“I am glad you are here with me…”

“…Here at the end of all things, Sam.”

1. Friday 17th March

Left Wanaka for Queenstown. We stopped by Arrowtown but bypassed the Chinese village (not enough time!) and wandered along the river there, re-enacting LotR once again ("If you want him, come and claim him!")

We also stopped by Kawarau Bridge where AJ Hackett do their bungee jumping. We stopped to get a great view of the river for another LotR moment - the river Anduin and (I think) the Gates of Argonath.

It felt like the beginning of the end of the holiday at this point so I think we tried to squeeze all we could out of where we went. Alas, Queenstown proved a little tricky for us to do that.

There’s surprisingly little to do in Queenstown if you’re not into thrill-seeking or skydives etc. And what there is left to do is really expensive! For instance, we could have got the cable car (or ‘gondola’ as they call it *eye roll*) but at NZ$30 a pop we decided against it.

2. Saturday 18th March
Queenstown again. We should have walked up into the mountains today, but we just didn’t want to! The sun was shining and we weren’t very enthused by the City, so we just basked in the sunshine and did puzzles. So rock and roll.

3. Sunday 19th March
We drove to Te Anau – not a lot there either to be honest, but there are fantastic views. We also went to the cinema to watch Ata Whenua – Shadowland, a 30min cinematographic film of the fjordland which was absolutely fantastic. Whet the whistle for Milford Sound, even if we knew we wouldn’t be able to get to the incredible unexplored country in the film.

We also visited the Punanga Manu o Te Anau (Te Anau Bird Sanctuary) which was well worth a stop. We didn't get to see Kiwis as we didn't visit at the right time of day, but we did see paradise shelducks, käkäs (forest parrots), and (stars of the show) gorgeous big blue flightless takahë.

On the way to Te Anau we drove out along a long gravel road to see the Mavora Lakes. About 10mins along the road I was regretting it, but honestly the views and the peace are so worth it. We stopped for a picnic by the water and quoted the Fellowship of the Ring at each other (Mavora Lakes is where they shot the scene at the end when Frodo tries to leave without Sam, and Sam runs into the water after him and almost drowns and I’m TEARING UP AT THE THOUGHT).

4. Monday 20th March
Driving from Te Anau to Milford Sound – there are so many stops and walks and things to pick and choose from! We saw the mirror lakes:

Saw some ridiculously tall waterfalls:

This is the mid-section.
Imagine it going further up and further down.

Some beautiful woodland:

And amazing rapids and rock erosion at the Chasm:

Everything is so beautiful, every sight and colour and view is turned up to 11.

5. Tuesday 21st March
Our first night in Milford Sound was in a shared dorm. We were in with two other people who both took the bottom bunks and who both snored. Never again!

The boat trip today completely made up for it though. We ummed and ahhed about which time to go (weather was cloudy but supposedly clearing later in the day) and we lucked out as we chose the perfect time and the perfect trip.

We went in the middle of the afternoon when the clouds had cleared, and we paid extra and went on the smallest boat. We got soaked by a 'waterfall of youth' and saw some happy-go-lucky dolphins too.

 

We also got dropped at the Discovery Centre when everyone else had left so we had the run of the place and all the fishies to ourselves!

I loved it. Loved it. I wouldn’t want to live here though – they had 21 straight days of heavy rain in summer, 200 days of rain a year (7+metres) and if there’s no rain for 6 days it’s officially classed as a drought! It is beautiful when it rains, but I think that kind of drizzle would get you down after a while.

6. Wednesday 22nd March
Te Anau again!

This time we got stuck into the wool shop! We had been looking in every wool shop in every town, but CB is unpredictably picky about wool. He wanted it really soft, certain colours, and not too expensive. Well I’m sorry bub but that doesn’t exist! We did find some he liked, after coming and going and coming back. Possum and Merino mix.

I’ll write another bloglet when I get round to knitting it into his NZ scarf…

7. Thursday 23rd March
We had originally planned to go back to Queenstown for our last couple of nights, stay in a fancy hotel and enjoy ourselves. But, as we didn’t love the city on our first try we weren’t about to waste our last couple of nights there!

Instead we drove to the other side of the island and visited Dunedin! 100% one of the best decisions we made. The drive was long and flat and without many stops (though we did get through a significant number of Bruce Springsteen albums) but we made it to Taiaroa Head for a late lunch. Looking out onto the seals and albatross, we knew we had made a good decision!

Hungry for more wildlife, we drove back south to Sandfly Bay and settled down to watch the sunset and the penguins come in. Top tip #whatever number we’re up to – Sandfly Bay is named for the flying sand, not the biting buggers. So me getting bug spray in my eye was entirely unnecessary.

We spent a good few hours there but couldn’t find the bird hide (turns our it’s closed) and I wonder if us being there scared the penguins off. We did see one. One crazy Yellow-Eyed Penguin scrambling up a near-vertical sand dune. That’s perseverance, my friend.

8. Friday 24th March
Dunedin is lovely. It’s very steep and pretty windy, but it feels familiar, it feels like I could live there.

We visited the Chinese Gardens first, which are meticulously put together to be true to its roots (geddit?) and it absolutely pays off. It’s beautiful, peaceful, and educational. Another happy place.

We spent hours in the Toitū Otago Settlers Museum, which was absolutely fantastic. Better than I thought it would be, and I didn’t think it would be bad! We saw detritus from the settlers and read about the history of Otago, and then passed into the ‘modern’ exhibition. I always think these aren’t as good, but this was fantastic! I learnt so much about the modern history of New Zealand and about The Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study (Dunedin Study) which sounds boring but was so good I will now spend about 3 hours reading about it online. Excuse me.

We ended the day at Speights Brewery, a tour of the facilities and then an open bar.

I liked that. I liked that a lot.

9. Saturday 25th March
We had to leave Dunedin reasonably early to drive back to Queenstown to fly home L

Bought last minute gifts and snacks (including a nail-biting ride to make it to a LotR store before dropping Ron the Porn Car back in time) but honestly the less said the better. I had a cold, CB had a bad tummy, and we were both sad to be leaving a country we had adored so much.

10. Sunday 26th March
Flying, then home.

New Zealand, thank you for one of the best months of my life.

I will return.




*Quote from J.R.R. Tolkien

“You must understand, young Hobbit, it takes a long time to say anything in Old Entish…”

“…And we never say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say.”

Apparently this is taking me a long time to say - I hope it is worth it!

Now where were we...

1. Friday 10th March
Motueka – we got an Aqua Taxi to Bark Bay in Abel Tasman (a brilliantly named national park) and walked 22km back to where we parked the car. 

It was a longer walk than the 19.4km hike up Tongariro, but because it was pretty much flat most of the way it was far more pleasant and less exhausting. My feet were throbbing by the end of it though!

2. Saturday 11th March
It rained like hell all day. And it turns out there’s not much to do in Motueka in the rain. We drove out for a bit and saw Golden Bay (as the name implies, I’m sure this place is better seen in the sun) and we drove over Takaka Hill and saw a beautiful grotto of limestone rocks with trees growing out of them. Creepy and beautiful, though pictures didn’t come out (for which I blame the rain).

It was a shame the day was a bit of a washout but I think rest days were good for us, and I still just enjoy having a lark with CB.

3. Sunday 12th March
Rain continued sadly, but at least we were driving for a fair few hours on to Greymouth. We stopped off at Pancake Rocks which were absolutely fantastic, and we saw dolphins and a couple of wekas!

Greymouth is dull as hell. We walked about in the rain and filled our pockets with any stone that looked remotely green until we were severely weighted down.

CB selecting the perfect 'greenstone'

Not our smartest hobby but it was very funny!

4. Monday 13th March
We left the drab pit that is Greymouth for the day and drove to Hokitika to see the gorge. The water is so incredibly blue because of suspended rock particles from the glacier (glacial flour). Bastard sand-flies were out in force though. Tip #3 be aware of sand-flies at all times. And kill them.

We continued driving to the Franz Josef glacier which had retreated a lot over the years but is still really cool and surprisingly pretty.

CB cleverly brought some binoculars so we got to see the detailing of the ice. Major cool points.

5. Tuesday 14th March
We left Greymouth for good and did not look back.

We stopped just into Arthur’s Pass and walked up the Devil’s Punchbowl (great name) track up to a waterfall. The waterfall was beautiful, but the path up was horrific! All very steep steps leading up. I wanted to kill CB but, as he was in charge of the driving, I didn’t.

We also stopped at some amazing rock formations at Castle Hill Rock and at Peel Forest where we saw some enormous trees and native trees and woodland.

None of my pictures reflect just how incredible these trees are!

My favourite part was the birdcalls, which were so loud, so clear, so melodic, and so numerous.

We arrived at Lake Tekapo about 6pm and instantly fell in love with the place.

There had been thick black cloud cover most of our journey and we had resigned ourselves to the fact that stargazing would be cancelled. However, as we drove over the mountains, the skies suddenly cleared into beautiful sunshine.

The good weather also meant that stargazing went ahead! There was 80-90% visibility (I.e. no cloud) and we could see hundreds of stars. We would have been able to see more but the moon was so full and so bright! It did mean we got a breathtaking view of the moon through the telescopes though.

The 2 hours flew by. We saw Alpha Centuri, and Sirius, and Orion (AKA the Pot when in the Southern hemisphere!) as well as the Orion Nebula, Jewel Box Star Cluster and a Globular Star Cluster. And Jupiter. And 3 of Jupiter’s moons.

6. Wednesday 15th March
Tekapo is really small, with about 300 permanent residents. It’s hemmed in by mountains and has the bluest lake which winks at you in the sunlight. It is my version of heaven on earth. When people tell me to go to my happy place, Tekapo is where I will now go.

We just spent the day relaxing in the sun by the lake, chatting about life and doing puzzles. And I could have stayed forever.

7. Thursday 16th March
Sadly we had to leave Tekapo quite early in order to make our next trip – a boat trip on a glacial lake in Twizel. I hated leaving Tekapo, but I must admit I wasn’t disappointed by the lake. I love boat trips anyway, but the views we got of the glacier and the information we learnt about the icebergs (plus we got to eat icebergs – no joke!) really took this to the next level.

We arrived in Wanaka early enough for a bit of a flop on the bed for a little bit as we were both exhausted, but dragged ourselves up for a wander around the town along the lake.

Again, I seem to have written for longer than intended… Until next time!

*Quote from J.R.R. Tolkien

“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door…”

“…You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

I mentioned in my last post that CB and I spent the last month or so in New Zealand, on the holiday of a lifetime. It’s been hard to adjust to life back in the UK, I won’t lie. It is an amazing country – beautiful, varied, exciting, and welcoming. Expensive too, but not as bad as I feared it would be.

A month-long holiday is too much to write about in detail in one post, but I thought I would set down the itinerary for the trip. We went for 28 days – 26th Feb to 26th March – including flying days:

1. Sunday 26th February
Flew from London Heathrow to Singapore.

2. Monday 27th February
Flew from London Heathrow to Singapore, and from Singapore to Auckland.

3. Tuesday 28th February
Technically our first day in NZ, but I was pretty sleepy. We picked up the car in Auckland (which I christened “Ron the Porn Car” as he was unequivocally the car-version of a 1970’s porn star with a big ol’ moustache) and drove to Hamilton. Crashed out by the lake there (and, inspired by my t-shirt, had a brief chat about Bruce Springsteen with a Hamilton local) before heading to our apartment for a long nap!

4. Wednesday 1st March
Hamilton – spent the morning in the glorious botanical gardens and picnicked there for lunch before heading to do a truly awful walking tour of Hamilton itself. The place is lovely, but the tour included such prodigious sites as ‘old bandstand’ and ‘closed municipal swimming pool’. Still, CB and I had a good laugh!

One of the Hamilton botanical gardens. 

We finished up the day in Waitomo, having drinks and dinner before exploring the local caves and woods for glow worms. Which were fantastic. We were unable to photograph them properly, and we were blinded by a few overly-enthusiastic American tourists, but the worms themselves were mesmerising. And tip #1 – if you wait until dusk you can see thousands of them for free, rather than paying $50 for a 45 min boat ride.

5. Thursday 2nd March
HOBBITON!! I cried about three times just during the car journey to the movie set. I was so excited and also nervous.

I was afraid I would let Hobbiton down… It was amazing and most definitely lived up to my sky-high expectations. Only downside was the gift shop, funnily enough.

From Hobbiton we drove on to Rotorua. Which had the most motels I have ever seen in one place. Fun fact.

6. Friday 3rd March
We woke up in Rotorua and drove on to Taupo. On the way we stopped and hiked through the Whakarewara State Forest which has awesome (in the original sense of the word) redwood trees.

We carried on driving ad stopped at the Blue and Green Lakes, which I loved - they were gorgeous. We went on to Lake Tarawera, but came back to the Blue Lake for lunch as we loved it so much.

At the Blue Lake

Lake Tarawera

There are a few places to stop for hot springs or geysers, but they charge so much and as we’ve seen our share of geysers in Iceland last year it doesn’t seem worth it. How spoiled we are! We did go to Kerosene Creek, a hot water stream. Very odd! I did go in, but it was uncomfortably hot. And dirty. I felt quite uncomfortable which was a shame – I really wanted to like it, but I just didn’t!

We did one last hike before heading to the hostel, this one to the Huka Falls which did not disappoint.

Huka Falls

7. Saturday 4th March
In Taupo. Which has a lake the size of Singapore. It’s huge.

We were supposed to be hiking to Mount Doom (AKA Tongariro) but the trip was postponed owing to adverse weather conditions. There was an Iron Man Triathlon being held on the main road though so CB and I were kept amused! Top tip #2 – Napier is close enough to drive to. If I could go back we would have spent the day there.

8. Sunday 5th March
The hike up Mount Tongariro. Also known as hell.

Views were absolutely incredible, and I’m glad I’ve done it, but I wouldn’t do it again and I don’t know if I would go so far as to say it was worth it.

9. Monday 6th March
We left Taupo and drove through the desert roads. Some spectacular views of Mount Tongariro, though the memory was too fresh…

We stopped at Gravity Canyon to see the canyon and river used for Anduin in LotR and had a roadside picnic, but I don’t think we made any other stops. It was quite a drive to Wellington!

10. Tuesday 7th March
Be still my beating heart – we went to the Weta Cave in the morning. I loved every second of it. We must have spent hours in the gift shop/museum afterwards (and spent far too much money while we were there too!).

Love at first sight <3

The rain was pelting it down in the afternoon. We had planned to get the cable car and flâneur around the city for a bit, but those plans were off! Instead we swapped with tomorrow’s plan and ran to Te Papa, a fabulous museum which we stayed in until closing.

Wellington is known for fantastic bars and nightlife and we did stop into one bar for a delicious dark beer, but after dinner we mainly drank IPA while doing our laundry in the hotel! But then that’s something I love about CB – that even a boring night doing our washing becomes fun when I’m with him.

11. Wednesday 8th March
Wellington – luckily the weather was fine so we got the cable car (not a cable car but a funicular – and a short one at that!) to the botanic gardens and walked back down the hill to the city. We stopped by the parliament buildings which were pretty before driving up to Mount Victoria for the views. We picnicked in the forest on the side of the hill, though it wasn’t until the evening we realised we had been metres away from a LotR scene (“I think we should get off the road – get off the road, quick!”). Such a shame!

12. Thursday 9th March
We left the North Island and got a (delayed) ferry (for hours) across the Cook Strait to the South Island. We then drove to Motueka.

And here I will end this blog post as it’s far longer than I anticipated!

*Quote from J.R.R. Tolkien

“Properly practiced, knitting soothes the troubled spirit…"

"…and it doesn't hurt the untroubled spirit either.” 


Last summer my work colleague Sacha convinced another of our colleagues, Sabina, to teach her how to knit. I was immediately very jealous as knitting is one of those things I’ve tried in the past and not really got the hang of. Crochet I could teach myself the basics, but I although I remember my Grandma teaching me how to knit, the art of casting on never stuck in my brain. 

As I am so super-cool, I immediately renamed this beginner knitting class as Knit Club. Which, as more members joined, became the Woolf Pack (hilarious, non?). 

Sabina is incredibly artistic and creative but more to her credit she has this seemingly unending kindness. Sacha and I must have driven her mad in the early days – constantly counting each stitch as we made it. Adding stiches and dropping others - always panicking and running straight to her for help, never able to fix things ourselves.

She didn’t get to knit anything for herself, poor thing, but she has a lasting legacy in Sacha and myself as we both fell in love with knitting straight away. I now feel odd if I don’t have a knitting project underway, or one waiting in the wings for the next time I have a few hours to kill in front of the telly.

Christmas was my time for publicly ‘coming out’ to my family as a knittist (as CB calls me). I successfully finished cardigans and elephants for each of my niblings:

 

 


And a matching scarf, mittens and hat for my sister:

 

Though that scarf was not how I wanted it to be - 4 months after knitting it that still irritates me...Grr…

I recently spent a month in New Zealand (more on that at a later date) and to my horror I discovered Singapore Airlines won’t let you bring knitting needles in your carry-on luggage. Thank goodness I checked before going to the airport, but still – what else is a Philly supposed to do on a 28 hour flight? In the end I didn’t take my knitting at all. I didn’t have any downtime while in NZ (too much to do!) so without the flights for knitting time there didn’t seem much point. 

Now I’m back in Blighty I can settle back into my knitting. It felt a bit odd for those first few stitches, but it must be like riding a bike because I’m already halfway into my sleeve! Hopefully I’ll have the finished object to show you before too long….


* Quote from Elizabeth Zimmerman.