Martinborough

Martinborough is a small village (population 1400) in the Wairarapa region of New Zealand. It just might be the cutest place in the world! It is full of sunshine, happiness and good wine. Martinborough is a 1.5 hour drive from Wellington, up state highway 2 through the curvy (scary) Rimutaka Mountains. Despite its proximity to rainy/windy Welly, Martinborough is lucky enough to have a different climate. The town is protected by the surrounding mountains and known as the driest spot in the north island.... prime growing conditions for pinot noir. It was the nicest weather I’ve experienced in NZ. Praise the lord.

The tiny little town square consists of a park, some cafes and shops, a colonial style hotel, and a “museum.” The roads leading out of the town square house over 40 vineyards. After our first two pre-noon tastings, it became necessary to abandon our car and hit the vineyards by foot. We merrily traipsed through the grapes all afternoon. It was delightful!

Te Kopahou Reserve

We took advantage of a beautiful Saturday (finally!) by visiting the Te Kopahou Reserve. There is a trail along the Owhiro Bay coast leading to Sinclair's Head, which hosts a bachelor fur seal colony from May to October. Up to 150 seals hang out here during the winter to fatten up for mating season. The seals are difficult to find because they blend in with the rocks and barely move. Seals are pretty lazy.

I overheard this conversation between 2 brothers. There is nothing cuter than a kid with a Kiwi accent.

Boy 1: Look! There's a seal!

Boy 2: Where?

Boy 1: There.

Boy 2: Where?

Boy 1: There.

Boy 2: WHERE?

Boy 1: THERE! Onthe rock.

Boy 2: That's not a rock! That's a seal!

Boy 1: I've spotted 7 so far.

Boy 2: I've spotted 8.

Boy 1: Well... I've spotted 8 too.

Kiwi kids have super-human vision (or lie) becuse I only found 3. This low number ends up being ok with me because the seals stink to the high heavens.

On a clear day, you can see the South Island mountains across the Cook Strait.
The sand remdinded me a bit of coal dirt.

Devil's Gate - passage to seal colonySpot the seals.

Red Rocks - result of underwater volcanic eruptionsWe bravely faced the hazards.

Brooklyn, NZ

Forever envious of New York, Wellington has its own suburb named Brooklyn with a Central Park. (I even saw a girl wearing an "I heart NY" t-shirt.) Brooklyn is known for having New Zealand's first wind turbine. The idea is to convert the wind, a natural and abundant resource, into energy. Read more about wind power in NZ here.

On a rare sunny day, I decided it was high time to do something outdoorsy and visit the turbine. What did you say? I'm the least outdoorsy person you know? New Zealand; New Maureen! (I only have 6 TV channels.) I left the house and a bird promptly crapped on my pinkie finger. Maybe Old Maureen was right.

Located on top of a mountain, the wind turbine is visible from many parts of the city, so I thought we could simply walk towards it. Many hours and miles later, a sweaty young Kiwi male jogger pointed us in the right direction. I was dismayed to learn this involved an actual hiking trail. I was neither properly dressed nor hydrated. It was steep. It was rocky. It was hard work. My only sustenance was a Willy Wonka Fabulicious Sherbert Fizz (soft raspberry licorice tube with a chewy pixy stix-like middle) found at the bottom of my purse. It was all very Don Quixote... deliriously fighting against phantom windmills.

The view from the top was beautiful... but equivalent to that seen from our couch. The wind turbine is big (32 meters tall) and noisy. When you look straight up at it, you get dizzy and feel like you'll fall off the mountain. Interesting to see once, but not worth a repeat visit.

The first sign of trouble

On the trail

Turbine in sight

I almost died.Views from the top

Tile in Brooklyn sidewalks

Home Gym

Dawn and I find an apartment in the Hataitai region of Wellington with a 3rd roommate. Hataitai is on the side of Mount Victoria. The reward for climbing the mountain is a beautiful panoramic view of Evans Bay, Lyall Bay, and the Miramar peninsula. This picture is looking out the living room window.

I am sore for days after lugging furniture up this godforsaken mountain. The man who delivers my bed asks if anyone is available to help. "Well it's just me so... no." But I don't have an alternative. My legs are covered in bruises because whenever it gets too heavy (which is every 5 seconds), I stop and rest all the weight on my thighs.

I'm in reasonable shape, but the 10 minute walk home from the bus stop leaves me in the same condition as a 1 hour spinning class. Pedestrian walkways allow you to avoid the zig-zag roads and their hairpin turns. Depending on which bus stop I choose, this "shortcut" involves either 151 stairs or a vertical pavement. Momentum forces you to trot, not walk, down the shortcut. The journey up the shortcut is grueling. I'm huffing and puffing; my heart is pounding; my hamstrings are burning. With every step, I repeat to myself, "tight ass, tight ass, tight ass." All this hard work better leave me with something good to show.

After the shortcut, you continue uphill for a few minutes. A brief reprieve of flat road then gives you just enough time to catch your breath before reaching our front step. Don't get too excited - you still have to climb 61 more steps to the front door. And those 61 steps are interspersed with ramps. Most of the walkway is fenced in, but not all. This picture shows me at the path's narrowest section, about 1 foot wide. On one side is a drop off to the road 20 feet below. On the other side is overgrown bush that invades your 12 inches of personal space, threatening to knock you over. This strikes me as a legitimate danger, but the Kiwis take it all in stride. Our landlady observes, "I see there's been a bit of a slip" (pronounced: beet of a sleep). A bit of a slip? She means a landslide. As in, the earth supporting the walkway is crumbling away. These barricaded "sleeps" are a common sight around Hataitai.

Click here for a pictorial tour of our apartment and neighborhood.

Wellywood

Wellington is a cool little city on the southern tip of the north island. This is the departure point for the ferry ride to the south island. Dawn and I decide to settle here for the time being. "Wellywood" prides itself on being the cultural capital of New Zealand. This is the place to be for theatre, art, film and music. It kind of has an indie feel, at least compared to Auckland. There are heaps (as the Kiwis would say) of little shops, cafes and bars. The downtown area, called CBD (central business district), is compact and walkable. New Zealand's national museum, Te Papa (Maori for "Our Place"), is located on the harbor. The walk along the harbor and Oriental Bay waterfront is very pretty. From there, you can walk/hike to the top of Mount Victoria for a 360 degree view of the city.

Click here for pictures of Wellington, the windiest city in the southern hemisphere.

Please meteorologist, don't hurt 'em

New Zealand's weather is so variable that the TV weather report covers one small region of the country at a time. This takes forever. After the weatherman gives his verbal report, the graphics switch to a weather map of New Zealand that slowly scrolls from south to north. The background music is MC Hammer's "Can't Touch This." Seriously.

Click here for a pictorial overview of the winter weather. The rain is almost constant; sometimes there is horizontal hail. It's been said that Eskimos have over 100 words for snow. The same is true of Kiwis and their rain... Squally showers turning to rain (I didn't even know the word "squall" could be used in adjective form, but it now makes perfect sense to me). Showers giving way to drizzle. Rain, becoming heavy. Rainy showers.

For a city that gets so much rain, I have to question Auckland's choice of flooring materials. Many of the outdoor plazas are tile. There is a "slippery when wet" sign on every corner. And believe me, they're not lying. My tailbone is on alert.

If the pounding rain doesn't wake you in the middle of the night, the howling wind will take care of it. The city buses have TV monitors to show the forecast, which is both depressing and amusing.

• Friday - strong northwesterlies
• Saturday - gusty northwesterlies
• Sunday - strong gusty northwesterlies
• Monday - fresh northwesterlies
• Tuesday - northwesterly wind turning southwest

My First Adventure

It is day 2 in New Zealand, the extreme sports capital of the world, and I decide it is high time to do something crazy. Auckland is very urban, but you can easily find adventure. I do a sky jump, which is a base jump by wire off the Sky Tower, the tallest building in the southern hemisphere. I am told this is good preparation for bungee jumping. If I hadn't suited up and paid on the ground level, I may have changed my mind during the glass elevator ride up to the platform. I am so scared that I walk into a glass wall that I mistook for an open doorway. I walk the plank, lean forward with my toes over the edge and grip the handles on either side of me. You're supposed to leap when the countdown ends, but my response is more like a reluctant release of the handles. The view is amazing, the rush is intense, and it is over in a split second.

Click here for more pictures from the Sky Tower and the rest of our week in Auckland.

A Pre-Vacation Vacation

Dawn and I spend 3 days in Los Angeles to break up the trip and bask in a final few days of summer before entering the New Zealand winter. My formerly trusty GPS craps out on day 1. I can't get us out of the airport parking lot, but luckily Dawn has a sense of direction.

See more pictures from Los Angeles here.

The highlight was attending a taping of "Family Feud." Dawn doesn't share my enthusiasm for game shows, but she plays along. Surprisingly, I am the one to get scolded by the production staff for not clapping with enough enthusiasm. John O'Hurley is a very attractive man in person, but hosting a game show involves more than looking pretty. He mispronounces "feud," so the show's introduction has to be re-taped. A question from the fast money bonus round: "What year high school reunion draws the biggest crowd?" The man answers 88 (I can only assume he graduated in 1988). Buzzzz - no points. The #1 answer is the 10 year reunion. I find this hilarious because my brother and I wasted many hours last week watching game show bloopers on youtube. Watch this video for a similar misunderstanding from Family Feud bonus rounds past.

I later learn that we narrowly missed an earthquake in LA. I'm slightly disappointed. Is that morbid? The earthquake video shown on New Zealand news is from a Judge Judy taping. Judy (and Judge Joe Brown) just so happens to tape in the same studio as... Family Feud!

The Journey Begins!

I like my cakes multifunctional -- this was a delicious dessert that doubled as a map of New Zealand. It was a handy tool because I decided to move across the world without much research or planning. My friend Dawn told me she was moving and asked if I wanted to join her. I immediately said no. Then I thought, "what do I have to lose?" A very wise man in a bar advised me: "Before you know it, you'll be 40, overweight and divorced." Fast forward a few months... I quit my job (sort of), quit graduate school, sold my worldly possessions, and hopped on a plane with 2 way-too-heavy suitcases.

I hope this blog will be a good way to keep in touch with everyone at home. I initially thought blogging seemed a bit self-important, so please know that I write this with full awareness of the banality of my life :) I'll begin with a big THANK YOU to all the family and friends who have encouraged this adventure. I appreciate your support! Click here for pictures from summer bon voyage parties.

Happy reading, and I welcome your comments!