What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Happy New Year! We are back from a fantastic two weeks exploring New Zealand’s South Island. Since there was way too much to put into one blog posting, here are the highlights:

Queen Charlotte Sound

Best Breakfast: We stayed at B&Bs most days, so had our share of delicious breakfasts (organic eggs, homemade bread dripping with New Zealand’s Manuka honey, fresh squeezed juice, great coffee, etc.). Matt, who is never one for chit-chat with strangers first thing in the AM, lists his favorite breakfast as the one provided by the hotel in Christchurch. None. He stopped at Starbucks for a nice big cup of coffee after his run and enjoyed it in the quietude of our room.

Best Hike: Routeburn Track. New Zealand is renowned for its tracks and we spent an hour or two one some almost very day. Routeburn is one of the most famous tracks and we spent a morning walking part of it – crossing rope bridges, raging mountain rivers, seeing waterfalls and gorges and other alpine scenery.

Best Hike Deux: Matt climbed Ben Lomond, a mountain above Queenstown. It is a mile high and involved crossing multiple narrow ridges to reach the apex (where it drops precipitously on both sides). Despite the rigorous climb, he was rewarded with spectacular views of the Southern Alps with Lake Wakatipu shimmering below. At the same time Marlys was enjoying a spectacular view of the inside of her eyelids as she enjoyed a 1.5 hour massage followed by a pedicure.
Best NZ beer: Steinlager for Marlys and Speight’s for Matt. We went on the Speight’s brewery tour in Dunedin (east coast). In the tasting room, Marlys taught everyone the Finnish toast, “Kiipis” which (essentially) means, “cheers!”. The Aussie tourists in the group LOVED this toast because they thought it sounded like “get pissed!”

Speight's Brewery

Best Idiom: “Nerd-tastic”. Matt spent NZ$25 on a guidebook specializing in Lord of the Rings film locations. He thought he was so cool until we happened to see this particular book described in Lonely Planet as the “nerdtastic” book for the type of groupies who live in their parents’ basement and spend a lot of time pretending to be a wizard in an online game. Of course, that’s not to say we still didn’t visit every location we could. We would stop at the site, look at the vista, sigh, turn to each other and say “It certainly is nerdtastic, isn’t it?”

Idiom Runner Up: In New Zealand hiking is called “tramping”. You can imagine the witticisms that engendered over the course of the trip.

Best Seafood (aka Biggest Surprise of the trip): we could also call this category oddest restaurant – Stumper’s. Stumper’s was bar/restaurant in the seaside town called Hokitika where we spend one night (by the way the hotel wins the “worst room” award because the room smelled like “damp mop ala’ creepy basement”). Hokitika, despite the promising location of right on the Tasman Sea, isn’t much of a town and we explored the two main streets within 5 minutes (on foot). Stumper’s was conveniently located across the street from our odiferous hotel; it was one of the few open places (it was New Year’s Day), and by all looks it was hopping with business. We wove our way through a bunch of drunk, scruffy locals lounging outside and ordered the blue cod. As we waited for dinner, we were entertained by one of the locals arguing with his girlfriend, then duking it out with friends about not wanting to get in the car and leave (picture this – girlfriend in back seat, boyfriend standing in open car door - girlfriend tugging boyfriend’s jeans at the waist, friends standing next to guy trying to corral and push him into the back seat). Due to his condition, bobbing and weaving was not a problem. This was eventually resolved when the police showed up and put him in their car for a ride. The surprise? The blue cod was absolutely fantastic – fresh, perfectly prepared, and in two weeks of eating seafood for dinner (every night but one), Matt pronounced it the best of the lot.

Marlborough Wine Country