Weekend in the Wairapa

This weekend was the Queens birthday weekend which was a public holiday not only in the U.K. but in new Zealand as well so me and Emma thought we would take advantage of the long weekend to get away from Wellingtonand see a bit more of the north island. From speaking to colleagues at work, I had been told that the traditional escape for the Wellingtonian was to take a weekend away in the Wairapa,  an area about an hour out of Wellington known for its many vineyards and the quality of its restaurants. This sounded good to me so a quick search on bookabach yielded a little cottage halfway between grey town and martinborough which I quickly snapped up for the weekend.

Panorama of the Wairapa

The Bach we hired

The cottage itself was a little in the middle of nowhere about 10 min from either grey town or martinborough but was really nicely decked out with a really nice fireplace and was really homely and cosy. The only downside to the property was that it had no stove so we were forced to eat out every night we were there. Shame really...

Saturday was a gorgeously sunny day so on the recommendation of another colleague, we decided to take the trip down the Lake Ferry road to Cape Palliser. This is the southern most tip of the north island and it goes almost without saying that the scenery driving down was absolutely stunning in typical NZ fashion. This turned out to not be such a good thing when I was so busy admiring the scenery that I neglected to notice the sign informing me that the nice tar sealed road I was on was about to turn into a gravel road which is something that happens quite often in NZ apparently. Fortunately a very sharp intake of breath from Emma alerted me to our impending doom and with a bit of rapid braking from me, it was fortunately crisis averted. Cape Palliser is a pretty remote location with the only point of interest being the lighthouse which is located at the top of 259 steps

Cape Palliser lighthouse

On the way back from Cape Palliser we stopped at Ngawi and Aorangi national park. Ngawhi is a tiny fishing village famous for having the greatest number of tractors per person than anywhere else in New Zealand, if not the world. I don't know about the accuracy of that statement, but there were definitely a lot of bulldozers there!

After Ngawi we went to the Aorangi Forest Park to take a 1 hr tramp to see the Putangirua Pinnacles. These are a series of spires of rock that have been eroded by rain water flooding down the valley washing away the softer rock leaving only giant columns of harder rock. They really are very impressive with photos not quite doing them justice. Movie buffs among you am recognize the area as the filming location for the Dark Door at the start of the Path of the Dead in the Lord of the Rings Return of the King. This is the first LOTR site in new Zealand but I suspect there shall be many more visited before I leave here to go back to the UK.

 
On the way back to the Bach we stopped off at a vineyard in martinborough to try some wine tasting at a local vineyard. I'd never done this before but was amazed to find out it was a mere $4 for a sample of 4 reds and 2 dessert wines! This was especially impressive considering the sample sizes which almost meant we shouldn't have driven back to the accommodation!

The next day we toured grey town (full of antique shops and not much else) and then it was back to martinborough for some more wine tasting. We'd previously purchased a grabone voucher for $37 for wine tasting for two and a bottle of wine to take home worth $65 so we did that in the afternoon at a place called Tirohana estate. The wine samples there were pretty stingy but the wine was pretty good and as we were getting a half price bottle effectively we couldnt complain too much. The next wine we tased was a a vineyard called Ata Rangi. This is a vineyard known for its quality second only to Martinborough Vineyard (which unfortunately was closed when we tried to go to it) so we were both looking forward to this. The wines we tried were really good and included both whites and reds, one of which we ended up purchasing. As a resul ot f the purchase, they also waived the tasting fee which means we basically had a glass and half of wine each for free!

That evening I took Emma out for dinner in martinborough. From looking at the lonely planet guidebook it appeared that the two best restaurants in Martinborough were either the Martinborough Hotel or Circus. Circus is restaurant cum cinema  which we chose to eat ate mainly for the novelty of dining at a cinema. The starters were really impressive with generous portions and great taste (we shared calamari and paté) but unfortunately the mains didn't live up to the quality of the starters with both our dishes missing ingredients, vegetables being so undercooked as to be raw and Emma's steak being overdone. Not usually ones to complain we felt we had to mention something and when we did so the wait staff were very apologetic and gave us half the meal for free. So it turns out it does pay to complain sometimes!

The next day was the end of the weekend and time to go home so after a scenic drive back via Stonehenge Aoteroa (very disappointing, didn't even bother going in) we drove back, over the rimutaka range ( stopping to climb the worlds windiest hill up to the rimutaka trig point), home to Wellington. A great weekend had by all and I would definitely recommend the Wairapa to anyone who likes their food and drink!

New job and Easter

Great news, I have a job! For those of you who read this and don't already know from various other communication media (facebook, skype etc) I am now employed by the Dept of Corrections as a Junior Project Manager working on a public private partnership (PPP) program for the design, build, and service of a new prison in Auckland. This is the first major PPP program NZ has undertaken so a position here could do good things for my longer term career prospects in NZ.

I started the job the week before Easter so eased myself in with a nice 4 day week. Unfortunately the Dept of Corrections don't get the extra half day privilege day UK civil servants do but I guess I can't complain too much as they do seem to have more public holidays than regular UK staff. The first week went pretty quickly and was pretty shattering as it was complete information overload. The busiest day involved getting up at 6, flying to Auckland (equivalent distance of London to Edinburgh), having a 3 hour meeting, flying back and then going back to the office for 2.5 hours so as you can imagine I was pretty pooped after that! I think that sort of day is likely to be the exception rather than the rule however so fingers crossed as I understand more of the project, my work load should ease up a bit.

After my first week of work I was really looking forward to a 4 day weekend to relax a bit however the weekend ended up being so full that I didn't get a chance to relax as much as I would have liked. After a lazy morning on Friday me and Em decided to go for a short walk around Wellington as she hadn't really seen the sights yet. Unfortunately it turns out that walking from Thorndon, through to Oriental bay and back again via Courtenay place is not a particularly short walk so we definitely deserved a cold beer to reward our hard work. One thing that did strike me as different to the UK when wandering around is the attitude to the public holiday over here. Where as in the UK all the shops would be open to take advantage of the additional trade, here almost all the shops were closed, with bars and restaurants all requiring that you purchase food in order to be served alcohol. Unfortunately this meant that we had to buy nachos and chicken wings with a beer. I was understandably gutted.

On Sunday we took advantage of the glorious bank holiday weather to do a bit more sight seeing, spending the day wandering around the Botanical Gardens which is a day out that I know my Mother would love. Although not at their finest at this time of year, they are still worth a look around whatever time of year you visit as you can almost forget you are in a city whilst you go around them and they provide a lovely atmosphere only minutes from the city centre. Fortunately for non nature lovers, there is also a cable car museum and a planetarium in the gardens so you can indulge the inner geek at the same time :D

Monday was another glorious day and when I got up I checked the surf forecast and it turned out that the surf was (almost) up. A five minute drive later we arrived at the beach to see some pretty nice sets coming through with a nice offshore wind so decided to drive round to the surf hire shop to see how much it would be to hire a board for the day. At $20 an hour I didn't really fancy the cost of the board hire however so I ended up buying a second hand board instead. Probably not the best idea as I am yet to receive my first pay cheque but hey, you only live once right!

After getting my board the next logical thing to do was take it for a surf but it needed waxing first and we hadn't had lunch (it was about 12.30) so we decided to go home first and come back out later especially as the forecast was scheduled to peak around 3pm. However the forecast lied and when we went back out around 2pm,  the surf was noticeably flatter. But no matter, I had just bought a new board and was damn well going to use it! I had a cheeky little surf in Houghton Bay before giving up there and driving round to Lyall bay where it was smaller but had a longer ride and PLANES!

That's right, PLANES! Lyall bay is right next to Wellington Airport so every 3 minutes or so there was a plane taking off or landing. Totally awesome for someone who likes both planes AND surfing! All in all a great day out and a sweet way to end an Easter Weekend.

Photos of my shiny new board to follow as well as some of the weekend once I find Emma's camera...

Makara Beach Walk

Last Saturday was an absolutely gorgeous day here in Wellington and so me and Emma decided that her studies would be put aside for the day and we would go out and enjoy the weather. There was a slight constraint on what we would chose to spend the day doing as due to the fact I am unemployed and broke as, whatever we did had to be free. Fortunately for me I am in New Zealand which isn't exactly short on scenery and ways to enjoy the great outdoors for free so we decided to explore around the Wellington area a little bit.


The previous weekend we had spent looking at some of the beaches closest to Wellington, including Oriental Bay which is literally less than 5 minutes from the CBD (you can see how close it is on the map below so this weekend we thought we would venture slightly further afield.

Oriental Bay Fountain

Oriental Bay looking toward City Centre

View Larger Map

After a spot of googling we found that Makara Beach was about 20 min away from our house and there was  good walk there that apparently including some awesome views and a fort. Being a sucker for cool fort things I was immediately sold although I have to admit that Emma did take a bit of convincing on having to go on an actual walk and do some actual exercise!The walk started off quite gently along the shoreline however rapidly became more steep as we climbed up to the top of the cliffs. This gave some awesome views and let us have a good look around the gun emplacements from the fort before descending back down and walking back along the stoney beach. All in all it was a good 8km walk and a great way to spend a sunny Saturday and I highly recommend it if only for the views. Although be warned - walking the 2km back along a pebble beach is not that much fun!


View Larger Map

Damn Pebble Beach!

Move to Wellington

So the last month has been a little hectic and as such I haven't had the chance to update this as much as I like. This is mainly because I have been busy doing things like job and flat hunting but also because I haven't been up to much that is notable enough to bother writing about; there is only so many times you can write about how you spent the day waterskiing on the lake in gorgeous sunshine...

The main thing that has occurred since I last wrote is that I am now livining in the captial of New Zealand, Wellington. I moved down to Wellington over a week ago however have only sporadic internet access and have consequently not been able to update this blog since I got here. This is due to moving into a rather nice 2-bed flat located 5 minutes away from the University in a area of the city called Kelburn. For those who know Bristol, the area is very similar to clifton as it is filled with big townhouses and a university and all the houses seem to be occupied either by well off professionals such as lawyers and the like, academics or students. There is even a little section of shops and what-not called Kelburn Village however it is a little smaller than cliftion village and is quite quaint.

House from the outside - we have the bottom flat underneath this one

Lounge

Kitchen - Em baking cookies!

Bathroom

Spare Bedroom

Master Bedroom

Garden

At the minute my life mainly revolves around walking to coffee shops and using the free wifi in the centre of the town (they refer to it as the central business district, CBD) in order to search for jobs, however being unemployed does have a few advantages as it allows me to appreciate some of the scenery around here. Living up on a hill means that the walk back up is a bugger but you certainly get some decent views!

View from near our flat

Overlooking the bay

Victoria University - Where Emma will be studying

Walking around Wellington has also been quite a pleasant experience as for the most part the weather has been good and the city has some very nice areas and gardens such as the victoria botanical gardens. See below for pictures of these and the cable car.