Let's get this pary started!

Since I blogged last, we have moved out of our flat in Alex (finally!!), Keith has finished working, we have sold almost everything we own (anyone want to buy a car?), and are now on vacation 24/7-for at least the next couple weeks.

We started out from Otautau (The Heart of Western Southland), where Keith spent his last days working, on Saturday morning and by evening we were almost all the way up the west coast in Hokitika. There we got to watch a beautiful sunset and eat half-way descent pizza (I would give just about anything for a real Chicago style deep dish though!). In just a few hours we drove from the cold, to being able to walk along the beach an not freeze!

From New Zealand

The next day was another long driving day as we were heading towards Nelson. There were a few familiar sites along the way and the fact the we stopped at Pancake Rocks and I was very happy I didn't suffer from any PTSD induced flashbacks of the ridiculous pain I was in when we were there last!

From New Zealand

After a crazy amount of driving, we finally made it to Nelson! Now is the time for a little relaxing before we start another 3 days of hiking. We started with a crazy huge meal at the House of Ales...and thats kind of where it ended-I could barely walk back to our backpackers I was so full! There we are laying around reading barely able to move by about 8 pm, while all the young folks were just starting the evening-when did we get old?!?!

The next day was a little more exciting with a quick trip to the Center of New Zealand.

From New Zealand

And on the a few winieries. We had to practice restraint since we can't just pack our bags full of wine to go to Tonga and there is only so much we can drink in the next couple days. We stopped at Seifried Winery, which is supposed to be one of the oldest in New Zealand, at Te Mania where we bought probably the cheapest bottle of really good wine we have since have been in New Zealand and finally at Neudorf Winery that not only had great wine but also a great place to hang out and have lunch.

From New Zealand

At the end of the day we made it to our backpackers The Barn (one of the best backpackers we have stayed at!)in http://www.barn.co.nz/ and the Able Tasman National Park. We even had a view of the trail from our room!

From New Zealand

The plan was to stay the night there, then get a shuttle the next day to the beginning of the track and walk back to our car. It only took us three days and that beat up car never looked so good by the time I saw it again!

A very Kiwi Easter

This weekend was our first major holiday in New Zealand: Easter and they really know how to celebrate a long weekend holiday! But we couldn't just celebrate this weekend, we also had to move.

We reserved Saturday for moving into an actual house. That's right-no more living in a half a garage! We will not miss our landlord constantly working (and painting!) his crappy old cars in the other half of the garage. Of course moving has to have a hitch or two and for us in came in getting locked out our new place (after we moved everything in!), so after a little breaking and entering we could finally settle in-it took about an hour to break in but at least no one called the cops on us!

From New Zealand

As far and Keith and I knew all the Easter festivities were going on Sunday, so we figured we wouldn't miss much moving on Saturday. While we were driving across town we saw what looked like a bigger version of the usual farmers market in downtown Alex. The market seemed like a perfect place to stop for lunch in between trips from the old place to the new one.

While we were driving around trying to find a parking place to grab a bite, we saw it! Oh my goodness we were SO unprepared! There lying in the grass were over 20,000 dead rabbits. It was part of the 19th annual Great Easter Bunny Massacre Hunt. For pictures please click on this link or this one! And I didn't even have a spare camera in my purse! The bunnies were all shot in a 24 hour hunt by teams of hunters that each get a specific block of farm land to kill as many bunnies as possible. The goal is to eradicate rabbits and other pests on rural farming properties in the district. I was also really not prepared for the smell of over 24,000 bead bunnies, some dead for about 24 hours, it was so incredibly disgusting! We've seen lots of redneck things in our day (standing in line for the Ted Nugent concert watching amateur WWF wrestling at the Oregon State fair comes to mind) but I think this tradition kind of takes the cake!

For as gross as Saturday was, Sunday was delicious! We spent all day at the Clyde Food and Wine Festival. And did we eat and drink! The lovely wrap from my splint doesn't keep secrets very well, since it is stained with wine, strawberry, onions and french fry grease and more. Almost all the wineries were from the Alex/Clyde area and they do not have tasting rooms, so we really had to get busy and blaze through them, so quite honestly I can't say what was a favorite-I think they all were!

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

They had some pretty great live music. The day started with laid back jazz and ended (at 5 pm) with everyone dancing and rocking out to music from the 60's and 70's.(check out the old guy in the gray sweater-he was getting pretty frisky with the old ladies :)

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

Easter Monday we took a drive to Skippers, the remnants of Skippers Township, once the largest gold settlement on the Shotover River. All that's left are a few bits of and pieces hotels and an area with a refurbished schoolhouse and residence.

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

Driving along a road carved into the side of the canyon, it was hard not to imagine how hard getting there with horse drawn carriages and how absolutely isolating it would be to live there! But there was big news there in 1901 when the Skippers suspension bridge opened, at the time it was the most spectacular of its kind in New Zealand and you still drive across it!

From New Zealand

Well there ya go, breaking and entering, massacring bunnies, and drinking all day-sounds like just about the best Easter weekend yet!

This is much more my speed

After our kind of killer weekend last weekend (my knee still hurts just thinking about it!) and since this is our first 2 day weekend (how do people live with just 2 day long weekend!?! ;), we decided to do a little exploring in our area.

We started the weekend with a bit of wine-tasting in the town of Bannockburn, about 20 minutes away. We ended up having a kind of Walla Walla day, but I think that we need to just admit to ourselves that maybe enjoying and then buying a little too much wine is just our style now! On one little, beautiful road we stopped at 4 wineries and each one was really fantastic-living in pinot noir county (again!) is just about the best thing ever! We started at the end of the road (it seems like all the best places we've been have been at the end of the road), with Bald Hills Winery. They have a slew of amazing wines and award winning pinot noirs (which will become a theme!). Next was Remarkable Winery, which wasn't officially open so we were there as 'guests'. Here we got a tour of the winery, which was tiny but cool. We also got to do a barrel tasting of two different barrels along with the regular wine tasting, which included (you guessed it!) more award winning pinots! Our next stop was Bannock Brae, which had great wines, an adorable yellow lab and great views.

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Our last stop was Akarua, where their winemaker had just gotten back from spending a while in Oregon-wish we could have met him!

We can finally introduce you to our ruggedly handsome 'new' car, our 1997 Nissan Wingroad (I just kept forgetting to take its picture!), with over 300,000 kilometers, that sometimes doesn't want to start, but for the most part gets us around!

From New Zealand

On Sunday we drove out to St. Bathans, an old, little gold-mining, now holiday retreat town. There are two reasons to come to this town: the pretty clay cliffs surrounding Blue Lake. The lake and cliffs are a result of the method of gold-mining used in the area.

From New Zealand

The other is the Vulcan Hotel, which is haunted. The ghost is said to be that of a young woman, who is thought to have been a bar maid who died of a broken heart and now haunts the bar and her old room. The room that was believed to have been hers can be asked for, if you decide to spend the night in the haunted hotel...but of course this place is only 45 minutes away-which means I won't get to spend the night there!!

From New Zealand

I'm guessing the wine isn't going to last us very long, so hopefully we'll be back soon!