September Showers bring.... Cherry Blossoms and Swiss Chard!

So in case you haven't heard, New Zealand has had its share of storms lately.  Last week, a storm the size of Australia(!) was over the island, leading to rain rain rain and more rain.  I thought it'd be a good week to lay off the outdoor activities and spend sometime indoors, so I headed to Palmerston North.   

Palmerston North is named after Viscount Palmerston, a former Prime Minister of Great Britain.  With a population of 80,000--- over half of its habitants under 33 years old--- it is often called "Student City."   Three universities are located here, including the International Pacific College, which happened to be hosting their annual Sakura (Cherry Blossom) Festival!

Despite the soggy conditions, the trees were gorgeous!

There were cute international pacific dancers, and refreshing pink Bubble Tea to match the color of the blossoms.

My main reason for the trip to a "metro" area was to purchase a decent waterproof jacket that wouldn't fail me on my future tramps.  Palmerston North has some great shopping, so that mission was easy.   The jacket got its first test on my visit to the Te Apiti Wind Farm, just 10km outside the city.

This $100 million dollar project consists of 55 wind turbines, with each tower being 70 meters tall.  In total, the farm generates enough electricity to meet the annual needs of 45,000 homes!   Awesome, huh?

So just how windy is it up here?  It depends on the minute. 

WINDY:

WINDIER:

"holy @#* I'm gonna blow away" WINDIEST!

So yay for wind farms. 

In other exciting news, I bought a bike!

Thank you, free ads at the grocery store!   I had read that P.North was a bike friendly city, so I stashed it in the back seat, with hopes of a few breaks in the clouds to catch a short ride.   

It was not a pretty site to see me biking against wind gales of up to 100km an hour, but I was able to take a short ride along the Manawatu River.  Above are some of the cliffs on the river banks.

I also stopped at a park.   These New Zealand kids have *the* *coolest* *playgrounds* ever!

Powered by kids, not electricity:

Boys jumping on trampolines!   And a cool echo toy in the background:

And I'm not quite sure, but this looks like some David Copperfield inspired magic trick/chain toy:

Palmerston North has a central square with some neat looking art:

But one of my favorite parts of the weekend was the Palmerston North farmer's market!   Tons of fruits and veggies for CHEAP!

Everyone (especially my patients on wafarin) kept on talking about "silverbeet"

----"Doc, can I still have my silverbeet when I'm on warfarin?"

Silverbeet is just NZ terms for swiss chard.  

Did you know just one cup of these leafy greens has over 200% of your daily needs of Vitamin A and 700% of your daily Vitamin K?

---"Sure, Mrs. Jones, you can eat your SilverBeet while on warfarin, just make sure to have the same amount every day, ok?-----

So I tried to cook both the leaves and the stalks.  Leaves tasty, stalks not so much.  Bought some beetroot too (aka red beets)--- always a winner.

I also bought a bag of the cutest, brightest yams you've ever seen in your life!

So vibrant, but they sadly lose their color when roasted. Boo.

From red to pink--- maybe it's to match those Cherry Blossoms!  :)

I heard that the highway I drove to P.North on Saturday morning was closed for the second half of the day.  On my return trip Sunday, I saw why:

No rainbows this weekend, just landslides :)

That's all for now, from wet and windy Palmerston North!

Lindsay and the Tramp! version 1.0

I did it!  I survived my first tramp!   And lived to blog about it!  Here goes:

Just as a reminder, a 'tramp' is a NZ term for a long, often multi-day hike.   Tramping requires sturdy gear, a tolerance for mud, wind, and cold, and some endurance.  I mentioned to the owner of my gym that I was interesting in trying some tramping, and he put me in touch with a local guy who's a tramping pro (and well skilled in wilderness survival to boot).  Who better to take a rookie like me on her first tramp, right?

Lincoln (tramping pro) and I set out mid Saturday morning on the 4.5 hour tramp to Holly Hut.   As you can see below, Mount Egmont is quite a symmetrical mountain--- I'm betting it has something to do that it's an old volcano!     There is a "round the mountain circuit" which takes about 4 days, with huts to stop at night to rest.   We did one leg of the journey from Puniho Road (the 2nd black dotted line from the top on the left) across to Holly Hut.

It started out to be a nice day, but then (in typical Mount Egmont fashion) turned windy and rainy quite fast.   The trail followed along the Stony River, which we had to cross a few times.   Some parts were shallow (like below), others were definitely mid-shin to knee deep.   Thank goodness for gaiters to keep your legs somewhat dry and clean!

When we weren't exposed in the open crossing the river, we were in the bush, which looked like this:

Close to the end of our tramp in, Lincoln took me a little off the path to show me Bells Falls.   Pretty!

I look cold and wet because I was.  I learned that to survive in NZ, I need a new STURDY rainjacket, not this puny one that kept me dry in desert AZ.  Rain is a SERIOUS business here.  It rained ALL afternoon and ALL night (kept me up most of the night, too), and some on Sunday too.    Lincoln guestimated it rained about a foot in 24 hrs.   Yipes!

So after 4.5 hours of hiking, and one sprained ankle (*not mine*, I might add), we made it to Holly Hut!  Here she is!

And here's the view from the porch:

These huts are so neat!  They're first come-first served free accomodations for any tramper.   This one had 20-some bunks, but we got quite lucky that we were the only ones here (and crazy enough to tramp on this chilly, wet weekend...) so we had the whole place to ourselves!

Here's a shot of the common area inside:

Gotta love the drying racks over the firestove!   (although half of our clothes were *still* quite soggy by morning)

Lincoln is quite the gourmet tramper, so I was treated to Porterhouse Steak and Pasta w/Veggies for dinner (SEVERAL steps up from the traditional Pork N Beans, eh?)    There was a deck of cards in the hut, so I taught him how to play war (he won, beginners skill i guess :) ).    We slept in and let the skies clear up a bit before starting our trek back down.

Pictures were few, because my camera didn't like being soggy, but here's a pic on our descent down from the hut (elevation 3000ft approximately)

Fast forward 4.5 hours, a few more inches of rain, and here we are at the end of the trail!

Soggy, tired, sore, a bit bruised and scraped, but happy and proud of our accomplishment!

I couldn't have asked for a better first tramp, or a more awesome, patient, experienced tramper to show me the ropes!  Thanks, Lincoln!

On the drive home, the skies were one big dreary cloud.  I remarked to Lincoln my amazing Sunday rainbow reputation.  The sky showed NO signs of a rainbow developing... or so I thought!

Yay!  The streak continues!   I saw a few more on the ride home, too--- including this DOUBLE rainbow near my house!

And, upon zooming in, the inner rainbow was actually partially a double on its own!  Checkitout!

SO AMAZING!

So, after 9 hours of hiking and 12 inches of rain, 1 soggy Linz did a quick load of laundry and and made it an early Sunday bedtime.  I'm sore today, but excited for Lindsay and Tramp version 2.0, hopefully real soon!

Thanks for reading!!

Safe and Sound (and Shopping!)

So yeah, New Zealand got an Earthquake.   But no worries, I'm safe!  The quake was in Christchurch, way south of here, on the South Island.   Whether it's any relation or not, the wind here has been TERRIBLE however--- it woke me up at 0300 and I couldn't fall back to sleep.  The wind continues to howl and the rain pelt against my beachhouse windows.  So let the early morning blogging begin!
For an update, the lolly cake turned out great.   Potluck at work on Friday was a nice way to unwind.   My plans to go to the gym afterward were crushed when I saw the gym closes at 7pm on Friday nights.  So I went to the "Hawera 2" (yes two theaters, whoopee!).  I saw "It's a Wonderful Afterlife"--- which was good for a chuckle.  Think of it as the Bollywood Version of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" meets "Scary Movie".  Check it out if you can.      The depressing part is I was only one of 3 people in the theater on a FRIDAY NIGHT.  Where do these people go?  What do they do?    I am not sure....

So big news here!   I found a tramping buddy!    Nooooo perverted guyfriends, not that type of tramp.  Tramp is NZ terms for "big hike".  Like those of the many hours to days variety.  The gym owner introduced me to a guy who's taking me tramping in Egmont Natl Park next weekend!   So I needed to get my supplies--- STAT!

The other doc and I made a daytrip to New Plymouth on Saturday.   He had me cracking up when he nicknamed the town "Blow Your Whole Paycheck-mouth", which is exactly what happens after being away from shops, malls, etc in Hawera.  At least I'm supporting the New Zealand economy!   

Look at all my fun new gear!   Can't wait to use it -  next weekend!  :)

New Plymouth has a fantastic coastal walkway, so we took a stroll on that since it was actually pretty nice weather for a change.

They also have this crazy piece of art called the "Wind Wand", which is a 45 meter red fiberglass tube that bends/sways with the wind.  At night the top of it glows!  Fun.

And it wouldn't be a NZ weekend without a rainbow, right? 

I actually spent Saturday night in Hawera.    Just took a sunset walk on one of the black sand beaches in the town.

Sunday it was time to break in my new tramping boots!    I hit up the York Road Loop Track, which follows along the old Egmont Branch Railway line that used to provide metal for roads and rocks for Port Taranaki.  While hiking through the forest, there were many stops with old stone quarry and railroad remains. 

Here's the old foundation of a stone crusher.  (yeah I love that word, CRUSHER)

All that's left of the actual railroad!

The rust color in the rocks below is partially from rusting train tracks, but also from manganese oxide bubbling up from inside the earth!   (Three cheers for Inorganic Chemistry!)

After hike #1, I drove to Opunake (oh-poo-knock-eee), a small beach town which I guess its known worldwide for it's great surf.   It's also the birthplace of Peter Snell, a Gold Medal Olympian for the 800 and 1500 meter races.

Peter is all his bronze gloriousness.

The town has a fabulous beach walk, several kilometers right along the Tasman sea.  Beautiful cliffs!

Beautiful flowers, too!

The only person I came across on my hike was this lady:

Just what was she doing?   Fishing for whitebait!   Apparently it is now whitebait season--- everyone at work talks about how they go most weekends.   (Thus why no one was in the movie theater, I guess!)  Whitebait are part of the galaxiidae fish species.  Their larvae hatch in the ocean/sea, then swim upstream as juveniles to then grow and live their adult life in streams/rivers.  They're quite a delicacy here!    The fisherpeople sit (and sit and sit and sit) with their nets in the streams waiting for the whitebait to swim into them!    Since I was curious (and hadn't spoke to anyone ALL DAY), I chatted it up with this lady and asked to take a peek at her goods....

SO CUTE!   Almost too cute to eat.  Yep, I said almost.   Since they have a mild taste, they're supposedly best eaten in an egg fritter.   So of course I stopped at the fish takeaway shop on the way home to get me some whitebait fritter!

With lemon... yum!   My first fish omelette.  

On the way to the fish place, I passed the Hawera Pizza Hut.  (yes there is a Pizza Hut here).  They had a sign for "minted lamb" pizza.  Hmm.. that might need to be my next culinary adventure!

Until next time!

 

Kiwi Cuisine

A working, exploring girl's gotta eat, so in my eating thus far, I thought I'd share with you some interesting reflections.

1.  On the whole, food isn't great here.  Come to NZ for the breathtaking scenery, not the food!

2.  The kiwi!   Very popular here (duh).  Named after New Zealand's national symbol, a brown flightless bird (I have not yet spotted the bird, but when I do, there *will* be photos!)     One kiwifruit  has 150% of your daily need for Vitamin C (take THAT, oranges!).   I liked them as a kid, but always thought they were a PAIN to peel.   The skin is indeed edible and a great source of fiber.    But one of my nurses showed me a fun way to eat them, no peeling required... just a spoon!   

 Simply cut the top off, and scoop out the fruit!   No mess!   No peeling!  Brilliant. (now why didn't I think of that years ago?)

3.  PRETZELS.    They're just about extinct here.    These folks LOVE their potato chips.  The junk food aisle is 99% chips.   A WHOLE AISLE!   I was lucky to find just one lone kind of pretzels, and my salt-craving-self bought a bag.     I turned it over, and my jaw dropped.

You've GOT to be joking-  I travel to the other side of the world, and the only brand of pretzels the grocery store has was made in Pennsylvania?   Wow.  Just wow.

4.    Just HOW much Energy?    Everything is metric here--- kilometers on the highway,  produce priced per kilogram, temperatures in celsius.    It's a bit of a hassle to convert everything in my head.   Here's one thing I don't mind I don't mind leaving in metric.....

I forget (and don't care to be reminded!) of the kilojoule to calorie conversion equation!  Ok?  Ok.

5.  LOLLY CAKE.   I found a baked good I'm absolutely in love with.  It's become my Sunday morning treat with coffee on all of my weekend adventures.  It's as common as finding a blueberry muffin in the states.  

 It's crushed up biscuits (cookies), butter, condensed milk,  lollies (aka marshmallows, but special delcious NZ-type marshmallows!) rolled into a log and coated with coconut.  Super sweet and DELICIOUS!    I made my first one tonight for our potluck at work tomorrow--- I'll let you know the outcome!

So while the food may not be stellar-  have no fear--- I'm not starving.    Did you *ever* know me to go hungry?  :)