Three Weekends Away

This post is following VERY shortly after the previous one so if you haven't read the engagement post be sure to read that one first!

We have been trying to save money and we have done a lot of the easy to reach weekend spots now that we have been here almost four years.  Wow, how the time flies when you are having fun! I can hardly believe it has been so long because each day is new but you notice it in the events you miss.

Wellington

We visited Wellington as Chris's Christmas present from the previous Christmas.  Santa was good to him that year, Santa even bought Chelsea a ticket too! Nice Santa! We went a few weekends after Easter so we could have more short work weeks in a row.  Santa understands.

Now before you read any further I have some disclaimers to make. Chris was having one of the worst weeks of his life and I wasn't sure if he would even want to go to Wellington or get on a plane and fly back to Canada.  He didn't want to fly home, I think he wanted life to move on.  He spent most of the week in a quite state of remembrance and hardly anything could wake him from it.  It turns out two things can help.  This is the first:

This is Maria (named in honour of his beloved Nonna who died two days before she arrived)

Maria is a Lotus 7.  And Chris has been diligently taking care of her and fixing her up all winter and even now as I write this he is out in the garage with Maria.  I have decided that I do not mind this other woman although it is annoying when you hear things like "be careful when you go in the spare room closet, I put the windshield in there" or "I think we need a bigger place because I can't store everything for the car."

The second thing that could help Chris (and the least I could do) was make our trip to Wellington be the only thing on his mind and prevent him from thinking about anything else.  Now, if there is one thing I have mastered in my life it is the art of not letting people around me relax and get in their head.  I accomplished that for Chris that weekend.  We did the Craft Beer Trail around Wellington.  Most people would do it at a leisurely pace.  Not me, I was on a mission to distract Chris and a leisurely pace would have meant that he might stop and have time to think.

If you are curious, here is a link to the trail:

http://craftbeercapital.com/trail/how-it-works

The trail consists of 20 pubs which specialise in craft beer.  They are arranged like so:

You can choose to do half the trail if you like but they have arranged it so that they are all across the city on both trails so that you can't easily accomplish one at a time.  The goal is to finish all 20.  When you have done that you get to mail in your card and they will send you a free T-shirt.  However, if you only finish one of the trails then you have to include $20 to get your T-shirt.  It is not cheap as you need to buy at least a beverage (alcoholic or non-alcoholic) or a food item at each place.  This was shaping up to be an expensive weekend but it was perfect to help Chris focus on something else.  Just what the Doctor ordered!

Disclaimer #2: DRINK RESPONSIBLY. 

So it started at the airport in Auckland.  Chris had a pint.  I wasn't sure if it was a good idea to start before Wellington but who was I to stop him.  He is a 30 year old man who needed a medicinal beer.  Our room was right across the street from one of the pubs so we didn't hit that one up because we thought we could get it easily later.  We tackled that map like it was the last thing we were going to do.

That night we made it to 3 pubs! I managed to drink half of my drink at each one, good for me! I don't like beer but hopped cider is really quite special.  Never had it before but love it already.  After this I thought it would be great to take Chris to a little bar that Hayley and I had already been to called CGR (http://www.cgrmerchant.co.nz/).  It was recommended by a friend and I knew Chris would like it.  It is easy to miss because it has only a wee little sign above a door to some stairs.  However, at the top of the stairs is a small bar which infuses their own rums and gins.  It is something special.  The drinks are certainly one of a kind.  One last think to note, if you are trying to tackle 20 pubs in a weekend, don't switch to hard liquor.  This was the last place we went that night before walking back to our room.


The next morning we walked to the Wellington Cable Car and took the ride up.  We visited the astronomy place a the top and watched a cool video in the dome theatre.  I can't remember what it was about because I might have closed my eyes for a few seconds but it was about stars and really cool.  I also forgot my raincoat belt there and they mailed it back for free!!! Nice place!!!

Also something to note, Hayley and I walked the entire way to Zealandia, it took an hour.  You can take a cable car up the hill (save a massive climb) then take a shuttle straight to the doors of the park.  At least we accomplished something!

Before the first drink, stone cold sober but after our little nap in the star dome.

The first pub of the day was up there.  Thankfully we checked the map right as we were about to go back down the cable car, that was lucky! I also discovered that they serve half pints.  They are more expensive than the cost of half of a pint but I don't waste as much!  Chris decided that half pints are for sissies.  He was drinking full pints.

We did a lot of walking that day.  I think we did take a bus though, three times.  We went out to Weta Workshop in the morning and got a tour.  They made  costumes and sets for the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies.  They have done many more but I stopped listening past that point.  We also got to see the miniature sets for the Thunderbirds remake they are doing.  Chris has seen the original show but I never had.  At least I thought the sets were cool!

I think we polished off 10 pubs on the Saturday.  We met up with some friends from work and Chris drank an Irishman under the table.  Perfect for getting his mind away from thoughts of home.  We ate our second night in a row at a night market (good job Wellington). and called it early because we were done.  I would like to thank the bars that stamped my sheet with me only drinking tap water.  Very kind of them.

We spent our last morning at the Farmers Market outside Te Papa before we checked out the museum.  We really enjoyed the Gallipoli exhibit the Scale of the War because we had learned about how Weta made the giant people.  It as a very moving exhibit about the Gallipoli campaign in WWI and the ANZAC contribution to it.  It also mentioned the brave men of Newfoundland and Labrador who found there as well.

We only did three bars on the Sunday (I was worried about Chris's physical health on top of him mental health now).  And do you know what that bugger did? We called it quits (never got to the one right beside our room) and he went and ordered a pint of beer with his dinner.  We could have done another place!!

This is our card now:

We finished Trail 2 and just have 4 more to do on Trail 1

So it looks like we will have to go back to Wellington together and finish those last four, after the weekend we had it should be easy!

Raglan

We decided to head down to Raglan for a weekend away from Auckland.  We wanted to try leaving Jesse in the kennel over night and thought that we should use the excuse to get away for a wee while while the boy was being taken care of.

Raglan is a small surfing town west of Hamilton and about 2 hours south of Auckland.  Perfect for a weekend away! Chris is a pro at Book a Bach now and always manages to find us nifty little places.  This one was Bali theme and even had our own private hot tub, perfect for a winter get away.

 That evening we drove south a bit and did a short hike before the sun set.  As per usual in NZ the hike was narrow and steep so we didn't go too far because we didn't want to be stuck out there after it got dark.  The view from the base of the hike went straight to Mount Taranaki.  I had never seen it before so it was a real treat to add that to the list of places I have 'seen.'

Chris pointing out Mount Taranaki in the distance

Sunset on the West Coast.  I couldn't look through the view finder because of the sun so you have to tilt you head a bit.

The mountain is a little clearer with more zoom after the sun had set.

The next morning we headed to a nearby waterfall.  If you didn't know it was there you would never find it as it is surrounded by farm fields.  The locals told us about it and the signage was poor, it would be easily missed.  But it was stunning.  The view from the top was fabulous but when did anyone ever stop at that without asking 'wouldn't it be better if I hiked down this stupid long flight of steps to see the bottom?'

View from the top of the falls

View from the halfway point!

View from the bottom.  The rock face has some weird features due to the erosion.

I guess the view from the base made it worth the climb up.  What do you think?

 We went on a lovely hike through some pine forests and cow fields.  I think all hikes in NZ have to have the following items to make them legitimate:

1) Hills, steep and lots of them
2) Cow fields where you have to bravely walk past the pretty ladies while convincing them you are harmless

There were some unusual shelters in the forest, my guess is local kids having fun but it made for neat settings.

That night we went for a walk along the 'beach.' There was no real trail and it was more of a scramble over rocks but it was beautiful in the sunset.

Sunset on the West Coast

Chris on the stony beach

It was the perfect two night getaway.  Also, when we picked Jesse up he was the only dog who stopped wagging his tail when he saw his parents.  Talk about a dagger to the heart.  Thanks Sir Stinky-Bum!

Tekapo

Now that planning was in full swing we thought we should take a trip to Tekapo and check it out for the first time. It was also a great way to see if Jesse still loved as after four nights in the kennel!

So we left Auckland at 6am on a rainy Friday morning.  We arrived into rainy Christchurch and by the time we had made it three hours down the surprisingly straight highway to Tekapo the skies had cleared and we had a gorgeous weekend.  Really couldn't have asked for better weather!

We stopped at the Church of the Good Shepherd on our way into town to check it out, pop inside.  It really is a gorgeous church that looks like it has been there for centuries.  I can't wait to go there again in March.  We walked all over and it should be perfect.  I hope we can get just as lucky with the weather.

'Our' church, the Church of the Good Shepherd

We went straight to Peppers to check it out and have a tasting.  They treated us like royalty.  The chefs prepared us a three course meal with three options for each course so we could pick our favourite two.  It was amazing they let us sample the wine and beer too.  They made it really special with our own menus and fine linens, which I naturally made not so white! We were even upgraded from the cheapest room they have (the one I booked) to their nicest Lake View room.  It was spectacular!! 

That evening we went to the Tekapo Springs with a pass that we were given by Peppers, they treated us like royalty they really did.  We spend two hours soaking in the pools over looping the lake before we headed back to our room.  We couldn't be late because we had a tour booked at the Mount John Observatory that night.  We booked the first tour of the night (which included a tour of the research facility) because the others started too late and we had been up since 3am.

We took the bus up to the Mount John Observatory.  Now this is special.  Mount John is a little mountain in the middle of the middle of the Mackenzie Basin.  The entire basin is a dark sky reserve.  You could see the headlights from the cares are brighter then the entire town of Tekapo.  So up we went to check out the MOA telescope.  This scope has been designed to measure light changes of planets revolve around distant starts.  They work with another telescope in Chile so that if one sees something interesting they can get the other to look before the next night.  Good team work I guess.  It was really cool.  They have a few telescopes there, all are optical.  One is just for the public on the tours.  The highlight for Chris and I was seeing the Tarantula Nebula.  It looked just like the postcard we picked up cheap at the gas station.  It was gorgeous!!!

The next morning we hiked back up Mount John with 30minutes of switch backs, yay.  But the view was even better than the night before.  Sure, at night the star light was reflecting off the snow capped mountains in the distance but during the day you could see across the plains and it was beautiful.  It was worth the climb.

Lake Tekapo is on the right

You can see the town in the foreground

I was very tired after the climb

We returned the same was we came because we had to make it south of Timaru for a cake tasting.  Local cake made with local ingredients.  If you want berries, she grows them.  Perfect to high light why we are getting married in this region.  We stopped by to meet the minister who will be marrying us.  He was wonderful and we had a lovely chat about our families and New Zealand.  I can't wait for March!

That evening we went back to the church for some more photos.  I wanted some without tourists.

Using Chris's hand to hide the tourists!

So blue!

That night we tried out the room service to really get a sense of the local food.  I think they had an astrix next to our room number because they went all out on it.  We bought beer/cider at the 'nicest' Four Square in NZ.  It was across the street with stunning views of the lake.  So stunning that the grocery store had panorama windows all along the back and side wall!

The Sunday we left we decided to head south to Twizel before leaving the area.  There was a fresh water Salmon farm that we really wanted to check out after having enjoyed their fish in our tasting on Friday.  We drove past Mount Cook (the tallest mountain in NZ to get there).

Me trying to show that the salmon are swimming counter-clockwide instead

Counter-clockwise

We fed the salmon and sampled the salmon. They were delicious! Apparently fresh water salmon is 'lighter' than regular but we didn't notice any difference.  They taste the same to me.  Oh so yummy!

Eating salmon in front of the salmon swimming in the pool behind him, cruel!

On the way back to Tekapo we took a side trip up to the wee little town of Mount Cook.  You get a better view of the mountain from the main highway though as there is another mountain between the town and Mount Cook.  However, we were there so we went for a short 45min hike.  It was a lively trip until we passed a little building on the way back to the car.  When we were about 10m away it let out an air raid siren for 10 minutes straight. I thought we had triggered it somehow but as we found out later it serves the same purpose as the one in Arva, to call the volunteer fire department.  Someone had managed to roll their SUV in a single car accident with no clouds int he sky or wind on a straight road.  At least it looked like everyone was okay.

That is not Mount Cook in the background.

Siren is in that little building in front of Chris

We made the way back to Tekapo and on wards to Christchurch.  There wasn't a great place to eat downtown with parking (even though half the city seams to still be parking lot) so we ended up eating a terrible meal at the airport before flying back to Auckland.

I can honestly say that I think we made the right choice, they will make our big day very special!!

Just so you all know, Jesse did keep wagging his tail when he saw us this time.  He must love us after all!

Love, 

Chelsea

xoxoxo