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Published: August 17th 2008
(5 - 18th July) July saw Auckland host its own
Film Festival, which had the crowds queuing down the streets to get tickets for a load of films from around the globe - we opted for a range of showings including
In Bruges (two Irish criminals in hiding, one of whom thinks Bruges the dullest place ever! (not at all true, methinks) which was shown in the city’s impressively grand Civic Theatre, plus one from Japan and one from Rwanda..
On 13th July, we took a Sunday drive to the
Villa Maria Estate (and one of the best known New Zealand wineries to us English folk), where - since it was school holidays and lots of people were away - we had a tour to ourselves! They are proud of their privately owned status and have grown so much in recent years that they bought their present 81-hectare grounds in 2001, which have sloping gardens due to the fact that the land was a volcanic crater a mere 20,000 years ago. (It was previously a Maori settlement and is one of 48 volcanic cones in Auckland, making for steep hills all over nowadays.)
The winery’s fertile land is
mineral-rich and they grow a selection of Chardonnay, Gewürztraminer, Verdelho and Merlot which they make into 3 grades of wine: Private Bin, Cellar Selection and Reserve, gradually increasing in price which reflects whether the grapes have been hand or mechanically picked (18,000 tonnes of grapes last year!).
The tour was really interesting, especially learning that they put the grapes in a big vat in which a big balloon slowly inflates, crushing the grapes against the vat’s sides so the pips fall away and don’t get crushed into the liquid, which would give the wine a bitter taste. The wine’s quality is maintained by cool fermentation, which produces “wonderful aromatic characters” that NZ wines are renowned for. Nick drew the short straw so was driving, but I enjoyed a little tipple (hic!).
(19 July - 1st Aug) We are well and truly into a working routine now, both out of the house before 7:30 each day (which is a real shock to the system for me) and making the most of the weekends. I signed up for a photography course run by Auckland Library, which took place on a couple of Saturday mornings. Now I do not
Rain, rain go away...
Government Gardens, Rotorua (the town is renowned for its thermal baths and sulphur odours in the air, hence 'Fartopolis')consider myself an advanced photographer but I did worry when the first thing I heard when I arrived was the tutor say to the middle aged woman student “I know you said you hadn’t used your camera recently but I didn’t realise you hadn’t used it for 2 years”. However, even though it was pretty basic I learnt some useful tips.
We had a company conference during that fortnight, which was a welcome break from the office over a couple of days. On one of the days we were at
Eden Park, which all rugby fans will know is NZ’s equivalent of Twickenham. I am pleased to inform that the catering was first class. In the same week, we also had an offsite sales meeting in a smart venue in Auckland harbour, surrounded by water on all sides. It was a rare day of winter sunshine which showed the waterfront off to its best, made better by the fact that I travelled by ferry, which was blustery but great to do in such an attractive bay.
The end of July was the first time we left Auckland, we were helped by the fact that I had use of
a company car and that we had something to celebrate, ten years of being together. We headed south on Route One, which actually runs the length of the north and south island but which at times becomes like a British ‘B’ road, just one lane in each direction running through small towns and open countryside. All the green fields made it appear similar to driving through the quieter parts of Ireland. Our destination was
Rotorua (pop.76,000), known as NZ’s most dynamic thermal area and in fact goes under the nickname ‘Sulphur City’ because the sulphur-rich air smells eggy wherever you are in town. It is situated in a volcano depression believed to be 220,000 years old, and was long popular with different Maori tribes, but Europeans began making themselves at home from around 1870, and tourists even travelled from the UK and Europe way back then to come and visit, the attractions being firstly the much-lauded natural thermal baths (in fact, the head balneologist from England’s Royal Bath House in Bath was persuaded to come over to NZ to design and build a cutting-edge bath house here), and secondly the
Pink and White Terraces, which were formed by very old
volcanic silica deposits. They apparently looked so amazing that they were dubbed the eighth natural wonder of the world but alas no longer exist, destroyed in a massive 1886 eruption, the most destructive in NZ history.
Our family-run hotel room was a real luxury, having its own spa pool outside. In actual fact, it was like a large bath (about 2m by 2m) with a rough rock floor, a tap into which brought water from a natural hot source. We just added some cold water and we were set.
So the thermal waters remain the main attraction of the town. We visited the aforementioned bath house, now restored, a large mock-Tudor building completed in 1908. It was built as an elegant spa retreat where people came to ‘take the water’ for relaxing and treatment for ‘nervous exhaustion’, amongst other ailments. Today it’s the excellent
Rotorua Museum of Art and History, where amongst the exhibits you can see photos of punters in the last millennium having the latest treatments, including running an electrical current through the bath! Quirkily, the place was also a nightclub for 20 years until the 1980s, when it was shut for safety reasons, and there
Ooh, er. Paula dons a thermal mud face pack and jumps in
Outdoor hot pool filled with warm water from the ground!
Victoria Lodge, Rotorua are photos of groovers from the 60s and 70s having a ball.
For most of the weekend, it blew a gale and rained heavily, which was a shame because the
Government Gardens outside the bath house seemed worth loitering in when the weather was clement.
Lake Rotorua is very nearby the centre of town, but we were pretty much the only people to walk along it for a little while, because of the heavy precipitation. We did see the lake’s unusual black swans, but they seemed to behave just the same as white ones.
I found a great pub,
The Pig and Whistle where they brew their own beer (and I got a glass), and we ate well generally, including a curry and lunch in a café where they had added egg and avocado to the BLT to come up with a BLEAT!
On Sunday morning, we headed to the
Polynesian Spa which wasn’t very Polynesian but it did have 6 outdoor thermal pools ranging from 36o to 43oC. Half were supposed to be acidic and half alkaline but I couldn’t tell the difference, although it was very relaxing.
(2 - 18 Aug) Our
Ash & Pam's Hen Night
We had to dress up as characters beginning with 'A' or 'P'. Spot sultry/moody(?!) Posh on the right. housemates
Pam & Ash’s Civil Union celebrations began at the Hen Night one week before the Big Day, where the female contingent took the smart Ponsonby Road bars by storm, whilst Nick (the lone male of the house) went to a friend from work’s house and tried to understand the rugby (All Blacks beat the Aussies).
The Civil Union itself was held in the picturesque West Lynn Butterfly Gardens, and then Ash’s parents allowed us all to invade their nearby home with fabulous sweeping views of the surrounding valleys out West. At least we saw the views before the rains came! (I’d say it has rained more days than not since we’ve been here; we have learned not to be fooled by the bright sunshine and cloudless skies, as dark stormy clouds are more than likely but minutes away…)
Anyway, we are indeed back earning an honest wage and readjusting to the responsibilities that come along with it, one of them for me is having to speak English all the time!! I have a fair few English colleagues and many of the Kiwis have done their “OE (Overseas Experience)” in London and returned to the fold. There is
a good work-life balance here, and it is interesting to listen to work chat revolving around holidays, with people toying between popping over to Fiji (3 hours) or Australia’s Gold Coast, with Varadero not far behind as destinations of choice. Sounds so exotic!
The 12th August saw, yes, the beginning of Grouse Season back home, but also our
two-year(!) wedding anniversary. We decided that this year’s featured bubbly would have to be a Kiwi offering and just the one caught Nick’s eye on the shelf: Waiwera Hills: “
…with bread notes” (his favourite), “
and accented by fresh strawberry aromas” (my favourite) - a match made in the wine cellar! We ventured out to dine at
Pastis, a very authentic French bistro where we had to crank the cogs in our brains to answer the waiters jovially chatting away to us in French.
Our last Saturday night before flying back to a British summer was spent out on the town, with cocktail aperitifs at
Stark’s Bar, named after Freda Stark, a famous Kiwi dancer (you can tell we’re out of backpacking mode now), dining at underground
Tanuki’s Cave Japanese restaurant and patronising
Aisha club to round off the night.
Cracking open the bubbly
Two-year wedding anniversary! Major non-work projects have been focussed on flat viewing, and we are pleased to announce that we have just signed a contract to rent
an apartment of our own, it is certainly ‘cosy’ (to use estate agent talk) but nevertheless over looking Auckland harbour-yeah!
Tomorrow we’re going back to the motherland and really looking forward to catching up with friends and family, and attending the weddings of good friends Allan and Kelly and Gabby and Olly.
*****
PS (N) I just finished a great book on the history of Guinness and would like to share this apt quote:
"The mythic quest is more about
the quest itself than it is about the object of the quest. The mythic quest is really a voyage of self-discovery, and it is therefore about the things we discover and the pints we drink along our journey. It is about the places where we go in our search for that perfect pint, and those with whom we share that experience on life's cold and windy days" (Bill Yenne, The 250-Year Quest for the Perfect Pint)
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