Digging for Victory

Our last trip before the baby arrives takes us to the East coast of the Cormandel in search of promised beautiful beaches at Cathedral Cove and the prospect of digging our very own spa pool in the natural springs at Hot water beach.


Another winding road along the S25 leads us to Whitianga, a fairly uninspiring town but the launch pad for several tourist attractions in the area. As I'm feeling lazy and huge I convince Andy to take in the sights via a late afternoon trip in the glassbottom boat. Amazingly, we're the only two on the trip so have the whole boat and the attentions of Scottie and his skipper.


Heading off for our boat trip...

During the trip we take in some amazing sites, most of the ocean is protected as part of the marine reserve.

Cathedral cove, the gorgeous white sand beach and clear blue water, it's clear why this is a popular tourist spot.


The cave and beach was used as the tunnel through which the children first re-enter Narnia in the movie The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian...

Us at Cathedral Cove...

The soft rocks around the coastline lead to honeycomb weathering!!...

There are some amazing caves too..

Inside the caves, with only the jellyfish for company.

Cathedral cove marine reserve includes some imaginatively named rocky outcrops and cliff tops, all  apparently named by Captain Cook on his arrival. Below is Shakespeare's head?! 

On recommendation from our captain and skipper, we can't resist the novelty of  boarding the small passsenger ferry across from Whitianga to Ferry landing in search of 'Eggcentric'.

Walk from Ferry Landing to dinner, via Cooks Beach

A quirky restaurant, we indulged in delicious fresh local mussels and scallops. As always, we end up chattingto some friendly Kiwis. They have a farm on the west coast and invite us to stay with them when we're travelling next year!

Eggcentric Music ready to go for the evening entertainment, some of the unusual artwork too.

The following day, after checking the tide times we make for 'Hot water' beach to join all the tourists.

where we dig our hole, after several attempts...


Digging...                                                              Still digging....

FINALLY!!!

finally we can laze in the hot spring water, but it's not long before the tide eventually gets us!

On the way home more gastronomic delights are in store with a stop at the macadamia nut farm, yummy!http://www.cathedralcovemacadamias.co.nz/index.php

In the search for Chardonnay, Andy kills a Possum!!

Sparked with enthusiasm for Chardonnay, Andy and I set off for a weekend not only the largest Chardonnay producer in NZ, but also the first City in the world to see the sun each day, Gisborne.

Not the prettiest...

Despite anticipating a beautiful, slow and steady Friday evening drive with a stop for dinner, it was not to be. A couple of hours in, I started complaining of hunger, admittedly shunning a fish and chip shop (it looked dodgy) and of course forgetting you can drive hours here before seeing anything other than countryside. Eventually we rolled into Opitiki and found one restaurant who kindly agreed to serve us; but not before enjoying their own steak supper, washed down with a glass of wine!

Gisborne was now within reach, we just had to make it through the gorge in the pitch black, no easy task as we discovered.
Narrowly avoiding large fallen rocks, a traffic accident and milk lorry (travelling at 100km/hr),but out of nowhere...

our first road kill - a possum.

Eventually we arrived in Gisborne on our way to the vineyards, I can't let us pass through without visiting the Tairawhiti museum
http://www.tairawhitimuseum.org.nz/

Whilst here, we see a fantastic exhibition on Maori history, including reference to Captain Cooks landing in 1769 and the integration between Maori and Pakeha (European). A particularly moving tribute is the exhibition to commemorate the Maori battalion who fought in WW11.

Andy - aka Captain Cook at the landing spot

Fired up with history, we make our way to the first winery...

http://www.matawhero.co.nz

then a second

http://www.millton.co.nz

and a third...

http://www.kew.co.nz

I've mastered spitting and Andy is (for once) loving having a chauffeur to drive him around.

The next day we feel obliged to search out yet more delicious wine and food, so we're off to

Bushmere winery...

This time for jazz too, with Stevie Marie Hill and Kit Higgins!

...whilst devouring delicious lamb burgers and pecan pie!

http://www.bushmere.com

Weighed down with great wine we make for home.

The sports edition!

One month in we feel like we've had a bit of an insight into sporting life, and had a go at a few of sports with varied success! So this is the sports blog.

New Zealanders are well known for their sporting prowess; given the small population of 4 million they churn out pretty impressive sportsmen. It makes you wonder what we are doing to our 60 million back home! Well here are some clues as to where we might be going wrong...


1. Surf lifesaving

From the age of 5 years old there is a great deal of social pressure put on parents to take their kids to surf lifesaving on Sunday mornings. This involves not only taking your children there but also participating! Whether it is running around in circles in the sand, or jumping over each other, parents are frowned upon if they don't give it a go too! One particularly funny kiwi challenge involves kids having to run into the surf to retrieve a 'prize'. And then getting them to repeat the game an hour later when they all struggle through the surf as the incoming tide now almost washes them away. All character building stuff!

2. All-inclusive soccer
    
I've been recruited by the 'beach vets' 6-a-side football team to play Wednesday night soccer. This is very funny and I think Clare secretly enjoys being our number one cheerleader. The matches are played with players from 6-60 years old on the teams. Some teams just consist of an entire family and the mums always play too, The matches remain ridiculously competitive in typical kiwi style. Our squad has 5 girls (who have never played football) and 2 guys in it. Its high octane stuff. We frequently get beaten by 10 year old boys. Its pretty hard on my football ego to suffer these losses, but I'll get over it, maybe.

3. All-inclusive Netball

Yes that's right, whole families and work teams also undertake midweek netball. I haven't lowered myself to this yet, but I guess its only a matter of time.

4. Surfing!

My aspirations of becoming a cool surf dad are coming on, slowly and painfully! The first thing to say is that surfing is hard (before you look at my photo's and laugh). Once you struggle though the surf to get 'out the back' you then have to get over hallucinations of dorsal fins circling around you. (Apparently there are plenty of sharks around especially when it gets warmer, but no one can remember when there was last an attack here. As you can imagine, I have done a pretty comprehensive survey on the opinion of this)

I 've had a lesson with Trevor the local surf instructor, brought my own board and suffered lots of bruises. Think I need to do a bit of yoga like Clare to improve my balance! Managed to get a sequence of me standing up below though...

 

5. Shooting possums/wild pig/deer/anything that moves

This is another local pastime that kids are encouraged to get involved in as soon as they can walk and hold a gun.

6. Rugby

As you may have heard, the rugby world cup starts in New Zealand September 2011. We've heard about it, a lot! Rugby is still the biggest sport in the country- but soccer is getting a lot more popular. All the women here can speak very knowledgeably about rugby as it is just part of the culture, rather than a sport largely played by men. Sonny Bill Williams is the new rising star of New Zealand rugby. If they don't win the World Cup there will probably be a public holiday to facilitate national mourning.

7. Fishing

I would argue that this is not actually a sport, but its certainly a pastime that everyone partakes in here at the beach. You are not a true kiwi until you have your own boat, or one of these heavy duty harpoon style devices that shoot a fishing line with 20 hooks 2km out to sea from the beach. The 'fishermen' then sits and has a beer before pressing a button that winds the mechanical line back into shore. Now that's got to be cheating!  

So that's a quick summary of sporting pursuits over here, back to Clare's far more educational and informative blog next week!