We've been everywhere

If you haven’t already checked out our “I’ve Been Everywhere” slideshow, have a go. We just bid adieu to Edmonton friend, Jan, who spent two weeks visiting us in Rangiwahia, true rural New Zealand. Allow us to share some highlights.

ROTORUA – Wai-O-Tapu “Sacred Waters” Geothermal Wonderland
Where have you been all my life?
Your colours are radiant
A sight to behold!
Your champagne pool’s a masterpiece,
Worth all its weight in gold
Look at all the colours
Fluorescent orange and green
Your mist rises to meet me;
A rush of warmth and steam

Your Bubbling Mud Pool is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. “Pop, sputter, blurble, splurt…gurgle, belch, splat and blurt.” Where are your manners? And how do you excuse yourself for such uncivilized smells? I had the faint sense that I had landed near the Bog of Eternal Stench; any fans of the movie Labyrinth?
Devil’s Bath and Ink Pots
Artist’s Palette too
Opal Pool, you’re lovely
It’s a panoramic view
Geysers erupt on schedule
Lady Knox @ 10:15
Fumaroles and rotten eggs
It’s a one in a million scene!


FEILDING – Saleyards Tour
What would a trip to Manawatu’s central farm region be without a trip to Feilding Saleyards?! It’s one of the largest in the Southern Hemisphere! Jan and I took a leisurely stroll and surely stood out as sore thumbs rather than potential buyers. However, it’s never a bad thing to flaunt the farm-girl pride!

HAVELOCK NORTH – Te Mata Peak
Here is a legend that’s based around food and love; two things I most enjoy. Are you intrigued? It was this very combination that formed Te Mata Peak in Hawke’s Bay, so says Maori legend. The legend tells of a Maori chief who preyed upon Heretaunga. The Heretaunga chief’s daughter was very beautiful, and after seeing her, Te Mata O Rongokako decided to woo her rather than make war. She set him many seemingly impossible tasks, which he accomplished until she told him to eat his way through a nearby hill. The giant began to plough his way through the hill, but choked on a large rock and dropped to the ground. According to Maori legend, he still lies there today, in the Te Mata hillscape and it is the lumbering form that van be seen high above the hills of Havelock North, a quaint village just outside Hastings.
We hiked to the top of this peak for an especially picturesque view, finding the most perfect hill for a picnic. If only life allowed for daily hikes and picnics; we’d be fit as fiddles and content! I wonder if Chief Te Mata imagined that the hill was a solid block of chocolate…which brings me to my next topic; Whittakers.

WHITTAKERS, HOKEY-POKEY, CHICKEN & NIGERIAN FEAST
Everyone should sample a Nigerian feast at least once in their life, and while I can’t comment on how authentic Jan’s version was, we were pleased that she was willing to share the recipe. Curried beef meets rice and fruit salad whereby romance is exchanged. Delicious!
Then there’s Hokey-Pokey ice-cream; a kiwi favourite. It’s a marriage of honeycomb and caramel that no one should be denied. True love…now, one mustn’t make Whittakers chocolate jealous. A considerate person would divide their cravings between the two. From a myriad of choices, I’ve narrowed down my favourites to be dark almond (there are health benefits!) and mint dark (refreshing and promotes good breath!)
Beware of Chicken, the dice game that encourages risk taking and gambling. It provided endless entertainment for us three on quiet evenings in the country. We may have gotten Jan hooked on Whittakers but she got us hooked on Chicken; seems like a fair trade.

TAUMATAWHAKATANGIHANGAKOAUAUOTAMATEUATURIPUKAKAPIKIMAUNGAHORONUKUPOKAIWHENUAKITANATAHU – The Longest Place Name in the World
Hold your breath and say it as fast as you can. The name is a shortened form of ‘The Brow of a Hill Where Tamatea (remember him?!), the Man with the Big Knees, Who Slid, Climbed, and Swallowed Mountains, Known as Land Eater, Played his Flute to his Lover’.
A very talkative man (keen on sharing stories of a past trip to Strathmore, Alberta), at a nearby museum (mistaken for Information-site), nearly talked us out of the extra mileage to what he suggested as little more than a sign. We snuck out of the museum when he wasn’t looking and made a break towards Porangahau on the coast. It was worth it, just to say that we’d been.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends

If I can borrow that famous line from Henry V, I will. Kristine and I have heartily enjoyed the mid-term break. We drove seven hours each way to Auckland to visit Aaron and Kristel and family and what a splendid time we had of sharing tacos and seeing the harbour together.

We came back from Auckland and spent a few days at the Simchah Trust house in Palmerston North. Our thanks to Bob and Pru for setting us up with that little getaway in the city! We detoured to Whanganui on a beautiful sunny day for a picnic amidst the orchids at Bason Botanic Gardens and a walk along the black-sand Castlecliff Beach.

We are back in Rangiwahia, applying for more teaching jobs and awaiting the start of Term 4 on Monday.

Please check out the video of the Auckland Zoo on the post below which we just added. It took a while to upload :D

Mr. Restricted

The people of New Zealand are friendly as and generous to a fault. You could throw a rock in any town and hit five people who would be eager to shout you a beer and swap sheep stories in Her Majesty’s Mangled English. However, there is one thing that the Kiwis are tight with - the internet. After living in the land of milk and honey, where bandwidth flows like advertisements from Time Warner, the stark New Zealand broadband leaves me ashamedly naked.

I stayed for a while at the Auckland City Hotel in the heart of Auckland’s central business district. The SkyCity needle pierced the sky overhead bristling with communications relays. In fact, my netbook was weighed down with the burden wireless networks available, all of them locked away as the fire from Prometheus. The gracious guardians of fire at the concierge desk said that there was a half hour of broadband available free as a guest.

Happily clacking away, I attacked web of possible attractions. The website of The Edge quickly surrendered the floorplan of symphony seating and the Auckland zoo’s flash website rotated the primal faces of orangutans and giraffes to stare back at me. Not more than five minutes on the blissfulnet and the connection was severed; I had exceeded the allotted ten megabytes. How, O how, could they consider ten megabytes to be broadband? It’s like broadband telegraph messages. Buckle up - it’s going to be a wild ride of text!

Kebob Lust – Olive Juice - OpShop

If you’ve ever been to a cocktail party before, then you know the benefits of showing up on a full stomach. Our focus was initially elsewhere; on simply having the proper attire to attend. We had discovered Hastings Epicurious weekend; celebrating wine, food and entertainment. Really, it was another good excuse to welcome spring into Hawke’s Bay, the Okanagan of New Zealand. It all started in Hastings with HOT PINK and the launch of iconic rosé wines. Joseph was decked out in all black with a glitzy dollar store hat, while I had managed to scrounge up a fake orchid belt. We were amongst a myriad of pink wigs, painted nails, feather boas and pink ties. An eclectic couple on stilts welcomed us to the event while commenting on Joseph’s less than formal footwear. We weren’t insulted; only flattered that they’d agree to pose with us for a picture.

Eying everything from mini quiches and spring-rolls to mini cupcakes and kebabs, we quickly formulated a plan for obtaining hors devours. You might say that we had kebob lust. With servers scurrying past us, en route to the masses of people, we were unable to secure any sort of eye contact or manage polite small talk. We’d have to resort to more aggressive means in order to satisfy our appetites. And so it became a mad dash for food, a situating of oneself just outside the kitchen, a matter of politely reaching over the shoulder of a stranger. Sinking our teeth into succulent chicken, we breathed a sigh of relief. Yum! We spent the rest of the evening people watching, visiting with winery reps and enjoying the live entertainment.

The fun didn’t stop there. The next morning, we found ourselves at Seleni Estates for their first ever annual Olive Festival. We sampled a host of tasty products; olive oil, saffron jelly, damson plum jams, date chutney, port blue cheese, etc. Salivating? Next on the list and not an official part of Epicurious’ weekend; Napier’s National Aquarium. We arrived for 2 o’clock feeding time after a nice stroll along the rocky beach. Joseph was in heaven in the oceanarium, as sting rays glided overtop and sharks unassumingly grinned at us. We enjoyed an up-close view of a kiwi-bird, my first ever. Humorous antics of sea horses managed to capture our attention for some time, but then again we weren’t in any hurry to leave. It was fun to take a stroll in the downtown and check out some of the buildings. A 1931 earthquake had left Napier devastated and resulted in a mass 2 year reconstruction, meaning that most of the buildings are built in the Art Deco architectural style.

What would a visit to Napier be without a picture beside Pania of the Reef? She’s rivalled second only to Copenhagen’s Little Mermaid. Pania seemed to boast larger feet, but who am I to judge? Legend tells that Pania lived in the sea but left to dwell on land with her human beau. When called by her people to return to the sea for a final visit, Pania was trapped and unable to return to her love on the land. How terrible! Joseph stepped in as her crush for long enough to get a picture.

We found ourselves back at the Opera House for Saturday night’s OpShop concert; one of New Zealand’s best loved bands. We had never heard them before, but would describe them as the Kiwi version of Coldplay. Their opening act, The Early Birds, proved entertaining. While we didn’t entirely love their style of music, we did have fun renaming members of the band based on their appearance. Little Chimp and Big Chimp were our favourites, on bass and guitar.

Sunday rolled around too quickly and we were on our way to the Farmer’s Market. Tell me what’s better than buying heaps of fresh asparagus and tamarillos?

If I could build a house out of artisan bread
If I could make a chimney out of cheese
With chutney as my mortar
Now that would be the bee’s knees!

The steps would be fashioned out of bread loaves
Of whole-wheat, spelt and rye
We’d sit ourselves upon them
And dream of tamarillo pie!

Our wonderful weekend in Hastings only wetted our appetite for more! We are loving every minute of our time here!

A Savoury Journey

This weekend we stayed closer to home and our taste buds embarked on a flavourful trip. Friday was our 14th month anniversary (yes, we are cheesy enough to celebrate that), and Kristine bumped split-pea soup in favour of an organically-fed Foxton chicken. Stuffed with lemon slices and whole garlic cloves and complimented with mahogany gravy, the alabaster meat was positively transcendent. The best part is that the bones went straightaway into the stock pot!

We had another go at the Manawatu Gorge Scenic Reserve hike, this time from the other side. New life was sprouting everywhere, fresh and green. We found three new lookout points, one of which was a picnic table by a cow pasture. Wind turbines from the wind farm stood 70 metres tall with blades turning eerily silent. I didn’t see any ‘no trespassing’ signs so I crawled through the barbed wire fence and walked right up to one of those monstrous machines. I was so awestruck with my eyes cast heavenward that I planted one foot in the most fertile patch of pasture, compliments of some mammoth bovine.

Kristine was not as weary as I so she busily whisked eggs in the kitchen – hooray, soufflé! Rangiwahians have bestowed us with gifts of fresh eggs and venison. The soufflé rose proud and perfect and was feather light.

This morning before church we had whole wheat pancakes with stone-ground flour from the de Molen windmill. Maple syrup reserves are direly low. If anyone is coming to visit, we request you bring a suitcaseful.

School Update

Thank you all for reading our posts and making us feel special. We treasure your comments, such as, “Why do you have so many pictures of coffee?” Listen – this place is like Wonka’s factory for delicious hot beverages! How could we not?!? We have also included a picture of a colossal prehistoric coffee bean. Alright, so it’s not a coffee bean – but we have hope for a genetically engineered Jurassic cappuccino future.

Others have commented, “Aren’t you there to teach? Why do we never hear about school?” Fine. I’ll take you through my day.

I was the first teacher at school this morning, meaning I beat Clarissa today. I rang the bell, took the role, and we got right into our lessons. I began by yelling, “Cry ‘Havoc,’ and let slip the dogs of war” in my most fearsome voice. The Shakespearean delivery suffered in the Canadian accent, but the students sat riveted while I delivered my lesson on stepping up their vocabulary with ‘havoc’ and other words.

We broke for morning tea and the kids had a bit of a run around in the back paddock. I rang the bell again and we were back at it for reading and maths before lunch. The afternoon classes were broken up when a delivery van got stuck in mud in the aforementioned paddock and I pulled my strongest students to help me push it out. Half of them were barefoot, some hadn’t even worn shoes today. Jack ended up with mud up to his knees and I swore the heavens would fall if he left muddy bare footprints throughout the school. He got himself sorted out and we played netball for the rest of the arvo.

And, yes, this is an average monotonous day so I have been reluctant to bore you with dreary recollections.

A common question is, “Are you bored out in the sticks?” The answer is no. I have introduced Kristine to the wonders of Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica. When I stubbed my toe the other night, she quoted The Final Frontier and said, “Your pain runs deep. Share it with me!”

In your face, all you who sniggered while I suffered through “So You Think You Can Dance”: I have a wife who watches Battlestar Galactica and enjoys it. Highlights from our last trip to Wellington were the alien autopsy [pictured] and the Cylon detector [pictured].

The last question also came from my detractors, “So Joseph, how are you coping without video games?” As if dangling my dark mistress of distraction in front of me could lure me back into the abyss. I tell you I don’t play videogames here – I LIVE THEM!

A poem

Windy Welly, AKA: Wellington,
We finally made it back
It took a while to get here
Foxton’s Spring Fling led us off-track

Then there was de Molen,
The dutch style flour mill
We had to stop and see it
Wind mills, they’re such a thrill!

Colossal squid – you caught me
You’re really quite a sight!
With eyes the size of soccer balls
And half a tonne of might

Te Papa could have swallowed us
It’s a museum full of sights
But we had to get to the botanical gardens
Before sundown and city lights

The Wellington Cable Car,
Since nineteen-hundred and two
Has taken friends and lovebirds
To the top for a city view

Hand in hand, we strolled
From roses to seasonal beds
We imagined the flowers in full bloom;
Bright purples, blues and reds

Carter observatory called us;
The planetarium too
We learned to spot the Southern Cross
And Venus' bright hue

No day would be complete
Without a savoury bit of fare!
Mac’s Brewery is the place to beat
We left without a care

Next day, we head to market
For kiwifruit and more
The wind is a modern hair stylist
As it chills you to the core

At last, met up with Ben & Darlene
For a drive along the coast
To a charming little café
Where they’ll serve you more than toast

Flooding along the state highways
Made it home with time to spare
Wellington, you’re wonderful
We’ll be back for fun and flair!