A Bit of Blenheim

Well, I'm here!  All settled in my new home in the South Island for the next six months.  The town is called Blenheim- it's at the top of the South Island in the Marlborough Region, which is known for its wines.  Yes, I'm living in one of NZ's wine countries :).  I run and bike by vineyards everyday!     And no need to worry, I'm 3.5 hrs away from Christchurch where the earthquake was.  The whole country is in mourning over the disaster, but structurally, I'm safe and sound here in Blenheim--- thank goodness!

Blenheim's population is about 29,000, which is over 3x the size of Hawera.  While I do miss the familiarity and friends and coworkers I left in Hawera, it's exciting for the new adventure ahead!

Since I've accumulated some stuff that no longer just fits in the two bags I came to New Zealand with, I figured it'd be best to drive/ferry to the South Island.  Since the car I was previously driving belonged to the Hawera clinic, I had to buy a car.   New Zealanders are fond of running used cars til they die.  My tramping buddy Lincoln graciously leased/rented me his used car for six months.   She's an oldie, but a goodie.  She gets quite thirsty for oil, and she's been nicknamed "Smoky".   She may not have a radio nor a/c, but she gets me from A to B just fine!

Meet Smoky!

The Interislander Ferry runs from Wellington (North Island) to Picton (South Island) several times daily.  It transports people (like me!) and cars (like ol' Smoky.)  It has a movie theater and bar and cafe and all sorts of fun things!  I arrived early so I was able to score a front row window seat to get a great view of the 3 hour journey on this clear day!

Here's a view out the window, as we cross the Cook Strait and approach the Marlborough Sounds.  Beautiful landscape, indeed!

 Looking back on where we came from up North as we approach Picton.   To the left is a cruise ship, slightly bigger than our ferry :)

Arrival at Picton!

Picton is just a short 25 minute drive from Blenheim, which will make weekends visiting mates in Wellington quite easy!

Here is a view of my street-   pretty normal, suburbia.  Nice and wide to allow for the HEAPS of bikers in this town!

Here is my new home for the next six months!   It's a one bedroom efficiency type place next to my office manager and colleague's home.  These types of houses get nicknamed "granny flats", as it gives "granny" a separate independent place to live near her family. 

 
Here's my 'granny flat'!

The patio has been great.  In fact, that's where I'm blogging from right now!  Hooray for wireless internet.

The house owners have two dogs (Mossy and Conn, I have no clue if I'm spellling it right) which showed instant affinity to me.  Here's Mossy outside my door, all ready for his favorite game of which he never tires..

"Please throw this soggy tennis ball across the patio.  I promise I will fetch it and bring it back to you, so we can play again!  And again!  And again and again and again and again... :)

The patio is great.    There's Conn in the background.   I store my bike out here too, because just about everywhere in this town is bike-able, plus there's a bunch of mountainbike tracks not far away, either!

I was welcomed to my flat with an absolutely GORGEOUS flower bouquet from a special someone ;)

Work kept me busy from Monday to Thursday this past week.   With this job, instead of having Wednesday afternoons off, I have ALL Day Fridays off!  Hooray for the long weekends!

I was able to keep myself fully amused staying in Blenheim all weekend.  Friday night I went to a "Winery Tour" concert with a husband/wife colleague pair and their kids.  There were three acts, all NZ pop artists.  It was a great relaxing environment for a concert.

The main act was a gal named Brooke Fraser-  she's a Kiwi that reminds me a lot of KT Tunstall- so if you like KT, you should check out Brooke!   All the preteen girls *screeched* like mad when Brooke came on stage!

Saturday I checked out a Mutlicultural Festival in one of the town's Parks.   A cool thing about Blenheim is that it attracts a lot of migrant workers to work picking grapes in the vineyards.   So in fact the town is quite diverse!  Which led to a great Cultural Fest.

Here are some bagpipers doing their thing....

 Have you ever heard of Kiribati?  Me either.  It's an island nation in the central Pacific, hugging the equator, halfway between Hawaii and Australia.  And they're bloody good dancers, as seen below!

The entertainment was fantastic, but honestly my main reason for attending was the food.  Check it out- a potato pancake!!!  YESSS.....

Not as good as Mrs.Thomas's from the St Leo's Bazaar, but the sour cream and cheese was a nice touch.

 I also had some Fry Bread, which made me reminisce my other "home", Arizona!  With butter and jam. Yum!



With a full belly and cultured soul, I biked home to get ready for a coworker's birthday party.  It was great to socialize with my new coworkers, who are all heaps of fun!

Sunday (today) I biked to the local Farmer's Market.

They pride themselves on local ingredients.  This breakfast was AMAZING- I had to take a picture of the sign to remember the name--- "Premium Game Wild Pork with Eggy Bread, Heritage Apple & Sweetcorn Salsa, Cucumber Mint Dressing, and Black Cherry Chutney."  Absolutely scrumptious!

It's quite a family event.   Kids were playing and climbing all over this building contraption, which happened to be an old sheep shearing stage, built for competitions to see who's the fastest sheep shearer :)

The weather has been gorgeous, too.  Plenty of sunshine and blue skies (which helps the grapes grow oh so well!)



So there you have it--- my update from my new home in the South Island.   I'm happy (and shake-free!) here in Blenheim and excited for the adventures to come over the next six months.  Stay tuned!

Holiday Update #3: Canoeing the Whanganui River

After my Rarotonga adventure, it was time to enjoy my last few days in the North Island.  One of the things I hadn't got around to doing in the past six months was a canoe trip down the Whanganui River.  The whole trip is 5 days and 145 km, but it's more popular to do the shorter 3-day 87 km trip.  I didn't even have to twist my Adventurous American pal Amanda's arm to come with me--- she was as equally excited about the trip!

Let me tell you, New Zealand makes organizing adventures like this *super* easy.  All you have to do is pay a company (a completely fair amount of) money, then they take care of the rest!   We met at the canoe hire company, they provided barrels, dry bags, lifevests, paddles, Martha (our canoe), and the all important milk carton baler (for the likely event of a tip!).   They suit you up, drive you to the river, give you some maps, and say "See you at the bottom in three days!"   And that's that!    

Here's the company's truck that transported us to the river.  Martha's on top :)

 There she is!  Isn't she a beaut? :)

Here's Amanda packing up our goods (ie some clothes, LOTS of food) into the barrels.

 Rolling up the dry bag...

And we're off!   Smiles (and dry clothes) at the start.



The company's website claims that anyone can do this trip, even if you've never canoed before.  Amanda had done a little bit of canoeing in the Everglades, and my extent of canoe experience were 30 minute paddles around Sky Lake in junior high.  The instructions and maps told us how to do just about everything.... EXCEPT...

What to do when you tip your canoe!!  Which happened in the FIRST TEN MINUTES of our three day excursion.  First rapid experience and we were toast.  We floated with Martha down the river for about 50 meters, then we decided to flip her over and start bailing her out.  Then we learned that bailing out your canoe in the middle of the rapids is downright impossible (because she just keeps on filling up with water again!).  We got her to near the shore and put the baler (aka milk jug) and accessory baler (aka Amanda's hat) to work. 

 After our tip/bale debachery, we paddled on, and a few hours later found a nice beach with a trickle waterfall to enjoy some lunch.

 The sandstone bluffs along the river bed were gorgeous scenery to pass the time of paddling...

Many cool waterfalls, all of different shapes/sizes...

 A heron sorta thing.  It was blue.

 Some more ducks on the shore.  There were hardly any other boats on the river, so we were happy to see other living things every now and then :)

37.5 km later, we reached our home for the night- John Coull Hout.   There's a volunteer hut warden (ie park ranger) there overseeing all the canoers/campers.   Talk about a small world--- she was a Penn State grad!!!

The view from our hut for the night

Our romantic candlelit dinner (we didn't get to the hut til late, so sun was down by the time we were cooking!)

Day 2 we paddled on!  From John Coull hut, we had a mid-afternoon stop at Mangapura landing, where we docked our boats and hiked to the Bridge to Nowhere.   It's a must-see, so *EVERYONE* canoeing that day (aka two other boats besides us!) stopped too.

The 40 minute trek after the landing takes you to the "Bridge to Nowhere", a 30 meter long bridge over the Mangapurua Gorge.  It was built as access to a town created for those New Zealanders returning from WWI as a place to settle and farm.  The intention was to build roads to it, but because of difficulty with access, unsuitable land for farming, and finanical hardship, it never happened.  The project was abandoned, the settlers left, and all that's left is a bridge with no roads to it (only hiking and biking paths).

 Here's the bridge!  On the other side, nowhere :(



After the hike, it was back to paddling!  We tended to get our best photographs in the evening, when the sun was hitting the water to make beautiful reflections...

I absolutely love this picture with those two fern trees just popping out of the side of the bank!

After 29 km's of padding and the hike to the Bridge, night #2 was spent at a special sort of hut, the Tieke Kainga Marae.  A marae is a sacred meeting place for the Maori community, where they commune for special occasions/cereomonies/events, but this one also is jointly used as a campsite/hut for the Whanganui canoers.

Such spectacular scenery for the the tent campers!  (we chose to stay in the hut instead of pitching a tent)

Amanda showing us the hut and the cooking facilities.  She looks happy.  Maybe it was the goon talking :)

Did I mention Day #2 was Valentine's Day?  Here we are, enjoying a nice alfresco romantic V-day dinner ;)

Someone tried to crash our dinner!  I only caught a pic of its backside, but it was a pesky possum!  Cute, but definitely a pest by New Zealand standards...

Day #3 proved to be very challenging.  I SWEAR the wind was blowing head-on for the whole 20.5 km's!   It made for some strenuous, frustrating paddling and steering.

We saw some beautiful cliffs, and had some fun (and managed to not tip at all!) over some fun rapids.

Later that afternoon, we arrived to a bright yellow "Blazing Paddles" canoe trailer on the Pipiriki shore, welcoming us to the end of our journey.  We did it!  (and only tipped once!)

Two gals, one canoe, 87 km, 3 days, ZERO showers, loads of memories.  Thanks for an awesome trip, Amanda!