie muffin/pastry-scrumptious! The beautifully decorated restaurant is owned by an adorable British family which all worked there together. The daughter (maybe 22ish) took care of us while we were there-she was such a great hostess!

Matakana Farmer's Market

Lovely organic veggies!

Owl-tastic! 

:)

"Cream of the Crop"-most adorable store!

On the way out of town we headed to the Sawmill Brewery to see what kinds of tasty beerverages they had to offer us. The tasting room/restaurant was funky with huge saw blades on the walls, little colored vintage glass jars atop shelves all around the room, beautiful wood tables and the funkiest artichoke flower bouquets! We shared a sampler; the beers were ok-but nothing more. Our favorite was the “12 Gage” Double Pilsner. Their location is great, they have little attached cabins you can rent for the night and they are very close to Goat Island Marine Reserve, which we checked out as well. It is a tourist trap but looks like great diving to be had in that area.

Sawmill Sampler

Tasty

Sawmill

Artichoke Flower

Kohukohu (FAR North)

We stayed in Kohukohu (in the middle of faa-reaking nowhere) at The Tree House in a little cabin by a pond and a small bamboo forest (you can also stay in old vintage school busses there-shoot!). It was super jungle-y at the tree house-tons of bugs and the BIGGEST spider we have ever seen! They had sheep, ducks, one cute and furry little baby ducky, and tons of birds. The owners (which have owned and operated The Tree House for thirty years) made the sweetest little twenty minute hiking trail through the jungle and up and around their property. At the top, there was a group of cicadas singling us some sweet tunes while we enjoyed the beautiful view of the bay perched on a handmade oversized wooden bench. It was a wonderful time!

Our Cabin by the mini bamboo forest.

Momma and baby duck.

View from the top of the property hike.

Beautiful!

Mr. Spider

Kerikeri (North Island)

Our two-day stay at the Farm House in Kerikeri was terrific! We stayed in a private cabin that was nestled on the edge of their mandarin orange orchard (which is watered ONLY by rain). They had chickens, Kune-Kune pigs (they were so funny!), banana trees and millions of tiny black bugs that bit my feet to hell! Joh suffered a few bites here and there, but apparently they just LOVE me!

Pretty Farm Flowers

Joh with his "Country" wine!

Cutie Kune-Kune pigs!

Mandrin-loving chicken

Banana Tree

The first day we headed towards the ocean, but we didn't make it that far-we got side tracked on the far north arterial roads. WE WENT RALLYING!! It was so freaking wild-that poor, poor rental car! Oh miles and miles of dirt road, the most beautiful wild horses we've ever seen, and a few tiny lakes. We finally made it to the ocean that day- 90 mile beach! The box (navigation system) saved us (shocking, she usually gets us lost) from being lost way out in the middle of the most northern point of the north island! THANK YOU BOX, but you still are a little Biox (bitch-box)!

Sweet Far North Arterial Rally Roads

90-mile beach

The next day we went on a short 30 minute hike to Rainbow falls-what a beautiful place. The pictures say it all!

Hike to Rainbow Falls

   Rainbow Falls

Top of Rainbow Falls

Auckland

Our B&B in Auckland was awesome! The hosts were great and gave us good advice for our adventures ahead.What a perfect way to start our trip!

A view from the balcony at our B&B .

We met up with a local home brewer "BOB" who took us around  to a few different breweries. We went to both Mac's Breweries in Auckland and Brews on Quay . The beer at Mac's was good the food was only ok. At Brew's on Quay we found one of our most favorite beers in NZ so far- "Ginger Tom" alcoholic ginger beer (we will be headed there ASAP)!

Mac's Brewbar- on the water.

GINGER TOM @ Brew on Quay

At "Countdown" grocery. In the egg aisle. THEY KEEP THEIR EGGS ON A SHELF, not in a fridge. As you can see, the selections are quite vast.

Look at these sweet eggz, just look at 'em...

 Path at the "spit" on Orakei Island...

Orekai Island...

That is it for now. It is nap-time, we will catch up with you soon! We will tell you more about the ride up north to Kerikeri where we stayed at the cutest farm hostel. Then on to Kohukohu where we are staying (at The Tree House) now! Then on to some wineries and sheep land tomorrow!

We miss you!!!

<3 

J&C

planes, trains and automobiles...

yahooweewooo! we made it safely and we are just loving it!

this is how we got here...

on friday december 3 we hired a cab at 1:00pm and zoomed off to the amtrack station in sacramento,ca.

after arriving in richmond, ca we took bart down to the sfo stop. 

it took us about 4 hours to get from downtown sacramento to sfo.

after getting all checked and passed through security we stopped at the buena vista cafe (in sfo) and had a much deserved guinness and giant stack of sweet potato fries. YUM!

our flight to la promptly departed at 8:15pm and we arrived at 9:45. 

we had to go to the international terminal and back thorough the security (including the NEW backscatter device...SCARY)we made it through in once piece although joh's bag got searched by the NICEST tsa worker-bee ever (who mostly just wanted to talk about cell phones and pretended to actually "search" anything.) whew!

we then found our boarding area, got some super deelishus tea and waited to board our flight that didn't end up leaving until around midnight. 

our 13 hour flight was definitely not as excruciatingly long as we both expected. the qantas in flight entertainment helped quite a bit. initially they had us seated separately (ummm...i don't think so) but when we appealed to the gate agent she found us some seats together. IN THE EXIT ROW!!!! they were fantastic seats. so much foot room it was crazy! practically business class without the extra charges. though i was freezing the entire night. i bundled myself up, popped a few 450mgs of valerian root, put my headphones on and got some airplane zzz....joh of course had no problem falling asleep.

we arrived in auckland at 10:15am sunday december 5 (we are in the future because we crossed the international date line)...this picture is a detail of the gate that greets you when you arrive at the auckland airport.

we passed through customs without any trouble. we did have some missing tasty cheese sticks from the usa that we had to declare, but couldn't find-but they were cool about it. (later we found the cheese sticks safe and sound then nommed them down!) we also brought 7 beers with us from the usa to share with kiwi beer aficianados-they made it safe and sound as well.

 this is our pimpin ride. a toyota corolla...a 1980-something toyota corolla from japan! so far it seems dependable. a2b car rentals gave us these three rules...

1. if you drive it on the beach, don't tell us.

2. when joh noted the "back-country pin stripes" the rental dude said..."I just scribbled all over the whole sheet so if you mess it up more, you will be covered."

3. DON'T FLIP IT!! and everything will be fine.

we LOVE this country already!

we are headed up north today and may or may not have interwebs but as soon as we do we will tell you more about our stay in Auckland and our adventures up North -including the brewpubs (we liked Mac's), our wonderful hosts at the Ascot Parnell B&B, the sweet link bus, Auckland Hospital Operating Rooms, the "spit", banking and grocery shopping adventures. 

Ta ta 4 meow!