Go South young women......

Off to the South Island.  We took the Interisland ferry to Picton; the gateway to the south island.  They say you do not just take the ferry, but cruise the passage.  It was truly a lovely passage and our first viewing of the Queen Charlotte Sound, beautiful. 

The Gate way to the South Island from the Snout Hike

 We had booked The Villa, another BBH place.  We walked down to the ‘ I’ Site (yup the place where you get the skinny on the area)   and to the Interislander booking site.  We wanted to change our return date and to make sure that we received our BBH discount, not an issue on either point.  Karen asked a lady in a car rental site for a recommendation for lunch, we did look at it, but…not so much.  So we went into the Flying Haggis, then Karen asked the waitress did she know who Robert Burns was, and this was the eve of his birthday!  And did they have Haggis! We got a blank stare and settled for a sandwich and chips with sour cream and bacon, several food groups hit there!  To wear off our nutritious lunch, the next day we walked the Snout trail.  OK, we got lost at the start of the walk and going the wrong way, we ended up talking to dog owners(actually it was a cute little puppy), both were cops and they pointed us in the right direction!  Beautiful views!  And back to the hostel with sore feet once again!

The next town, Blenheim is the centre of the wine region for Marlborough, where 75% of New Zealand’s wines are grown/made, not to mention the home of NZ’s Sauvignon blanc’s.  We started our ‘tour’ with a trip to the local market.  There we purchased fresh picked potatoes, fruit and venison!  We had a lovely BBH accommodation, The Grapevine, on a river.  A lovely setting for a barbeque!

The wineries:  our mission was to find a wine to go with our venison!  We started at Nautilus, of course.  The wines were not spectacular, but the lady behind the tasting counter gave us a list of other wineries to try.  So off to Herzog’s for some awesome reds.  Many of their wines needed to be put down for a few years and we are looking more for immediate gratification!  So we bought a Zweigelt, to go with the venison.  We need some lunch, so we headed  to Cloudy Bay.  Now Cloudy Bay makes some awesome wines, lovely to taste, but at $75 a bottle, a little beyond our range.

Back at The Grapevine we compared notes with some others who had gone to several of the wineries.  So next day we started on a new list:  Wither Hills, after all, this was the name of our room, then Fromm, then Brancott, NZ’s largest winery.  At Brancott you start by watching a video on the history and the making of their wines, it finishes with voice over as the screen is pulled up and the vineyard comes into view in front of you…….Heaven.  Their wines were also well worth the tasting.  We had lunch there, which was great, matched with wines, sitting overlooking the vineyard.  Our last vineyard that day was Gibbons.  This is a winery done by a husband and wife.  He does it for love, and mostly Pinot Gris, as it is his favourite grape.  A gruff man, making some great wines.

We had a lovely drive the next day to Greymouth.  We stopped at White Creek swing bridge, paid the toll to walk across and do the short walk on the other side.  Aside from it being a gold mining centre, it was also where the tectonic plates decided to make a move and the ground level around the fault adjusted moved in one day by 5 meters! Luckily not the day we were there.  Back across the bridge and back on our way through the Buller Gorge and along the side of Victoria Forest Park.  Beautiful scenery all the way.  

Swinging over White Creek

 

Greymouth Beach

We stayed at Global Village in Greymouth (another BBH).  It was an amazing place, beautiful rooms, kitchen, TV room, and sitting room, all on a river.  It was decorated with pieces from around the world, but mostly from Bali.  We took the car to the Tasman seas, watched some fur seals playing in the surf, and then walked the beach looking for green stone or Jade.  Both of us picked up a few pieces and enjoyed the walk on the water’s edge.

As we didn’t come into Greymouth via highway 6 we missed the Pancakes rocks and Blowholes.  So we drove there the next day, truly a sight not to be missed.

 


PANCAKES ANYONE???

The topography was dramatic and we saw our first Weta, it is a bird.  We lunched at a restaurant back in town then back to Global Village to enjoy the hostel and a glass of wine.  Cheryl made up mincemeat tarts and Karen used some of the left over puff pastry as a bed for a seafood medley, very nice!

We took Highway 6 along the water until Hokitika.  There we stopped to see what greenstones they had for sale, to see if any stones spoke to us.  Basically it seems that everyone does the same traditional cuts, not too many original pieces.  So we carried on, having enjoyed the stop.  We stopped for 2 nights at the Fox glacier, and stayed at the Ivory Towers, not sure about the name.  We drove down to the start of the walk to Matheson lake.  This is one of those iconic pictures of NZ, but you need no wind and clear skies to get Mount Cook reflected in the water, but this was not the day for that, but a lovely walk none the less.  We booked a half day tour on the Glacier for the next day.  We ended up in a group of only 5, one lady did not speak English.  Which turned out to not be a problem as we ended up with a couple from her country on the Glacier with us, what are the chances?

Haast Pass

The next day we drove to Wanaka.    The road from Fox glacier to Wanaka takes you through the Haast Pass, which has some amazing views.  Our first view of Lake Hawea was a call to lunch, as you really can’t have a better view for lunch. 

Lunch break at Lake Hawea

We then carried on to Wanaka, to Wanaka Bakpaka.  The view from this place is amazing! 


Mt Aspire

We did some provisioning and made a stop at the I-site.  A lovely meal of barbequed Salmon, with an amazing wine and an amazing view.  Next day we started fairly early for the hike to Rob Roy Glacier.  It was a lovely walk with so many beautiful sights along the way.  At the top the view was truly spectacular.  A gentleman was taking pictures of some Kea sitting in front of him and flying around.  The wife was showing Cheryl the pictures and she asked Cheryl where she was from.  Cheryl answered Canada, but she lived on a boat, Interlude.  The lady looked at me and asked Cheryl if we were “The Interlude”.  It turns out that Cheryl was talking to Sue from Spruce, a boat we had not really met.  We took their parking spot in Isabella, Galapagos and spoke on the SSB radio, but never met!  I guess not so surprising really as Andy (of Spruce) said, most of the Pacific Fleet is in NZ!

 

 


Kea in the wild

Spruce (Sue and Andy) meets Interlude

 

Boat stuff shopping and touring

Now the boat shopping begins.  We headed back to our friend's place in South Auckland.  As Jacqueline went off to work each day and we headed into Auckland to exercise our credit cards at the marina stores.  We bought exciting things like thruhull fittings (the mushroom, the seacocks and tailpipes!) and snubbers, real exciting stuff eh! We meet up with Somerset to share stories and some wine and compare our list of boat projects

Friday was a day off.  We did exciting things like laundry and catch up on emails.  Then Jacqueline came home and off we went, first stop a local pub and then off to an amazing dinner at a place in a olive grove about 20 minutes from Jacqueline's house and nope we can't remember the name. But really it was amazing

Saturday saw us back in Auckland, picking up some of the parts that had been ordered and were delivered to the chandlery, always good to buy Kiwi made.  Then Jacqueline took us on a tour of Auckland.  We thought we had seen most of it, but she took us to places (shops and areas) we had not been to, not to mention some neat trendy eatiers.  Back home in time to cook dinner.  Dinner was accompanied with a single malt scotch, which Bruce had left behind, so really Bruce is to blame if we had a little too much and spent the next day relaxing in our PJs!

Monday we were back to touring.  First stop was New Plymouth, a BBH accommodation called Seaspray House. We stayed up late, okay for Cheryl it was late and went to see their festival of lights, a FREE light display in a beautiful park.  Pretty and very well attended.  Then Tuesday we walked the water front, what a surprise.  Then we went on a Maori walk up one of the river beds, lovely.  Stopped for a late lunch overlooking the Tasman Sea, yup water again.  Really we needed to rest our tried and sore feet after almost a 20 kilometers walk. Then another late night we walked to the observatory to look at the stars and we got to see Jupiter along with its moons, way cool. The observatory was $5 and very informal but still very informative

The next day we headed to Mount Egmont for a short hike. Remember we said we had tired feet.  So did the Victoria Loop, with a detour to a look-out, very pretty and yup there was snow at the top.

Mount Egmont

 


New Plymouth waterfront

Then lunch in Stratford!  No not the real one with William, nor the one in Ontario.  We found a pub for lunch.  Back to the hostel for dinner, to pack and get ready for our trip to Whanganui.

On the way to Whanganui we stopped back in Stratford to watch/listen to the Glockenspiel, it played at 10am. Cute but it was hard to hear as it was located right next  to the highway. Next stop DAWSON falls of course we had to go there, this was located on the southside of Mount Egmont.  

Dawson at Dawson

We had lunch in Hawera at a place recommended by Lonely Planet called Indian Zaika, we would suggest that you give this place a miss!

Whanganui was a lovely town.  Once we checked into our hostel, Tamara Backpackers Lodge, we walked the town, including going to two look outs, which was an adventure as it was so windy that it was hard to stand against the wind.  The next day we went to the Art gallery and to the Museum, both which were free and real treats!  The art gallery is closing for a time as the building no longer meets building code, something to do with earthquakes! So the staff were allowed to pick what art was to be displayed and they did a great job.  The museum was laid back and relaxed and just the right amount of stuff.  We found a sushi place in town for lunch then back to the ranch for a glass of wine and dinner you guessed it overlooking the Whanganui River.  The next day we took a jet boat up the river to the "Bridge to Nowhere".  (way back a bridge was built up the river with a promise to build a road to join 2 towns, you guessed it never happen so now it is a tourist spot, and yes there is a bridge called "the bridge that goes somewhere").

Really a Bridge that goes no where

Had a picnic lunch on the bridge and then we opted to take the jet boat part of the way back and then hopped in to a canoe for the rest of the way.  The canoe trip was awesome, we were the only ones on the water and we even went through several sets of rapids and didn’t tip over. As it was getting late and we had already paddled 16km the jet boat came and picked us up and taken the rest of the way back.  The staff of the jet boat could not believe that we did not flip, apparently 80% did! 

One of the many waterfalls on the river

Hey Karen no splashing

We had dinner out with John, a gentleman who lives in Pahia and make videos and  films on things to do in New Zealand plus anything to do with the water,  great company and lots of insights on New Zealand

Off to Plimmerton, a town some 20 km from Wellington, to a hostel called Moana Lodge, which has beautiful views of the bay and the Tasman Sea, yup water again.  Sunday, with the weekend traffic we ventured into Wellington, a 20 minute drive.  We parked in front of the library, right in downtown, and took the cable car up the hill to the gardens and walked around.  Wellington is so hilly they have public and private cable cars all over the place.  We walked the gardens until we were almost back to the bottom, but on the wrong side of the hill, so we walked back up and took the cable car back down and made our way back to the hostel.  Monday was a holiday so we drove back into Wellington in the rain.  We made our way to Weta Caves,  where films like The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and Avatar were made.  We saw their free video and then Cheryl ran to the ticket booth to get tickets to tour their Workshop!  It was an amazing tour showing how many special effects were done, seeing fake amour and fake skin! 

Karen's new friend

Precious
 

 


















Then back to the centre of the city to a restaurant recommended by Jacqueline, called The Big Bad Wolf.  They specialize in sausage, but I don’t know what was better, the
sausage plate or the duck French onion soup!  Then off to Te Papa.  Te Papa is the FREE national museum  and is so large that it cannot be seen in a day.  On this day we went through the Moari and Volcano exhibits.
The next day we went ‘over the hill’, to Martinbough, a small winery area on the south east side of the north island.  We tried some lovely wines and had an awesome platter at a winery called Poppies.  But the highlight was probably the toilettes in town!  You can only stay in them for 10 minutes and the bathroom tells you this and they play music, all very interesting! Wineries and toilettes what a day. As we got back to our hostel we found out we missed the earthquake, we figured we must have been driving on the gravel road and didn't feel it

For our last day in Wellington we drove in and parked at the Westpac park $9 per day. This put us at the start of the walking tour.  We did most of the walking tour, interrupted by a tour of the parliament buildings.  But only the outside as a commonwealth meeting was taking place.  The guide was very informative and actually talked about most of the sights we were interested in.  We visited two of the old churches, then lunch at the Crab Shack, another place recommended by Jacqueline.  It was awesome.  We had a scoop and a scoop, that is a scoop of various clams in a sauce and a scoop of claims and mussels in a different sauce, needless to say, washed down with a local wine.  Then back to Te Papa to go through parts we had not seen the day before.  We had done Wellington proud.

 

Time Flies

Christmas 2013 was history, nothing left but left overs! So of course you have to go to the big swinging town of  Kerikeri to check out the boxing day sales and we walked away with our credit card still in tack.  Then off to visit some of our cruising friends who were docked in Opua.   Tea with Dancing Walrus (Ken and Joni) and then wine on Iolea (Paul and Kate)!  A great way to spend a rainy day.

Captain Bruce

Cheryl and Bruce received a day trip on the R Tucker Thomspon tall ship for Christmas from Santa okay it was Karen.  We were lucky to have a beautiful sunny day for the trip.  Cheryl got to helm most of the way out, she was happy!  Karen and Cheryl climbed the rigging and Karen climbed out on the bow sprit to take pictures.  Lunch was delightful, so to were the scones with cream and jam at the beginning of the passage!  All three of us had smiles on our faces, it was a good day. Thanks Santa. 

A New Figurehead



The view from the crows nest

What else is in the neighbourhood?  Rainbow waterfalls is an hour walk from the oldest stone building in New Zealand, so we went to the stone building, which has been dressed up as old general store.  Then a beautiful walk along the river to rainbow falls.  We were standing at the bottom, wondering why it was called Rainbow falls, then we trudged to the top and looked down we figured it out!

Rainbow Falls

Then we headed to the far north!  We booked into Main Street Lodge, our first BBH hostel.  The room was lovely, the kitchen great.  And the owner gave us great hints for things to do in the south island and places to stay.  We took the Harrison Cape Runner tour which picks you up at your hostel at 9am and headed up to the VERY north of the North Island.  We had a few stops along the way before Cape Reigna, the lighthouse at the top of the island where you can see the rough waters from the meeting of the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean plus spectacular views.

 Next we went tobogganing yup on sand dunes at the start of 90 miles beach. The climb up in a word was HARDWORK!!  Karen did it 3 times, Cheryl twice and Bruce once.  The options were to go down on a plastic toboggan or a boogie board.  The boogie board is supposed to be faster, I don’t know, we all seemed to do well on whatever we went down on. 

Look out below!!!!

It is amazing the places sand can get into!  We then drove (or Simon our bus driver) drove down 90 mile beach, which is actually only 70 kilometers.  But it was amazing.  We stopped to pick Piu Piu, which are small clams.  It was easy to pick them up, they were everywhere.  We got back around 5:30.  So dinner that night was the clams, cooked on the barbeque, with butter and garlic to dip them in.  They need a little more time to get all of the sand out of them but the sand just helped with digestion, right!

Next day we packed and headed to the gum diggers park.  The sap from the Kauri trees was kept soft in the swamps of the north and the gum was ‘mined’.  The gum was used for varnish but with synthetic varnish now, gum digging is no longer.   It was a very hard life.  The exhibit was great.  And yes that is where the name gum boots came from the guys wore boots up to almost their hips and dug in the swamp for Kauri gum. 

Gum Diigger's home away from home

We booked a place in Whangarei, called Little Earth, by the Abbey Caves.  We meet up with Enchantment for ice cream in Whangerei, then headed onto the Lodge.  It was lovely.  The next day we hiked to the caves and went into 2, or Cheryl and Karen went into 2.  They were a bit difficult to get into and out and you wade through cold water ankle deep, but fun.  A totally different experience from Waitomo as it was just us in the caves looking at a few glow worms. We also hiked to the waterfalls in the nearby reserve, called Whangarei Falls!  This included a walk in the clouds, where a pathway has been built so you walk at the top of the tree canapy.

The next day we went back to Opua as they were having a tall ship regatta.  We went out with Dancing Walrus on their boat and ended up, by accident, having a perfect anchor spot at the end of the finish line.  Ken said he planned it that way!  To see “The Pride of New Zealand” as she rounded the corner under full sail will stay in our minds for a long time.  (It was also an opportunity to ask Ken all sorts of questions on fiberglass reinforced plastics, as we are replacing our through hull fittings and seacocks and this is what the new ones will be made of.)  We were also lucky enough to catch up with State of Mind (Rod and Brenda) at Opua.  Yes we asked Rod about through hull fittings too!  But we also had the chance to catch up.

Then it was back to Auckland as Bruce is leaving in a few days and we needed to do the things we missed the first time!  We went up Mount Eden, it was good to have done it this late in the trip as you have seen it from other places so it makes sense.  We stayed at the Waldorf Tetra again, it was easy!  We went to the zoo, but believe it or not, we did not see a Kiwi, the main purpose of the trip.  We went for a walk one day to the waterfront.  Bruce went to a movie and Karen and Cheryl indulged in a ½ hour massage.  We went visiting Somerset (Carol and Jim), which then became going out to dinner.  We decided to restaurant hop:  we started at an Indian place and had an excellent appetizer platter, then onto a Thai place where we shared several dishes.  Good food and great company.  Next day went up one tree hill and walked around it’s park before we went to the Sky Tower for an amazing lunch and fantastic view of Auckland.  The food was top drawer and when you consider the costs to get up the tower it was very reasonable.

The time had passed very quickly; it was now time for Bruce to head back to Canada.  We saw Bruce checked in, had a coffee, last hugs and we headed back to Jacqueline’s in South Auckland.

New Zealand here we come

Putting Interlude to bed even in the rain 

We tearfully left Interlude in Fiji, we left her in a hurricane hole and in good hands after 5 weeks of putting her to bed, which means striping off everything that can be blown off. 

Off to the airport for our longest yet shortest passage of the season, the trip to New Zealand!  Karen had a business class ticket, which was great as she was allowed a guest into the lounge, a treat as the plane was delayed 2 hours!  So we started on some very nice Sauvignon Blanc’s of course from New Zealand, one must get prepared to try the local flavour.  Once we were boarded there was an even greater delay due to a lightning storm preventing them from taking on fuel.  So Karen got talking to the flight attendants and Cheryl got up graded to business class.  Of course everyone in the economy class was staring as Cheryl was escorted with bag in hand to the front, hummmm.  But all was good as then we started on the sparkling wines! Sure beats economy.

We had booked a 2 bedroom apartment at the Waldorf Tetra in Auckland so we check the airport for Bruce who was to arrive from Canada about 8 hours before and when we didn’t find him we hopped in a Taxi.  After an $85 taxi ride, ouch!!! We arrived after the front desk had closed, with no way of getting a hold of Bruce and we did not know what room we had.  So the manager came down and let us in and phoned Bruce in the room to make sure we are who we said we were.  Yup Bruce own up to knowing us.  After hugs and kisses off to bed for all.   Our 3 hour trip to New Zealand had become 7 hours, still our shortest passage of the season, for Bruce it was just over a 24 hour passage.

I don’t know what preconceptions we had about Auckland, but it didn’t include just how hilly it is.  If it is not up, it is down!  We walked into the city centre, to the ‘I’ centre (New Zealand’s information centres) and to the AA site (the road side assistance centres not Alcoholics Anonymous) and walked out with a mitt full of pamphlets and maps, AA card and an AA gas card.

Over our time in Auckland we did her proud!  We visited the marine museum, the highlight there would have to be the film on Peter Blake’s life and the interactive sailing games.  We went to the Auckland Domain, which houses the Auckland War Memorial, which includes the museum.  The highlights here would have been the Volcano room, showing a new volcano coming up in Auckland habour complete with the floor and the walls moving and the “Kai Ora” greeting we received from a Maori guide.  This was one of our first ‘ouches’, $45 to go to the museum! (okay not including the taxi from the airport)

We spied on the map that there were wineries just outside Auckland so of course we had to check them out, well worth doing.

Then we headed to south Auckland and stayed at a friend’s place (Jacqueline was a woman we met in Samoa.)  The place she is living in has the most amazing garden, so beautiful, so peaceful plus a pool.  From there we went to the Clark’s beach and the lighthouse at  South Head the western entrance to Auckland where the wreck of the Orpheus happened, NZ’s worst maritime disaster.  We also went to the Coromandel Peninsula.  It looked like a short drive, but turned into a full day of driving, pretty driving, but a long day.  Our impression of NZ is that is it Canada, but squished, this makes the roads VERY windy, particularly on Cheryl’s driving days.  So were we think a 100 km is less than an hours drive it is probably 2 hours of driving.  Which is OK, as for very turn in the road, there is a new amazing view… okay only for the passenger.

We headed south to Waitomo Caves, home of the glow worms.  Apparently every wet cave in NZ has glow worms, but these caves are LARGE, with amazing stalactites and stalagmites and an amazing number of glowworms.  There were so many glow worms that they formed a chandelier effect.  The second cave we went into was a 1.6 km walk, putting you inches from glow worms and amongst some amazing rock formations. 

From here we headed to Napier and Hastings, Hawkes Bay from a wine perspective.  Napier is known for its art deco architecture.  We did a self-guided tour and all agreed that it is cool, but not our style.  The wineries were a different matter!  The first winery we went to was called Clear View.  We had an amazing experience with this lady who was running the tastings bar so amazing that after a lovely lunch we left with a case of wine and a visa bill of only $500!  We stopped at a few other wineries, none topping Clear Views wines or the visa card was tapped out…who knows.  The next day we went to the neighboring town’s wineries in Hastings, some very nice wines, some beautiful look-outs and lunch in the car at a stream.  Another good day.

Then we headed inland to Taupo to stay at Harry and Karen’s, people we met in Peru. Yup if we met people in other parts of the world look out we may just drop by for a wee visit.  Their home has amazing views of Lake Taupo and Mt Raupehu in the background.  Karen dropped us off at a walk to Huka Falls. 

A lovely walk along the river and then this amazing falls.  It was amazing not so much because of the drop, because it is not a high falls, but the water colour, I don’t know, a whitish turquoise, beautiful!  Then we found out what an amazing cook Karen is and Harry on the BBQ.  The next day we had our geothermal experience! Led by a volcanologist and a published writer specializing in volcanoes, OK, that is Harry and Karen, seriously!  We got to ask every question we had been saving up!  Not to mention got to go to places that the public usually can’t go to.  And we even got to help the environment by picking Christmas Trees.  Pines are an invasive species here, so we all pulled up Christmas trees.

Karen and Harry used them to decorate their home, before they are disposed of.  Rather than being bothered by our questions, at the end of the day Harry thanked us as we made him look at the area through new eyes. 

We saw the first Hobbit movie on the plane.  We saw the second Hobbit in 3D in Auckland, Jacqueline took us!  (Karen’s first 3D experience.)  It was important to visit Hobbiton as Cheryl’s present to Bruce for Xmas was the tour of Hobbiton so next stop Hobbiton!  This is where the Shire from the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit was filmed.  The tour was 2 hours and while informative was more notable by just how tranquil the Shire was.  You can easily see why the Hobbits wanted to get home! 

Bruce and Karen's new home????

Shire

A little grog in the "Green Dragon Inn"

Back to Jacqueline’s, but just for a night to break our drive to the north.

North took us to a place near Opua, where we rented a house so we could have Christmas with Somerset (Carol and Jim) and Enchantment (Michelle and Vern).  The place came about as Vern was talking to a lady at the Bank and she was on vacation for 3 weeks and had a 3 bedroom place that she would let.  So we took it.  When we got there we met her, a lovely lady, but not a great housekeeper.  So she headed off to Auckland for Christmas and we started cleaning.  The 3 of us spent 3 or 4 hours before we cooked in her place. 

Christmas eve Cheryl did her Tortierre and the MacFee tradition of Brandy Alexanders soon began as the gang gathered for Christmas Eve , both traditions that will always be a part of Christmas for us!  And of course everyone else added a little of their own something.  Jim and Carol used one of the bedrooms, and stayed for 2 nights while Vern and Michelle drove back to their boat each day. 

Our presents were stowed under the Xmas tree!  A tree made by Jim on Somerset, an awesome tree complete with lights and it is portable.   

Look Santa came :)

Xmas morning we waited, sort of patiently, for Enchantment to arrive, and then we called, as at heart we are all kids and want to open presents!

Then onto the cooking.  A turkey, with stuffing!  Scalloped potatoes, with a few sweet potatoes.  A salad and veggies and did I mention the LAMB!  We are in New Zealand after all.  Awesome food, friends and family, you can’t ask for anything else for Christmas!  Not to mention Cheryl’s rendition of the Grinch.

Our final passage of our amazing year

Once we cleared Savaii we had fairly big seas and good winds, so we made good time until we hit Fiji’s waters.  Then we had glassy seas a wide open passage, beautiful sunrises and breathtaking sunsets with Fiji’s gorgeous green hills welcoming us to it's  island.  After another 700 miles and 6 days at sea  and no fish, even though we sailed through a fish boil for an hour without even a nibble, we picked up a mooring ball outside our marina and opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate our passage.  We settled in for the nigh, we would check in with biosecurity, immigration, health and customs the next morning. 

Our first greeting was a huge Bula (means Hello) from the officials and after doing our paperwork and laying out about $200 we are now allowed to step off the boat.

Now that the year is really over we planned a menu to go with the bottle of Cliquet Veuve that Jennifer had given us to celebrate the year.  Champagne requires smoked salmon and fois grasse!  A lovely way to celebrate a year of travel!

We then spent a week getting quotes for work we needed to have done.  This meant staying in the water in an area with 2 meter tides and fixed docks.  At low tide we could get off Interlude easily, but at high tide we couldn’t climb up!  We had great neighbours, we used whoever’s boat was easiest to get off and on our boats. (Just imagine having your legs over your ears, BEFORE coffee.  Or walking a tightrope after a glass of wine.)   So we were happy when we went on the hard and into the cyclone hole!

Now the work begins to put Interlude to bed. Fiji is right in the middle of cyclone area.  So what does it mean putting the boat to bed,  well  first thing is they haul you and place you in a hole completely surrounded by tires,  then you start to take everything off the deck.  It is amazing how much stuff we have on the deck.  We dropped the rudder as we had a continuous leak in the stuffing box, (found that coral had made its way up the rudder post and had scored the post and making a rough edge which tears up our packing). Since we have our steering apart we decided to check our steering system and have now replaced the steering cable as we found a couple of burrs it. We fixed Trouble again and found a tiny pin hole it looked like a staple hole, okay leak found yeah.  Then as we put her back together we find she is still leaking.  So we patch the new spot and continue putting her back together.  Painted and put 5 coats of varnish on the V-berth cabin and bathroom.  Aft bathroom was painted and varnished.  5 coats of varnished was done on the engine mounts, cockpit table, flowerbox.  Karen  sewed, not exciting things, but strapping, re-stitching the sunscreens as after 4 years the sun had eaten the thread, new cover for the horseshoe ring, cover for the door…Cheryl scrapped and put 2 layers of primer and 3 layers of top paint on the fridge, now it has 3 months to dry.

With Interlude put to bed we got ready to head to New Zealand for our 3 month vacation.

Off to New Zealand!

 

 

 

Savaii, the big island

What can we say about Savaii?  In a word, Awesome.

We left Apai Somoa for Savaii, no wind, we motored, charged the batteries and made water.

We anchored in Matautu Bay, nicely positioned between two reefs.  This made for some good snorkelling.  We decided not to go ashore as we couldn’t really see a place to land the dinghy.  So we stayed aboard and snorkelled twice each day.  Some new fish identified, always a good thing.  The bad thing was our first siting of the crown of thorns, a member of the starfish family that is out of control and damaging the reefs.  We saw more than one!

Sonsie of Victoria (Jim and Isabel) joined us in the anchorage and snorkelled with us.  We went to their boat for drinks and appies, we got rowed over and back (we had not launched trouble), which was a treat.

Then we headed down the coast to Asua Bay.  We had the waypoints from the compendium and had read tooooo many guides as the entrance was a treaky one and the charts are wrong!  We followed Sonsie in, which always makes things easier, not more than a .5 knot current, but it is really the side on waves and swell before you are actually in the channel that is the issue.  But we got in with no problems and anchored in 7 meters.

We arranged a tour with a guide named Sam.  Unbelievable!  We started going counterclockwise around the island, the first stop was the canapy tour.  A walkway has been built between 2 bayon trees, and then kind of a tree house in the tallest so you can see to the coast.

  Next we stopped at the gaints foot print.  This is the right foot print, apparently the left is in Fiji! 

 

 

 The coast road is really very beautiful.  We long ago gave up counting the number of churches, as they are one, two or three, max 6, in each village!  (The good news is that they are also cyclone shelters.)  The fales and lands were very well kept, such flowers, such colours.  We went to the blow holes, now this is a calm day, but Sam timed it just right when he threw in a basket of coconut shells and they flew at least a hundred feet in the air! 

 

We skipped the waterfalls as a tour coming down said it was muddy, so we were onto lunch.  This was at a lovely place called Louisa’s cabins.  Very relaxed and lush setting.  After lunch we went to the local market and Frankie’s supermarket, something cruisers always need to do.  We carried on by the ferry dock and onto John Williams tomb.  He brought Christianity to Samoa and is well regarded.  Our next stop was the church and virgin’s grave.  The storey is that when the volcano erupted in 1905-1911 the lava flowed past the church and went in the front door.  As to the virgin’s grave, everything else was covered in lava, except her grave.  As we were passing villages Sam was saying this is a marine reserve, see the stakes.  Then the same thing at the next village, until we finally figured that they are voluntarily conserving their resources!  These people should be running the UN!  Our last stop was Sam’s home.  A major Fales in Avao, the town we had been anchored in front of when we were in Matautu Bay!  Beautifully kept grounds, they have a normal house lived in by the extended family and a round fales in front for the family gatherings and a place for guests to sleep.  We finished the circum navigation of the island just before sunset.  A long but very good day.

Cheryl got a year older!  This was celebrated with blueberry pancakes for breakfast and stuffed porkchops with callalou stuffed with coconut milk on the barbeque.  Not to mention the last bottle of Palo Alto!

We prepared a picnic lunch and took our snorkel gear to the moto beside the entrance to the Bay.  We walked around the moto (that didn’t take long) then went for a snorkel.  Very shallow water, so easy to see the fish.  Some lovely stag horn coral, hosting many fish, but we didn’t stay there long as the current seemed to want to pull us out the pass.  We had some picnic foods and our last bottle of rose for lunch!

We had to send a form off to Fiji and the local telephone company has such poor internet that we had to take a bus into town to send it off.  This was a lovely 3 hour bus ride!  We got to see the entire west, south and east coasts again.  And again on our trip back!  We also bought Noni and Somoan coffee, so not a wasted trip!

The resort we were anchored in front of Va-i-monoa Seaside Lodge was very accommodating.  They were happy to let us leave our dinghy on their dock or beach.  The staff was lovely!  And the food was good, the wine even better!  On our last Sunday they did an Umu demonstration, which is a traditional method of cooking. Cheryl got to help make a basket, we made packages of Callaloo, stuffed with coconut milk and onions, which is then wrapped in a banana leaf, then wrapped in a breadfruit leaf.  If you do it right, it all stays together and they it ‘thrown’ on the fire.  A variety of lamb pieces and taro where also put on the fire.  These things were then covered with layers of banana/palm fronds/breadfruit leaves and are left for say 45 minutes.  Then all the leaves are removed and the food is ready!  The taste of the fire is part of the food.  We put the callaloo on slices of taro, lovely.  And tried lamb flaps!  Tastely, but not much in the way of meat.

 

One evening we had some questions to ask Sale, the owner, he invited us to join him and a friend of his for a glass of wine and sashimi of yellow finned tuna caught that day!  We had a great conversation.  Turns out they know people in the cultural show in Apia and we went on from there!

We met a lovely lady, Jacqueline, a Kiwi doctor getting away for a bit.  We shared many fish stories, Jacqueline has tried to impart more knowledge to us.  She laughed when she heard how we were gaffing fish, then she explained how we should do it.  We don’t know if we will be any better as we didn’t catch any fish on the passage to Fiji, even though we spent probably an hour in a fish boil.  Jacqueline came on board for lunch one day, Callaloo Soup and rum punch.  Both were enjoyed by all of us. 

We have been watching the weather each day and it looks like we will leave for Fiji on Monday.  Until then we will continue decreasing our wine supply, it has NEVER been so low.  We get the shakes worrying about finding some in Fiji, but we are only allowed to take in 4 bottles of wine OR 2 liters of alcohol.  Hmmm.

Somoa means SMILE!

SAMOA really should change their name to smiles, or island of smiles, as it seems everywhere you go you get a smile.  The people here are the most friendly we have experienced in all of our travels this year.  Not to say that the islands have not been friendly, in fact the opposite, from the moment we entered French Polynesia we have been welcomed.  But Samoans really tops the bunch! Wow, you can be walking down the street and a teenager will ask “how is your day going” and he really wants to know and the big thing he just wants to walk and talk with you, nothing else, and as you part company he says ”have a great day” .  That was our experience everywhere from the market to the taxies.  The children on the roads wave and give you a big grin.  Yup SAMOA really means smile.

WE LOST A DAY.

Well we arrived thinking we had arrived on a Friday, but some time ago, who knows when, SAMOA decided to be more in tune with the trading partners New Zealand and Australia so they changed the date line to between American Samoa and Samoa (western, they don’t like to be called western Somoa anymore).  All of books and all the information we had said we would not cross the date line until we entered Fiji, but what do books know.  You cannot check into Custom and Immigration, not to mention health and quarantine after hours or on weekends.   So we sat out at anchor for 2 days in the bay with 4 other boats, not really such a bad thing as the passage from Suwarrow in the Cooks was 4 days, so we had time to clean and sleep.  On Monday morning the parade started, as we did not drop our dingy, we were lucky that the two Cats by us volunteered to ferry the officials out to the boats.  First on the list:  Biosecurity.  Yup a guy in a skirt (most men here were skirts) climbs on our boat!  Okay ladies, think about climbing on a boat wearing a below the knee skirt!  He did it, he even removed his flip flops, oh yeah, another thing, everyone wears flip flops.  (They even use the cut-out for the soles which there usually 20 cut out to a piece as a way of holding down their palm frond roofs).  Anyway we pass bio security, he even said we have a clean boat.  Then customs and immigration together, we are in the country, almost, the last group is quarantine.  Well the two ladies didn’t even get out of the dingy, they sat there too scared to climb up so they just handed the paper to sign and left.  Yeah we are now free to come ashore so we haul anchor and go into the marina.

Somoa is made up of two big islands, with some little islands between the two.  The two big islands are Upoulo, which has the capital and administrative centre, Apia and Savaii.  Savaii is called the big island.

As we haven’t had internet for a time we go to the ice cream shop, some excuse, eh!  But really that is the closest internet hotspot!  It is also the place for fire dancing, go figure.  On Tuesday nights they have a local dance show, showing dancing styles of various Polynesian Islands, including fire dancing, a local dance.  The ice cream shop is associated with a local charity that is teaching dancing to kids dancing to keep them off the street.  The youngest fire dancer that night was probably 8 or 10 at the most!

On the Thursday we went to a local hotel for a further display of dancing and culture, not to mention a buffet of local foods.  We went early to enjoy a day with Joni (from Dancing Walrus) and Di from (Matira), a girls day out with a fresh water pool!

Thursday was also an event at the cultural centre.  The Somoans thought that most people only venture to their island for a week and they wanted the tourists to leave with an understanding of Somoan culture.  So they put on a show, they:  make coconut cream, prepare an umu (local cooking using a fire pit) local dancing, making tapa from Mulberry bark, tattooing and wood working.  All the while you can ask any question you want, just lovely!  And at the end of the show you get to eat what you saw being made.  And this is free, although they do ask for a donation.  We went twice, as we missed the beginning the first time.  The second time, as we were there early, we got to make a hat and plates out of palm fronds.  On top of the plates they put a section of a banana leaf and there you go, an organic plate!

 

We toured the island with Dancing Walrus (Ken and Joni), which was great.  First we went around clockwise.  We saw a hydro plant, Ken said lets go there.  We checked out the dam, then a worker came to see what we were doing and we drove with him to walk the tunnels through a mountain that the water takes to the turbines, lovely.  Next we saw a sign for Treehouse resorts.

  While we didn’t stay in one, they would have been lovely. We finished the pass through the centre of the island, taking pictures of waterfalls and the shoreline.  We lunched on the beach at a small resort.  (Most of the resorts have Fales that they rent, often not much more than a roofed platform, with palm frond walls if you are lucky.  Usually with shared bathroom facilities.  This would be very much how most Samoan’s live.)

Once back at the boat we had time to shower before we went for indian food.

The next day we crossed the centre of the island and then carried on clockwise.  We went to the sliding rocks, which is a series of waterfalls, which are worn enough that you can slide down them.  As it was dry season, there was only one falls that Karen and Joni slid down, but it was fun!

 

 

Early one morning Karen, Joni and Di hiked up to Robert Louis Stevenson’s tombe.  A nice walk up and down.  Mating snails on the trail, many birds and bats flying around at the top!  The view of Apia from the tombe was lovely.  We made it back in time to get to the cultural centre for the show.

 

We went to the market and all we can say about that is that no one could eat as much Taro as they have Taro to sell!  (In the Caribbean it would be called Dasheen and here they eat the root and the leaf.  Can you say Callalou soup!)

We found a place were you could get a therapeutic massage, which turned out to be awesome.  So we went back two more times!  It was funny, an hour massage was 60 Tala (just less than 30 dollars) and a hair cut was 30 Tala, go figure!  We put all the other boats onto this place!

We took one last drive with Joni and Di.  Dancing Walrus and Matira had gone driving and ended up in a different place from where we did.  It was bugging Joni that she couldn’t connect the two roads in her mind.  So we went to see where the road went.  We drove to the end of the road they had been on before and then walked for 15-30 minutes to see if we could get to the road that we had been on.  If we walked another hour or so the two roads would probably have joined up.  In the end the issue is that the map was wrong.  What we walked was a hydro right of way, which was shown on the map as a sealed road.  At least that puzzle was solved.

And then it was time to move on.  So we went to the Prime Ministers office and got permission to go to Savaii, cleared out with immigration and customs and headed for Savaii.