While waiting for our table to be ready, I took the opportunity to take some pictures of the decor. The restaurant was quite small but decorated with lots of detail. The Boy in particular liked the crazy squiggly-line light bulbs over one of the tables in the back.

When I asked our waitress if the jars of preserved veggies were just for decoration or if they were actually used, she informed me that they were, indeed used, not only in the restaurant, but also next door at Ruby Eats, their sister cafe.

In order to make things a little easier on both us and the restaurant, Therese had organized for our group to have a fixed menu for dinner. Suggested wine pairings were listed, and while I enjoyed the red I had with the steak, I wish I’d opted for the port with dessert instead! Our menu was…

Ruby’s Chopped Chef Salad
Sleger’s living greens, pickled beets, A.F.G.’s cucumbers, garden radishes,
hen’s egg, chèvre noir, lemon black pepper aioli

Grilled Flank Steak with Bone Marrow Jus
Apple cider glazed white turnips, warm fingerling potato salad with onion & dill
dressing, roasted heirloom carrots & black kale with bacon & walnuts

Cendrillon by Alexis de Portneuf
Watercress & hazelnut salad

Spiced Cake with Maple Buttercream
Vanilla scented pears

I loved that they served everything (except dessert) family-style, in reasonably-sized serving platters. It made for a much more amicable atmosphere with friendly chatter, even though many of us hadn’t met previously.

The cendrillon — a flavourful goat cheese packed in ashes — was a wonderful surprise, but I have to say that I think my favourite course was the opening salad. The beets were warm, taking the vinegary edge off, and the whole salad was just really nicely balanced. The steak was also very good (although my favourite part there was unsurprisingly the potatoes).

Late in the meal, some of the girls at the table were whispering and pointing; apparently the restaurant’s owner had arrived. It turned out that our hostess for the evening was Lynn Crawford, a Food Network chef whose “thing” is chasing down food at its source! Lynn chatted a bit to Linlin about her birthday dinner and generally seemed like a nice enough lady. I’m a little sorry I didn’t pick up a copy of her book Pitchin’ In while we were there, but I have a hold on it at the library!

All in all, the night was a success — awesome planning Therese! — and we hope that Linlin felt loved and celebrated, after her initial post-tubing shock. Happy Birthday Linlin! We’re glad we could help you kick off this decade with a party… and we hope the coming years feel like one too!

We actually have two cookers: The Boy’s, gifted to him by his mom when he left home, a large 6-quart oval beast that mostly we pull out for ribs or massive stews, and a much smaller round one (1.5 quarts) that I bought for $10 at a back-to-school sale on a whim. Despite the fact that I’m only cooking for two people, that small one sometimes really is too small. Thus, I regularly dither at garage sales over medium-sized ones (maybe 3.5 or 4 quarts) before deciding that I would feel too guilty owning not one, not two, but three slow cookers that I barely ever use.

That’s right. After singing the praises of the slow cooker, I come to my shameful confession: despite knowing that they are convenient and energy-efficient, and produce healthy, toothsome meals… I have to admit that aside from soups or stews (well, or ribs) I never know what to do with them. So I broke out my slow cookers maybe once a month (…maybe) to make soup on a day that I knew we’d be pressed for time in the evening. Or maybe, inspired anew to pull it out of hibernation, I’d make a beef stew. Once I tried a rosemary white bean dish that was quite good, if not really our usual style, and another time I tried a macaroni and cheese recipe that, while not bad, isn’t something I’d eagerly embrace on a regular basis. In an effort to give the small one some regular action, I tried — several times — to make overnight oatmeal. With fruit and without, with milk and without. Spices, sugar, dried fruit; it didn’t matter. All my attempts ended up in the green bin*. In the end, the slow cookers wound up back on their shelves because, really? How often can one eat stews or soups — especially when I quite like making soup on the stovetop?

* If you’re wondering, my oatmeal quest ended when I discovered baked oatmeal which, although it can not be made overnight, has the redeeming quality of keeping well in the fridge for a few days, thus making it a pretty good Sunday-brunch-and-next-week-breakfast option.

And yet, I kept reading about how versatile slow cookers are, how some people use them at least twice a week. Several bloggers have year-long slow cooker projects where they use them daily! Clearly, it was time for me to get some guidance. So I got Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Cookbook out and gave it a shot.

In all, I tried seven recipes out of the 350 in the book. Some (like the oatmeal ones!) I just wasn’t about to try (although I am considering using the slow cooker the next time I make congee). Mostly what I was interested in was recipes that weren’t primarily liquids (i.e. soups or stews). The book is helpfully broken down into chapters by food type (breakfast gruels, sauces, lentils and rice dishes, chilis, a whole host of meat chapters, etc.) and although I found there to be a fair amount of repetition (how many bean recipes does one really need?), I thought the variety of the chapter headings was quite encouraging.

In spite of that, however, I naturally started off my testing with not one, but two soup recipes. First up: Vegetarian Split Pea Soup, specifically, the split and fresh pea variation. It’s cold up here, and I quite like this staple normally, although I do usually throw a ham bone in for flavouring. Still, I stuck to the recipe and… adding in those peas at the end was not a good decision. Pea soup is great because the dried peas have a quieter flavour, letting the taste of the broth and other veggies (and ham, if you’re using it) through. Throw frozen peas into the mix and all you taste is fresh peas. Good in the summer, maybe, but really disappointing as a hearty winter soup. Fail.

Next, albeit feeling kind of grim, I could not resist trying The Easiest French Onion Soup. For this, basically you’re using the slow cooker to caramelize the onions (on high, for 8 or 9 hours) then at the end you throw some broth and maybe wine in and, while waiting for the cooker to heat those up, you toast some bread, grate some cheese, and ready your ramekins. A quick hit under the broiler, and you have cheesey, melty, unctuous onion soup. This one delivered fabulously. (The Boy’s feedback to me was: The soup is good, but next time? Way more cheese.)

Thus encouraged, I turned my experimentation to a rice dish. I was quite excited to see some recipes for brown rice, because as much as I’d like to, I do find it difficult — mostly due to the longer cook time, but also partially due to The Boy disapproving of it if he can see that it’s brown rice — to incorporate it into our meals on a regular basis. The slow cooker is actually a great way to cook brown rice though, because it’s such a slow, moist mode of cooking. So, I made Spanish Brown Rice with Spicy Sausage and… it ended up far soupier than I’d expected. In fact, I stirred in half a cup of cooked white rice before serving it just to try to sop up some of the liquid. Not sure if I would increase the rice or decrease the tomatoes in another attempt, but I would definitely change something. Flavour-wise, it was a little like a very tomato-ey gumbo. Not bad, but nothing special. The Boy stated that he quite liked the flavour, but that the texture was way too mushy. Personally, I had been hoping for a much drier, almost pilaf-like consistency. Not a fail, but definitely something that needs fine-tuning; I’m not even sure it can be done.

After that, I tried the Parmesan Risotto. I love risotto, but rarely have the time to do it properly. I simply couldn’t resist the opportunity to try a method that might allow me to eat it more often. In this case, the mushiness was okay, as risotto is generally served a little sloppily. Definitely a success (despite The Boy’s protestations of “too much Parmesan!” as if that could happen) but… this was a two-hour cook time. Definitely less work than stovetop risotto, but aside from a weekend, I’m not sure this is really all that much more convenient than making it in a pan.

After that: meatloaf. This one I was pretty excited about because I’d never had meatloaf until The Boy’s mom made us some and I’m still cursing myself for not taking down the recipe. Again, this isn’t really a weeknight recipe since you need to cook it on high for an hour before turning it down to low for the following six or seven. Still, both The Boy and I were surprised at how well it turned out. (His comments? “Next time, less ketchup. And more rice. Also, mustard.”) I admit that from a spice perspective, the meatloaf was a little bland. Personally, my first order of business would be to double the Worcestershire, and throw in some chili flakes. In any case, a success. I was hoping to try a different meatloaf recipe that has you put potatoes in the bottom of the cooker and pile your meatloaf in on top, but sadly the book reached its due date back to the library. Ah well.

I could not resist trying out some lamb chunks in the Irish Stew, and although it had way less liquid than I’m used to in a stew*, it was nonetheless delicious. As a bonus, I even overshot the timing on this one, leaving it for around 10 hours when the book called for 7 or 8. Nice to have a little wiggle room.

* In Queenstown, The Boy and I had dinner one night in an Irish pub and I’d ordered the lamb stew (it was New Zealand!) only to be disappointed by (as I saw it) a dish of chunks with just a tiny bit of broth at the bottom. Given that that pretty much describes this stew, maybe that’s just the way Irish stews are? Don’t know, but I’m upping the liquid (if only at the end, so i don’t intfere with the braise) next time I make it!

Lastly, I figured I should give something from their dessert section a shot. I’ve made a chocolate peanut butter “cake” in a slow cooker before and wasn’t impressed, but gave the Hot Fudge Spoon Cake a try. The method is something like a chocolate pouding au chomeur — a thick batter baked up in a syrup to produce a moist, spongey cake — and it worked beautifully, filling the house with a wonderful, chocolatey smell. That said, the recipe itself was not nearly rich enough for me. What I’d change? The chocolate called for and the way the syrup is made, but there is definitely potential here. As with the risotto, though, this is a two-hour (well, two and a half, if you count the “rest time” after it’s done) recipe, so… why wouldn’t I just use the oven?

One thing I did like was the authors’ comment that (for the most part), slow cooker crocks, while not good with drastic temperature changes (i.e. don’t keep it in the fridge all night, then put it in your cooker and turn it on), they are heat-proof ceramic containers — perfect for oven use. It had never occured to me to roast something in my slow cooker insert, or use the smaller one for bread proofing, and possibly even baking. I admittedly haven’t tried either, but I can see definite benefits of, for example, roasting meat and veggies for an hour or so, then putting the whole thing in the crock and adding broth to make a really flavourful soup. You get the idea.

In the end, I would say that although the book got me out of my rut, and did get me thinking about more options for my slow cooker, overall I wasn’t super impressed by the recipes. They are, like many slow cooker recipes I’ve encountered over the years, not bad, but to me taste like a compromise. (Also: like too much sugar and salt.) Yes, I get the convenience of a dinner made for me while I’m out, but the trade-off is knowing that if I could have spent the time to do it on the stove, it would have tasted better. On top of that, for many of the dishes that I did enjoy, they weren’t something I could just throw together in the morning and walk away from anyway. I may change my mind one day, but for right now, unless I’m under extreme time duress, I will always choose the tastier stovetop option.

Maybe I should have been focussing more on meat roasts. Huh.

So where does this leave me with my poor, underworked slow cookers? I’ve not given up; after all, this was only one book. I’m actually quite excited to try some of Stephanie’s recipes. After all, who wouldn’t want to come home to a Thai curry or tasty meatballs? (Although that last one confuses me — the book was quite insistent that any meats to be cooked on “low” should be cooked beforehand (e.g. sausage). I’m no food safety champion, but I don’t want to risk meaty poisoning either. I guess it’s okay if your meat is frozen when it goes in?)

Anyway, I will still be trying to cook one slow cooker meal per week (and if it happens to also be the week’s soup, as with the Irish Stew, then that’s okay), although this will mean a little more time on my part devoted to hunting down promising recipes to try, as I’m definitely not comfortable enough to wing it yet. (Except maybe with that potato-bottomed meatloaf if I’m feeling sassy.) As a bonus, if I manage to keep this up until the spring, I will give myself permission to buy a medium-sized slow cooker, should I find one at a garage sale.

Hurray for ongoing projects!

After an email early this morning announcing the baby girl’s (unexpectedly early!) birth, I made plans to swing by the hospital after work. The Boy, who has been moping at home the past two days, snuffling and unable to breathe (!), figured he would be doing everyone a service by keeping his germy self quarantined at home. So off I went to behold the new parents (sadly I didn’t think to get a picture of the proud new dad — sorry Mike!), many a visiting friend, a happy grandma but… no baby?

Eleyna was a titch on the wee side, so the hospital has her in a separate room, although they expect to move her into the room with Jen very soon. My timing was fortuitous, as I got to be Eleyna’s second (of two!) visitors and so I got to see her in person. As most newborns seem to, she seemed more interested in sleeping than anything else, so maybe in a few days or weeks, when The Boy has recovered, we’ll get the opportunity for another visit.

Congratulations Jen and Mike — we can’t wait to really meet little Eleyna!

First off, I kicked off Christmas morning with monkey bread.  (I’m still toying with my recipe, but it’s a sort of mash-up of this one and this one.)  I’m happy to report that although I was worried a whole night out on the counter to rise would exhaust the yeast dough, it didn’t; the whole thing was delicious!

Although I didn’t get to make it on Christmas day last year with The Boy’s family, I did make it while we were up there (boxing day afternoon, in fact), and I know my list says “Christmas morning cinnamon rolls” but I nonetheless consider that my tradition is built.

After picking at these with my family and having a sugar-fueled discussion about the merits of monkey bread vs. cinnamon buns, I realized I’d rather have the bread.  The basic ingredients are the same: dough, cinnamon, egregious amounts of brown sugar and butter.  The amount of work, depending on how you want to coat the little balls in the cinnamon, is about the same.  The difference, as my dad pointed out, is that the monkey bread is a communal feast — everyone is in there with a fork yanking out little pieces and mopping up caramel off the plate to then burn their tongues on.  With cinnamon rolls, there wouldn’t be any of that.  There’d be a tray and a line-up, and everyone eating off their own plate.

So yes, I’m editing the list, and am happy to see that I am ever so slowly whittling away at it.

Shortly after the four of us, slightly dizzy from so much sugar on an empty stomach (oh, I’ll remember to pack some whole wheat flour next time!) hit up the presents and despite The Boy’s cynicism that books aren’t fun presents because they’re easy to guess, I was very happy to unwrap The Flavour Bible.

I can’t remember quite where I’d first read about  it, back around September-ish, but whatever I’d read had prompted me to swing by our local bookstore and flip through it.  At the time, I’d ended up deciding that I’d rather spend the money on yarn (ahem), but did proceed to hint heavily to The Boy when I got home.  Lucky for me, he listened!

A couple days after unwrapping it, I’d read all the intro and notes, and flipped through most of the index.  The day I got home, I even used it!  When I got back to our snowy home (just me and kitties; The Boy had headed north to be with his parents for a few days), laden down with my mom’s surplus oyster mushrooms (thanks mom!), I made myself a lazy dinner of mushroom omelet*.  While frying up the mushrooms, I idly flipped to the index for them and saw a “highly recommended; food marriage made in heavy; zOMG!” listing for garlic.  Really?  Mushrooms and garlic?  I am embarrassed to say that although I love both ingredients with fervent ardour, I have never once in my life fried them together in butter.  So I did.  The book didn’t disappoint.

* Although The Boy loves eggs, he’s not into omelets, and I’m sure I’ve documented at length my dismay at his non-love of mushrooms, so I won’t go into that again.  As I tend to feel fairly unmotivated when The Boy’s not around, most of my dinners end up being one-pot affairs: soup, quick fridge-cleaning stir-fries, omelets or hash.

More on the reading front, I was excited, while in my hometown, to be able to borrow my first ever e-book from our library!  The book in question is Blood, Bones and Butter, a book I’d actually flipped through in person at the library before, but didn’t have time to read.  When I read through David Lebovitz’s cookbook roundup for the year, however, I headed straight back to the library’s reservation system and put in my request.  (Well requests.  There was more than one book on that list that piqued my interest.)

I’m now more than two thirds through it, and have found it to be a really good read, thus far.  Despite the fact that there is a strong undercurrent of unhappiness (or maybe just of Want?) running through the whole story, I am in awe at how capable Ms Hamilton is, and I keep hoping to read up to her happily ever after.

While I was curled up on the couch knitting (and ripping back, sigh) while reading (a practice that made my mom roll her eyes), my dad was busy in the kitchen breaking a long-standing family curse.

My family, like many families, loves food.  Both my parents are able and curious cooks, and I’ve no doubt that I owe my culinary leanings pretty much entirely to my upbringing.  My mom owns many a cookbook — and keeps buying more on a fairly regular basis — but I suspect she just likes the gorgeous food pictures, because anytime she stands at the stove, she cooks freehand.  My dad (the bread baker in the family) is a little more methodical: he starts with a written recipe that he modifies and experiments with, documenting his changes, until he’s happy with it, then puts that new “master” recipe in his book.  Between them, my parents have taught me to make bread, jam, stock, a roast, a balanced Chinese soup, and a host of other things.  One thing they didn’t teach me?  Gravy.

For as long as I can remember, my parents hosted both our family’s Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, and every year that I can remember, the gravy that was served with said dinner was canned.  Oh, my dad and I tried.  We’d boil the turkey giblets and reduce the liquid to a good-smelling brown liquid that we’d then stir the pan drippings into, and stir, stir, stir, blending a spoonful of floor in and stir, stir, stir-ing again, watching, hoping as… nothing happened.  Inevitably we ended up with a thin, anemic-looking gravy that never seemed quite meaty enough.  We tried creating flavourful broths — out of mushrooms, chicken meat, even beef stock — to mix with the drippings to no avail.  We tried giving it longer to thicken up, we tried making the gravy days ahead with drippings from another roast.  I couldn’t tell you what we did wrong, but they all failed.

This year, however, my dad did it.  As we were readying pans of veggies for roasting, my dad stood at the stove stirring patiently, before quietly announcing that the gravy was ready.  No cans involved.  The curse is lifted!  Now I just need to figure out what he did differently…

My mom’s winter flower; this year amaryllis.  I don’t know why I never think to plant indoor bulbs in the fall for some mid-winter colour, but I don’t.  I really should!

In the meantime, hope you all had wonderful, restorative Christmas breaks with your families, and are gearing up for a bright new year!

Despite my previous statement, pictures were, in fact, edited, and to my surprise I think I actually got my Christmas cards out not only in time, but in record time this year.  (Who knew?  Panic is a great motivator!)

Haven’t been doing much cookie- or cake-baking, aside from a lone dabbling in disappointingly-dry gingerbread, but I have been canoodling in the kitchen.  Found a sandwich bread recipe that The Boy (AKA He Who Judges Bread Most Severely) actually really liked… and then I lost it.  I tried making a different recipe (one with milk in, for the much sought-after “tender crumb”) and it was an abysmal failure.  I’m going to try again today with this one and hope the results are similar to my success loaf (the ingredient list sure is…I think?).  In either case, crappy or not, there will be bread to accompany tonight’s soup!

I had declared sometime early in December that, for as long as I remembered anyway, I was declaring winter the Season of Weekly Soups.  This is partly because, as you may know, I love soup.  The other reason for this, however, is just to encourage me to bake bread more regularly.*

I kicked it off with chunky chicken rice, and this week I’m pulling out some of the potato leek I’d made (en mass) and frozen back when we were up to our ears in leeks from the CSA.  Not entirely sure what I’ll do the following week when The Boy will be up in his hometown for a bit and I’ll be by myself.  Might be a good time to test-drive a slow-cooker soup recipe.  I grabbed a copy of Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Cookbook from the library, and am interested to see if it can introduce me to more slow-cooking variety.  I heart my slow cooker, but there’s a limit to how many stews I want to be serving in a week.

* Although there are many breads that I make that The Boy is a fan of, our bread-eating seems to go through waves.  If there is a stretch of long weekend or other brunchable days, we’ll go through a fair amount in breakfast toasts.  Occasionally, The Boy will be in a toast-as-evening-snack mood for a few days.  Aside from that, however, we really don’t seem to eat much bread.  (We’re not sandwich makers; when I bring a lunch to work, especially in the winter, it’s going to be something heated.)

So I figure at least this way I’ll have a good reason to bake something once a week (I’m excited to try these oatmeal rolls one week!) and if it increases our general bread consumption, awesome!  If not, well… at least I’ll have put in a goodly effort to oust commercial breads from our house (#17).

Having said that, of course, I realize that when I made sliders for dinner last night (loosely based on this recipe and what I had in the fridge; mine had less cracker and parsley, and more onion and jalepeno), I could have baked up mini-buns for them.  And didn’t.  But I had a whole bag in the freezer that needed eating!  That makes it okay right?

About the sliders: I don’t know what is wrong with me that we don’t home-make our burgers more often.  Even though you couldn’t taste any heat from the jalepenos, it didn’t matter.  Those sliders were delicious.  So tender!  I was excited to try them as they were the first of the ground beef packages we’d bought from our beef farmer and I don’t know if it’s just the quality of the beef, or the “made with love” home-made-ness or what, but it doesn’t really matter.  The moral of the story?  Make yourself some sliders from scratch.  Totally worth it, super cute, and uber delicious.

Also on the delicious front, after I realized that I’d made myself too much yoghourt to finish before we head to my parents’ for Christmas, I figured it was a good time to christen my “new” ice cream maker**.  So I made some chocolate fro-yo.  I used less sugar than the recipe called for, and the sour tang from the yoghourt is quite noticeable in the finished product.  I’ve been trying to decide if I would want to mask it with more sugar, or if I like it this way.

** It is, of course, not actually a new ice cream maker, but merely another one that we found this summer, whilst thrifting.  It’s by the same manufacturer as my previous beloved ice cream maker — and in fact has the same awesome warnings on the bucket — but this one has a slightly different handle and lid and, in the words of The Boy, isn’t pink.  (It’s a boring-er white.)  At his suggestion, I gave my pink one to a friend, and kept the white one.  Don’t tell him, but I kind of miss my cute, pink ice cream maker.  This new one feels… kind of impersonal.  Ah well.

More on the cultured foodstuffs front: I’ve been playing around with feeding for Spongebob.  (Yes!  He survived our month-long absence!)  I still have a portion of him in the fridge that I feed weekly, but I’ve also spawned a new jar that I’ve been feeding every other day, that just sits out on the counter.  I was inspired by this post, although I’m pretty sure our house is cold enough that I can get away with my slightly rarer feedings.  I’ve been feeding The New Bob wheat flour, which wasn’t the best idea because now I can’t tell from the smell how much of the difference is the grain, and how much is the activity of the different yeasts.  It definitely smells different though.

One of the main reasons I didn’t opt for this method of feeding back when Anna first gifted me with sponge was that I felt bad about throwing out a goodly portion every time I fed him.  With my new intention of baking at-least-weekly, however, it shouldn’t be too hard to “throw out” some sponge into whatever bread is going on that week.  We’ll see how that works out!

…

Okay, I think that pretty much catches us up.  I had the house decorated for Christmas three days after we got back and have surprised myself by actually being pretty much done with presents (again: a new record for me!).  I’ve been doing a little more sewing in the evenings (can never have too many gift bags, right?) and am feeling pretty good about this year’s close.

Since tonight is the Yule, I’m going to try out one of Carley’s spice sachets for apple cider and, in an attempt to coax the thing to fruit, am going to wassail our poor pear tree with it as well.  (I know, I know, it’s a pear, not an apple.  I’m counting on the intention here.)  I’ve already put in the request with The Boy for a fire tonight, the bird feeders are full (finally!) and the last of my greenery is hung out.  I’m a little afraid to state that everything is “done” but… this is definitely one of my most prepared holiday seasons thus far.  So weird with that feeling that winter hasn’t even started here.  I’m trying to resign myself to a green Christmas.

Happy solstice everyone!  May the light and warmth whoosh back into your homes and hearths as the world slowly brightens and wakes!

As expected, I did not finish my travel socks, although I did work on them a little while flying. When we left Auckland, this was their state:

Not bad, although I’m not sure how I feel about the short-row heel. (Boj, when you say your socks aren’t super-comfy, what kind of heel are you using? I hate top-down socks, but I love their heel flap: it just makes the sock hug your foot so much better.) Of course, now that I’m back, they’ve been back-burnered in favour of some fast-approaching baby knitting deadlines, so once again, who knows when they’ll be finished!

Okay, bought yarn. First of all, can i say that everyone’s guesses made me feel that I really should have been buying more yarn?! This is what I ended up cramming into my (carry-on sized!) backpack at the end of our trip:

The total — which I couldn’t believe when I first added it all up; I triple-checked! — is 1111g. Seriously. And no, I did not rig anything. I did the adding up as we were packing our bags for the airport. So, the closest guess was Maria’s, at 900g! (Although I’d like to point out that only 100g of my yarn is sock yarn…) Congrats! I shall ask you for details about your hat the next time I see you

In terms of fibre content, the above pile is a healthy mix of merino wool, possum fur, alpaca, angora rabbit, silk, and a smidge of bamboo. Everything but the silk and bamboo (which didn’t specify) were both raised and processed in New Zealand. You might not think that was particularly special, but you’d be surprised how many of the yarns I came across were New Zealand fibre/fleece, processed in other countries (usually China for wool and Peru for alpaca).

After much indecision on my part (bambi or lamby? which to choose??) I ended up going with the Sweet Bambi, while The Boy had the Mr. Big Stuff. (If you can’t read it, basically mine was a venison burger with plum chutney on it, and his was a half-pound beef pattie with cheddar, bacon and BBQ sauce.)

Let me preface my review by saying two things:

1 – Coming from the hometown of The Works, The Boy and I are no strangers to good burgers. Quite frankly, when it comes to a commercial burger, we’re hard to impress. If anyone is singing the praises of some restaurant’s burger, it had better be a damn good sandwich.

2 – New Zealand has an obsession with aioli that I do not understand. The number of times that a sandwich, burger, even salad came with some kind of flavourful sauce (ketchup, BBQ, pesto, etc.) and aioli, I can’t count, but I find the combination of the two inexplicable. I’m not a huge mayo fan to begin with, but having it in combination with another sauce, especially a sweet one? Yuck.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about the good things.

Fergburger knows their stuff: they are organized and fast. There is very little seating (see also: hole in the wall) but the decor is still cheerful and relatively clean. Their staff are friendly and the burgers are big, without being intimidatingly huge. I especially like that the burgers do not automatically come with fries the way they do at The Works, because I probably couldn’t finish that. I felt that the burgers were definitely big, but manageable.

The venison in my burger was amazingly tender — if I’m being honest, it was much better than any elk burger I’ve ever had at The Works, possibly because it was thinner (maybe 4 or 5 oz?). Having said that, the plum chutney was a horrible disappointment. My first bite of this burger was blissful because it contained venison, some lettuce, some onion and bun. Every subsequent bite had both aioli (why??) and chutney, which completely overpowered the sandwich: all I could taste was Too Much Sweet. Fail.

The Boy’s burger wasn’t much better. He states that the bread for the bun was okay, and that the meat was cooked to an appropriate degree (not overcooked, not gross) but that otherwise, it was a completely forgettable burger. Mehn.

Moral of the story? If you’re drunk and have the money, Fergburger. If you’re in a state to notice what you’re eating, go elsewhere. Anywhere elsewhere. (Seriously. We tried a Nepalese food court vendor (don’t ask) and although I’m sure the authenticity is questionable, I had a really good four-bowl veggie chat for less than my burger cost.)

***

On an unrelated note, as a parting nod to the adventure capital of the world, I also turned the heels of my socks on our last night. From nearly 10 meters above ground! That’s right, folks, i kept it real in Queenstown with Extreme Knitting (two socks! one needle!) right there in the hostel. (After our lackluster performance at the trivia, and the questionable Fergburgers, The Boy and I decided to call it an early night before our 7:40 departure the next day.)

As a side note we were ridiculously lucky with weather for pretty much our entire time in New Zealand. Talking with other backpackers that we ran into in later towns, we learned just how fortuitous our travel schedule turned out to be!  Basically our only two rainy days were while hiking Franz Josef glacier (brr!) and the day we arrived in Dunedin. We had cloudy days sometimes, but for the most part, we had brilliant sunshine.  Hurray for my travel weather karma holding true!

Anyway, so we took a walk around a sort of peninsula in the lake, in a garden. I love the way that parks like those have such well-maintained non-asphalt paths, usually crushed gravel. It probably makes things horrible for cyclists, but as a pedestrian, it’s nice to feel like you’re walking through the wooded areas without intruding so much. Better still, tonnes of residents use those paths — especially the ones down by the lake — to walk their dogs!  We saw many a happy smelly chasing sticks thrown into the lake by owners, or just running joyously alongside their humans. I think that, more that anything else, gave The Boy pangs of homesickness. (After all, there were slutty kitties pretty much everywhere available for us to cuddle.)

We found a monument in the park devoted to a 1912 mission to the Antarctic, where the crew, under Captain Scott, never made it back. The monument included the last messages (I think from diaries?) and it seems so strange that such a brave expedition be commemorated in such a tucked away sort of corner. We were glad we found it anyway.

Back in town, there were lots of green spaces and fun, narrow streets to wander as well. Saturday morning, there was a crafty market along the wharf which was wonderful. I got to speak with two ladies who were spinning art yarns (although sadly I only bought yarn from one; but oh, it is luscious yarn!) and there were even dueling buskers!

We actually felt bad about that because there was a girl who had been singing while her bandmate played guitar at one end of the stalls, and then a man accompanying himself on guitar at the other end of the quay. The girl quit, which we were grateful for because she wasn’t very good, but another girl replaced her, and brought a mic, so the poor guy at the other side had to give up because he was being drowned out.

By that point, we had finished our shopping and were sitting on the patio of a chocolaterie-gelateria-cafe that had the most reliable (and fast! fast enough for pictures!) wireless we found in Queenstown. Of course the hand made chocolates didn’t hurt either…

In general, I have to say that the food in New Zealand, while expensive, was generally very good.  For one thing every salad we were served was fresh and contained more than just lettuce — not once while we were there did someone serve me iceberg lettuce.  It drives me crazy that for all North America’s talk about eating more veggies, side salads are inevitably horrible, lifeless things; just a shredded nest of iceberg, with maybe some carrot grated in.  Worse still are those little plastic tubs of mayo-drenched coleslaw.  That is not a vegetable!  How hard is it to offer customers some fresh greens with actual cut up veggies in them (roast beetroot! avocado, for those who like it!) and a dressing?  Argh.

We even found two places (two! although we only tried one) that sold poutine. Technically, I suppose it wasn’t, since they didn’t use cheese curds, but it was delicious, especially with their addition of garlic.

On our last day in town, we even found a pub that was doing trivia in the afternoon (hurray!) and excitedly headed out (we were Team Spudnik! because The Boy vetoed the name Team Discovery Channel) but… our performance was so shameful we left early to head over to Fergburger (review to be posted soon).

He did it, too, at Kawarau Bridge, the site of the world’s very first commercial bungy. AJ Hackett, crazy New Zealander, pioneered the bungy jump with a friend from, as far as I could make out from the “documentary”, a desire to create something like a skydive that cost less money and gave more of a rush (from seeing the ground whoosh up at you). Millions of people are happy he did, including my husband!

There is a video of the jump, possibly including squeaky narrative by a certain concerned wife (who was going to carry his enormous f-ing backpack around if he didn’t make it?!) but it is still trapped on his phone. I present instead this collage:

Nick also jumped (actually he jumped quite a few people before The Boy; they have a weird system with descending weights, so The Boy kept getting pre-empted by heavier dudes) but in a first for him he brought Ross, his doll/bus mascot/thingie.

After all the excitement (we were back on the bus by 11am), we stopped in a small town notable because of its delicious venison pie, then headed into the much-discussed Queenstown!

In my original itinerary, I had written off Queenstown as a one- or maybe two-day stop, because everything written about it was for the “eXtreme thrill” enthusiasts which, being the big chicken I am, really isn’t me. I had no desire to skydive, or bungy jump, or go “luging” (sans ice) down a mountainside. I might have been up for ziplining or para-sailing. Might. The Boy had stated that while any of the activities would probably be fun, they would definitely be expensive, and given the cost of our trip as a whole, it didn’t seem like a good place for us to stay for long.

Then we got the feedback of the guides.

Even knowing that I’m a big wimp, Rick, our north island guide, advised that Queenstown is fun even without extreme activities: it’s a party town with a nice lake, lots of great walking paths, and a big hill to hike up, should we want a view. A short bus ride away, there was also Arrowtown, a town leftover from New Zealand’s gold rush (bet you hadn’t known New Zealand had a “wild west” too, did you?) with buildings preserved from the era, including the “China town” of the Chinese settlers who’d emigrated out for the rush.

Nick, who had planned for his bussing to end in Queenstown, informed us that we could leave after a day if we liked — so long as we stayed for his party, the night of our arrival — but we’d be missing out on the best town EVAR in the south island. It was Nick who also told us about the Earnslaw, the oldest working steamship in New Zealand, and in the running for the oldest ones in the world.

We gave in, and stayed for four days.

Ironically, we spent most of those days just relaxing. The day after Nick’s memorable send-off (he was cut off at one bar by 8pm, and the remainder of the night featured a pointy blue felt hat, and jingly, pointy-toed “fairy boots”) we trekked down to Milford Sound, but after that, we just explored the town. We were around for the weekend craft market (more yarn shoppage), walked through the gardens, and generally missed out on everything people say we should do while in Queenstown.

It was a much needed (and gloriously sunny) rest break in the middle of our south island adventures.

The first stop was for coffee (and breakfast if you don’t compulsively make sure you have yoghourt like some people, ahem) at Mirror Lake. I was actually grateful for the early-morningness of it because it made for a cool walk through the woods around the perimeter of the lake and, once we got to the mini-pier, mist! Further along, about the halfway point around, we got a beautiful reflection of the Alps (yes, you read that right) in the lake.

Don’t believe me about the mountains? Check out their (southern) Alpine splendour!

After that, we hopped back on and headed back out to the coast. We stopped briefly at Knight’s Point to be wowed (again) by the ocean’s blueness — why doesn’t it look like that back home?? — before heading a little further south to Ship Creek. (And yes, you guessed it. We didn’t have paddles.)

Ship Creek was very interesting because although the shore the sea was crashing on was pebbly (which I’d come to consider normal for the south island), the tiny creek just steps inland had sandy “shores”. A couple of us from the bus decided to skip rocks and I was very surprised to find that not only could I manage 3 hops, but I could do it several times! I will say that the rocks littered about the creek’s edge were very good for skipping.

After that, we said farewell to the coast again (sniff) to head inland a little, into denser forest where we stopped for a quick hike down to Thunder Creek Falls.

There was nothing very special about these per se (New Zealand has a LOT of waterfalls; I can definitely see where the inspiration for Avatar’s floating falls came from) but it is really nice to get so close to them! The Boy found a little “nest” of smooth white rocks right by the river — just like eggs! — and Nick, our bus driver and fabulous tour guide informed everyone that if we’d brought our water bottles (which none of us had; we’d all left them on the bus, a 15 minute walk up from the falls) the river was a great source of clean, tasty water.

Either he was very thirsty, or concerned that we wouldn’t take him at his word. That pretty much sums up Nick for you. Of the four guides we had with the bus company, he was by far the best. This was possibly owing to the fact that we had him for his last four or five days with the company, so he was perpetually in a good mood, and his ebullient nature sort of overflowed into everything. I don’t think that was the only thing though; despite being relentlessly cheery and up for a party, he was also very informative and never stopped showering us with interesting tidbits about the country.

Anyhow, after the falls, we headed a little further south again and stopped at the Blue Pools. The pools were fun in that they had another 10 or 15 minute walk through rain forest, but the walk also included a couple suspended bridges. I can’t say for certain if it was because of his near-end-of-job jubilation, or if it was just him but Nick, in blatant disregard for the 20 person maximum on the bridge, ran onto every bridge and started jumping in the middle, leaving both his tourists along with any hapless ones that chanced to be around either scrambling for the end to hop off, or clutching at the rails. Ah, Nick.

The Blue Pools were very pretty, if not very blue. At least, not in comparison to the ocean. It was another rocky river bed and after clambering down from the bridges I discovered that passing guests had decided to build a tonne of little cairns! The Boy decided to add his contribution by building an inukshuk.

After that was a drive even further inland (still hilly! still mountainous!) to a network of lakes, partially man-made, which mystified The Boy and I a little. New Zealand has a very big focus on “green-ness” and that’s awesome, but we do sort of wonder how much of it stems from a desire to correct historical events. Many of the small islands are designated bird sanctuaries, as the rodent and cat/dog populations (which had been artificially introduced anyway, way back in the discovery days) can be removed, so the birds don’t need to worry about those predators. Most of the “native forest” is actually second growth, as the land was cleared by both Maori and pakeha settlers to make arable farmland, and a lot of the (very beautiful!) lakes we idled our time on the shores of were in fact man made by damming up rivers. I get that they probably wouldn’t do it again now, but, it’s just weird to hear about all the historic “un-green” actions put alongside the country’s huge emphasis on preserving their ecology today.

Anyway, Lake Hawea! Very pretty, although I admit freely that by this point we were a little scenic-ed out.

Worse still, it seems that we missed the afternoon lamb feeding! Boo! Oh well. Happily I have the good fortune of knowing a sheep farmer back home! After a quick break there, we hopped back on the bus to finally get off in… Switzerland!

…just kidding. Southern Alps again. You know. This is Lake Wanaka in, well, Wanaka! At long last we arrived, and just in time! After a quick dinner, and some exploring of the little town, we set off with Nick to Cinema Paradiso, a theatre which boasts the following qualities:

• It seems to show whatever the hell it wants on its one screen, four times per day (yay indie cinemas!)
• Rather than theatre seating, there are a collection of couches in the viewing room, as well as a car (!!!) to sit in.
• The cafe attached to the cinema will make you food (and drinks — including craft beer brewed in Wanaka!) and bring them into you while watching, should you desire, and
• Every showing, a fresh batch of cookies is baked so that they are fresh from the oven during the intermission, along with
• Home made ice cream.

People, if I win the lottery, remind me of this place, because I’d open one here. Movies, homemade ice cream and fresh cookies? It’s like everything I love all together!!

I am aggrieved that I couldn’t take a decent picture of the seating, though I tried.

Anyway, so we watched Fright Night (the remake) and… it was entertaining. No time for a full review, but I’d give it about 6 out of 9. Probably only 5 if I hadn’t been in such good company. Colin Farrell is fantastic as the charismatic (but hungry) vampire and everyone else just rolls with the ridiculous. It doesn’t need to be seen on the big screen, but it does require darkness and jokey company. Good, toothsome fun.

***

Apologies for the two-week drought in posts. Partially it was due to not being able to find a wireless connection fast enough to handle picture uploads (I’m not making that up) and partially I got kind of unmotivated on the “dealing with pictures” front. Sorry!

At this point, however, we’re in Auckland, about 20 hours prior to hopping on the plane home. I’m hoping to get the pictures organized enough to upload once we land in Vancouver, but we’ll see how that goes! In the meantime, if you haven’t guessed my final yarn tally, do it fast!

You know what it is right? It’s one of New Zealand’s least wanted: a possum. Those scary, teethy, bitey, verminous creatures. Yuck. Cute though, when they’re sleeping and you can’t smell ‘em. Of course, I say that, but am still undauntedly eager to buy possum-blend yarn because as smelly and gross as possums may be, their fur is super soft and delicate. They were introduced to get a fur trade going after all!

Soon after lunch, we pulled into the lovely, sleepy ski-resort-feeling town of Franz Josef. We were welcomed by the resident hostel kitty (nearly every hostel seemed to have one!) who, I’m pretty sure, never left the couch during the time we were there. His name was apparently Milkshake — who knew that cats had worldly cousins?

After that, it was just a little time to stow our stuff, and we were off to the glacier! Along with one somewhere in Patagonia (I think in Argentina somewhere?), the Franz Josef and Fox glaciers are alone in the world as being glaciers at the foot of which can be found rainforests. One of the many things I’ve been learning on this trip is what constitutes a rainforest. There aren’t nearly as many C4 plants as I’d expected and way fewer vines, but it is definitely still rainforest. Sadly, the weather for our trek wasn’t ideal, but we gamely set off anyway!

After all, it’s not every day we get the chance to walk on a glacier!

(Note: when the guide had described this excursion as a walk through rainforest, followed by a steep climb up the rocks and scree, before getting to “walk around on the glacier” I had kind of been picturing, you know, walking on the glacier. As if it were flat. Kind of like the way cartoon penguins and polar bears walk around on ice, except with crampons. Not so much. The Boy and I were totally unprepared for how chaotic and, well, alive the structure of the glacier was. Altogether it made for a way more interesting time, but boy was I surprised!)

I’m not sure even now that I really have the words to describe it. I have some words: cold, drizzling, cold, lens-fogging, cold, awesome, cold, very beautiful… you get the idea. Not sure I can really get across the way it felt though, to be walking up, over, through something so big, so old and yet… that still changes daily — our guide kept chiseling away at the “path” with that pick as we went — and despite being down in the older, dirtier foot of it all, we were still often surprised with shots of bright blue, clean, gorgeous ice.

Even photos don’t do it justice. I tried, but my fingers were cramped and stiff from the cold, and although you can’t tell in the photos, it was raining steadily the entire time so between shots, I was wiping water off the lens and cramming my camera in my jacket to protect it.

If you’d told me beforehand that I would have found a hike up to and on a glacier as amazing as it was, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. But I would have been wrong.

Monday morning, we left for Greymouth, which we were warned wasn’t terribly exciting (despite being the biggest west coast town in the south island), because it was a mining town. (In fact, our driver strongly advised everyone to sign up for the brewery tour that night, because “there’s fuck all else to do in town, unless you’re going to sit in the hostel talking to yourself all night.” Ah, Nick. I miss him already.)

Long before we got to Greymouth, however, we had plenty of stops in pretty places along the coast. Before hitting the ocean, we stopped at a stretch of road following a river to see where the space for the road had been blasted out of the rock.

This kind of thing doesn’t normally interest me, but having followed the crazy curviness of New Zealand roads for a couple weeks now, it does seem to me pretty amazing, the network of roads they have (in better repair than Quebec’s!) given their terrain. Their roads tend to curve to follow rivers, and zig zag up steep mountains and hug around hillsides. The amount of work to develop them all boggles my mind. Apparently, a big part of the south island’s road system (particularly further south, around Queenstown) were built during the Depression in the 30s as a sort of make-work initiative by the government. It was probably crazy hard work for the fellows who signed up, but boy did it pay off. New Zealand’s infrastructure, both for cars (and cyclists, since we passed quite a few of them; power to them to be pedaling up and down those crazy slopes!) and pedestrian walkways into the pretty forest and beach paths continues to impress me.

There are a lot of things in New Zealand that aren’t cheap (The Boy would like to put in a special mention for $5 coffee, WTF?!) but so many of the really beautiful places (all the ones in this entry, for example) are totally free. And they all have displays explaining where you are, the historical significance, local wildlife, and there are often little tags in front of native trees and bushes explaining about them as you hike along, Also, all the boardwalks across forest streams and down to the coast are well-maintained and covered in rubber grippy things for when it rains, too. This country makes it easy for tourists to visit and ogle, and it’s really nice to see that they value their scenic spots.

Anyway, speaking of scenic spots, we stopped in at Cape Foulwind, as named by Captain Cook because the winds drove one of his ships up on the rocks in the cove.

We had a good time walking around, but were a little surprised that it never smelled like the sea. Not until I got down on the strangely grey-sanded beach, that is. There, amid many a dead jellyfish, we were hit by the sea smell. It amused me to see the same little blue jellyfish I’d had stuck to my feet on Bondi beach; memories of The Boy’s proposal!

This was one of only a few sand beaches we saw; a lot of them are pebble beaches round here, probably because there are so many fjords, so a lot of their coastlines are littered with glacial debris? I don’t really know, but I did notice that sand beaches were a bit of a rarity in the south.

Bobbing along near the parking, we also saw some weka up close. These flightless birds look a little like big chickens, with extra-big feet. They are cousins to the endangered kiwi and aren’t shy. Actually very few of the birds here seem to be frightened by humans; I guess they’re used to the tourists too. The Boy and I have been buzzed by more than a few flights of birds (gulls, sparrows, ducks) while walking around. It freaks us out way more than the birds, it seems!

After that, we drove a little further, to walk down to the (pebble) beach via Truman track in Paparoa park. Much like all the ocean we’ve seen around the south island, here the Tasman sea appeared glorious teal, like the way the Caribbean always looks. (As a note, however, the water is colder. Much colder.)

The tide must have been coming in while we were there because shortly after this picture, a big wave washed up. I clambered like a panicky mountain goat (despite being in shorts; I didn’t want my shoes to get soaked!) onto those rocks behind The Boy. He was a little slower (or maybe just very chivalrous) and got drenched to the knees. He definitely wasn’t the only one. More than a couple people in our group needed a change of socks when we got back! The sea was very dramatic for us!

I felt bad that the walk back up the Truman track was so squelchy for The Boy. His pants mostly dried out in the sun at the top while we waited for the slowpokes, but he did have wet feet.

I found this particular walk to be fun, because they had a great example of Rata (among other plants). Rata is a native parasite that grows around large trees in a sort of frame, eventually starving them of nutrients. There isn’t much scale in the photo, but the left “stalk” of the Rata around that tree is bigger (like, in girth) than I am!

A little more driving down the coast, and we got to Pancake Rock. Here I felt sorry for The Boy, as he did this walk without socks, and it’s a shame because it was so beautiful, but I think a little spoiled for him. Ah well.

Crazy rock formations (I think they’re limestone?) and watching the sea nibble away at the coves and caverns, and leave “floating” overhangs of cliffs (that we walked on) make a very awesome coastline. There was even a mini Great Wall (of Pancake)!

This walk wended backwards and forwards, seeming to loop back in on itself, and ended with this view of some rocks, before leading back up through the flax to the road.

What do you see?

Just a little more driving later, we arrived into Greymouth. We were sad to learn that just a few days short of a year previously, there had been an explosion in one of the mines, killing 29 miners. In a town of this size, that basically meant that every person was either related to, or good friends with, one of the victims. Worse still, most of the bodies were never recovered because it was too dangerous to go back into the mine for them afterwards.

It felt more than a little inappropriate to follow that story up with a brewery tour, but the brewery IS the town’s other main industry. Although it was originally built a little inland, Monteith’s (who stopped being affiliated with the Monteith family ages ago, shortly after one of the younger sons moved it to Greymouth) is now the most significant south island brewery.

After a video explaining the brewing process for their premium ale (the brewery itself was under renovations — all their beers for the year are being brewed at a sister brewery inland), we got to do a beer tasting: one apple cider, and seven beers.

If you’re picturing an orderly tasting where a brief description of the process and flavours is given before everyone delicately sips at their sample, think again. Each of us was handed a tasting glass (roughly a half pint), and invited to come up to the bar for the current sample (starting with the cider, then the pilsner, etc. through to the dark). It was a very chatty sort of high-traffic affair. At the end of it, we were invited to go pour ourselves whichever one we liked best. Most people had fun with this, as they’ve never pulled their own beers before — apparently having your own bar has side perks! The Boy was one of few without four inches of head in his glass, since, as our guide warned the group, the secret to pouring from the tap is to give ‘er when you pull the handle (don’t try to pour slowly!) and make sure the beer hits the glass, not the beer.

After the tasting, we wobbled over to the Railway Hotel for what, among many delicious meals, was probably the best dinner we’d had in New Zealand, and certainly the best lamb I’ve ever tasted.

What next? An early morning start for Franz Joseph, where The Boy and I faced down a glacier!

When we got to the terminal, they were filming an arrival scene for a NZ tv show. This was both interesting (you would not believe how many times they reshot a crowd scene of people going to claim their bags, and two main characters hugging each other) and annoying (as a paying customer, I feel that the movie company can wait ten frakking minutes to film rather than herding me out of my hard-won seat near the door). Still, it all went smoothly, and soon we were aboard!

I’m only posting one shot, because I took over 500. Our driver wasn’t kidding when he said that the ferry ride had “nice views”. I’ll stitch up the panorami when I get home and update then because the Marlborough sounds of the south islands? Just beautiful. And we spent the better part of an hour cruising through them. So nice.

As it turned out, we arrived with plenty of time, and were sat around waiting for our bus. So my ulcer-in-development quelled itself right there when the bus eventually pulled up. Everything was coming up Milhouse! That was the day we met our Until Queenstown driver, Nick. More on him later.

As we left Picton, we drove through the fabled wine regions of Marlborough on our way to Nelson. I stated that rather than local beer or cider, since we couldn’t squeeze a winery tour in, I’d at least have a wine from the region with dinner.

Early in the afternoon, we pulled up into the arty town of Nelson, just as sunshiney and summery warm as promised. (Nelson is the sunshine capital of New Zealand.) What greeted us when we got there? A 6-bed hostel room all to ourselves (!! But this was to be a mixed blessing; it was room14 after all, and upon the Monday when we left, I left my beloved towel there. Sniff.) along with fun murals and posters all about town and… yarnbombs! Lots of them!

Previously on our trip, The Boy had asked if I thought I could live in New Zealand. This was back in Rotorua, and I had said no, because the small town-ness of it would get to me, but also because since New Zealand’s primary industry is tourism, I would most likely work in that field and… I would forever be thinking that, jeez, wasn’t it time for me to get a “real” job? Given that it’s their primary industry, that thought is totally ludicrous: for them tourism jobs are very real, it’s just that my mindset is wrong.

All of that, however, changed when we got to Nelson. That town has such a wonderful, mellow vibe. It has all the best things of every city: interesting stores and restaurants, great food, prominent knitting and yoga, beautiful green spaces, while still being manageably small. Better still, despite the fact that it is definitely a tourist destination (see also: sunshine capital) it doesn’t feel touristy at all. I fell in love.

So you can imagine how heart broken I was that we were only there for Sunday, during which most places were closed, including three (3!) awesome-looking art yarn stores. (Yes, I ogled in the windows. The Boy said that it was probably just as well that the stores weren’t open but I still mourn. Sniff.) Still, we tried to make the best of it. After all we got to see the very famous church, which even The Boy — who is not often impressed with churchey architecture — admitted was amazing.

After wandering around town a little more, we decided to hit up one of the craft beer pubs from the passport: the Free House. Best decision of the afternoon.

We wandered up to the pub, which is built in what used to be an old church, and saw people sitting at little patio tables dotted about a huge lawn. Walking inside, the first thing to greet us? A knitting basket inviting customers to “give it a go” and just knit a little. For reals?! When we went inside, Paul was delighted to try one of the hand pulled beers and I had a homemade ginger beer. Delicious!

We had dinner at another Mac’s brew pub (The Vic) where I had pasta made with carrots in the pasta dough (more delicious!) and I kept to my plan and tried a local wine (also delicious!). For the sake of my trying to remember once I get home, on the off chance that the LCBO carries it, I had the Kopiko Bay merlot. Kopiko Bay seems to be a pretty big winery, so I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to find other of their wines at home, and that hopefully they too will be delicious.

That was pretty much our Nelson experience: pretty town, window shopping, and lots of food and drink. Are you about to give me crap for squandering my afternoon drinking in the sunshine instead of kayaking or whatever in the Abel Tasman park? Well don’t. New Zealand has an unfairly high proportion of the world’s natural beauty and believe it or not, you need a break from it every now and then or you stop appreciating it. Given that I pull an average of 200 pictures off my camera every day from our trekking, I think we made the right choice, although I definitely wish we could have had more time. I’d already informed The Boy that if we ever came back to New Zealand, we were going to Nelson for at least four days, so we’d do the Abel Tasman then anyway.

…or so I can hope, right?

The cave had some interesting memorabilia, including lots of stuff for movies I hadn’t known Weta worked on, like District 9 and Master and Commander (they made the ship miniatures). Neat, and taking the local bus out of town a bit (the cave is in Miramar, a suburb of Wellington, and yes, I totally made a Top Gun crack while we were on our way out there) was also kind of nice. It’s always fun to play local when you can.

Anyway, after our morning’s nerdy pilgrimage, we headed back downtown, where in spite of the grey skies, we saw many a sailboat out on the harbour.

We walked through an underground arts market with sooo many nice things. I desperately wish our markets at home were as varied as this! One of us may or may not have bought some yarn. And then we headed over next door to New Zealand’s national museum, Te Papa.

Te Papa actually reminded all of us quite a bit of the Museum of Civilization. Since we knew we couldn’t cover it all, we each chose one thing we wanted to see. The Boy wanted to see the quakebreakers under the museum (rubber pads that absorb most of the movement of an earthquake, to protect the museum; given that many of the country’s cultural treasures are housed in it, and that New Zealand has a fault line running right through the country, the museum took care to earthquake-proof itself where possible!). His friend wanted to see the miniature house where they recreated a historic earthquake, and I wanted to see the giant squid.

We set about to see those exhibits and although I don’t have pictures of the first two, I do have pictures of the squid!

Actually my favourite of the sections we walked through was the animals of New Zealand part. For one thing, we learned just how big a weta really is (they didn’t just make up the name! It’s a bug!)… And how big kiwi eggs are compared to kiwis! (No wonder their birth rates are so low?!)

After our educational afternoon, we drifted back along the wharf to the Mac’s Brew Pub. Having been handed a “craft beer passport” in Rotorua, The Boy and I had been making an effort in the towns we stopped in, to visit the pubs carrying local craft beers where possible. Mac’s, it turns out, makes one of The Boy’s favorites of this trip, the Sassy Red. I regret not taking a picture of the Mac’s mural (which explained all about their natural brewing process) but did capture this:

That’s right — this pub had board games! We played Scrabble over nachos and wedges (and pints) and The Boy won, he claims for the first time (against me). I’m pretty sure he’s beat me before, but he seemed so happy, I didn’t really feel the need to argue.

After that, a boring night of laundry and packing up, to make ready for our early ferry ride to the south island!

Our first night we strolled about the downtown area, but didn’t stray too far because upon checking in, our hostel had signs up advertising that Thursday night was curry night! You could get one of a number of curries, basmati, and naan (!) for $9. If you wanted mango lassi (and who doesn’t want mango lassi?) you could for an additional 2. That might not sound über-cheap in North America, but believe me, we’d be hard pressed to find something similar for under $25 in New Zealand. Also, we were both craving curry. So The Boy had beef vindaloo and I had the lamb korma. Both delicious!

Anyway, the next day was gloriously, beautifully, apparently unseasonably warm and sunny so we headed up to the botanical gardens (via cable car). On our walk to get to the cable car, The Boy realized that it was the 11th. And it was well after 11. I was horrified. We’d been wearing our (somewhat battered at this point) poppies since we left Canada and we’d missed it! Going on the assumption that it was 11 o’clock somewhere, we did our minute of silence on Lambton Quay. Having taken the cable car, we wandered around the museum a little, then went into the gardens. I was happy to find this, as i thought it most fitting:

The gardens were very beautiful, and a wonderful way to walk back down to the city. I took approximately a bajillion pictures of flowers — some so weird! some I have at home! — but attempted to spare you that by collaging:

In the middlish of the garden, there was also a duck pond. It being spring, this meant ducklings!

After that, we wandered down to the parliament building (the Beehive) for a tour. No cameras were allowed on the tour itself (which was really quite interesting; I am inspired to tour Canada’s sometime), but I did get a shot of this in the foyer area:

Hilarious! For more laughs, we headed across the street to The Backbenchers, a pub with latex caricatures of politicians. I do wish Darcy McGee’s would do something like that.

We followed up our tour with more in-depth wharf walk and found the Writer’s Walk, lots more random art and… an outdoor skating rink! Admittedly, the ice was terrible (it was their last weekend before closing for summer) and we were both horrified by the un-greenness of it all. I mean, it was probably 18 or 20 degrees in the shade that day. Craziness!

That night, we met up with a friend of The Boy’s to plan activities for the following day (Saturday). What did we do? A nerdy pilgrimage, a visit with squid, an underground market and beer-fueled Scrabble! Details when next I find reliable internets!

At first I was a little unsure about the short colour repeats: they are quite bright, after all, and I was worried I’d end up with really loud, horribly clashy socks, but having knit up a little more, I can definitely say that I like them. I’ve pretty much given up hope on them being done by the time we get back (although it’d be nice!) but I do think it’s reasonable to aim for having both heels good and turned by the time we land, so I have just the (straight up, boring stockingette *) legs to go. Then I just have to knit, knit, knit until I run out of yarn, basically.

* This is the most boring plain pair of socks I have knit for myself to date, and I chose the mindless pattern for easy stop-and-go knitting, as well as something I could work on while looking out the bus window and/or while watching an inflight movie. Happily the yarn is quite interesting!

Now, my question for you guys: how much yarn (in grams) do you think I’ve bought up to this point? At time of writing, we’ve just left the North Island (although we’ll be back on the northern beaches at the end of November), and I’ve got the whole rugged South Island to go! I’ll take guesses till we step on the plane out of Auckland. Closest guess wins a fluffy hand knit alpaca hat!

Whilst walking around Nelson today (where nearly everything was closed, due to it being Sunday, boo) I came across not one, but two art yarn stores. Both closed. (More boo.) At my comments, The Boy pointed out that given the way I’m buying yarn, it might be a good thing. Hmph. Anyway, I’m hoping Auckland will impress me with their yarns once I’m done down here!

…Just don’t tell the guys I was eating Manly Yoghourt, okay? It was actually really delicious with all the seeds and apricot chunks mixed in, but I think I’ll switch back to plain, smooth yoghourt for my next stock up.

Anyway, long before we hit the national park, we visited something that had been number one on my list of things to do in New Zealand (well, aside from have a good time, obviously): try blackwater rafting through the glow worm caves of Waitomo. (Translation: go tubing in the dark through underground limestone caves while looking up for the blue glow worms.). I apologize that I have no pictures, but given the circumstances, I’m sure you’ll understand that I wasn’t about to bring my camera down there.

Having done it, The Boy and I agreed that it was by far the best thing we’d done in New Zealand up to that point. (A whopping five days. But still!) In fact, we even felt it worth it to buy the DVD of pictures afterwards, and I normally despise businesses that do that. People, I can not give you a more glowing endorsement than that.

The caves themselves were great: eerie, and old, and full of weird, crazy limestone formations. The mini-hike to get there (which was uncomfortable as hell in a wetsuit, by the way) was very pretty, wending through really nice native growth forests. Once inside, we splashed, crawled and floated through tunnels to see an underground waterfall, to fall backwards over an underground waterfall, to see the caves by lamp and candle light and of course, to admire zillions of tiny glow worms. If you have the chance, do go; it’s totally worth it.

I was heartbroken to discover, after a warming shower and hot chocolate post-caves (both were part of the experience) that the angora rabbit shearing shed, which the guide book had listed as being right next door, was in fact closed down. Boo! I had so looked forward to seeing an angora bunny sheared!

After that, it was up into the mountains of the park. Our guide informed us that our hostel was at 800m above sea level — the highest we would be in New Zealand, unless we went off on some serious mountaineering. We stopped in the Tongariro Park’s info centre and I took a picture of Mount Ruapehu.

Near the info centre, there was also a path for a walk to Tawhai Falls. We got surprisingly close to the falls! After a quick picture, and some more ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the cloud-shrouded Mt. Doom (née Ngauruhoe), we set off for our hostel in the National Park Village.

This hostel had kind of a chalet feel, and I suspect that it is very popular for skiers and snowboarders who visit Mt. Ruapehu in the winter. We were very pleased to be met with a cuddly welcome party when we arrived…

At the recommendation of our driver, we tried the restaurant next door for dinner and the food was absolutely amazing. Stay tuned to hear about the $9 curry deal (ridiculously cheap by NZ food pricing standards) of the following night in Wellington…

So, after three days in slightly sulphurous smelling (but sunshiney!) Rotorua, The Boy and I hopped back on the bus headed for Taupo. On our way down, we stopped by the mighty Waikato river (New Zealand’s largest!) for a photo.

I couldn’t get over the colour of the water: that Caribbean sort of bright blue-teal. So pretty. So cold. So fast! This part of the river feeds the Huka falls, which are most notable just because so much water is being forced through such a narrow river space. Very pretty.

After that, it was back on the bus to Taupo, a lakeside town with gorgeous blue skies, and a sort of resort feel to it: like cottage country, but a little less laid back. Very pretty. A popular fun fact for Lake Taupo is that you could fit the entirety of Singapore in the space it takes up. I thought it more interesting to note that from the north shore you can see Mount Doom Ngauruhoe in the misty distance, the middle child among siblings Ruapehu (the big one) and Tongariro (which it is actually growing out the side of, if volcanoes can be said to be “growing”).

Taupo also had a thermal springs park, and I’d originally hoped to head out there. (After all, what is the point of being in the most geothermally active (populated) part of the country if you’re not going to take advantage of the hot springs?) Being a fan of boat tours, however, The Boy suggested we take up a sailing tour of Lake Taupo. This was also awesome, because of some carvings done about thirty years ago into some cliff faces that are only visible by water. So down to the docks we headed!

We hopped aboard the Fearless, welcomed by Cap’n Dave, and it wasn’t until we were comfyly settled and looked up that we realized just what we had done.

Happily, it turned out that Dave is a benevolent pirate, and out we headed! As we got further out onto the lake, we saw rain clouds ahead of us, and started crashing into the meter-and-a-half waves. It was a rocky, windy, wet ride! Sadly, it was too rough for us to keep going to the carvings, but we did get to try steering on the way back. (Hey Alex: sailing’s not so hard! :p) I was a little disappointed (cold, wet and no carvings vs comfy soak in hot springs? Hmph) but happily our driver had recommended a local pub which served pretty good, quite cheap food and, best of all, had trivia that night. Sold!

The trivia ran a little ridiculously late, which is a shame because our group was kicking ass. Still, with an early start the next morning, we headed back to the hostel for some glorious (best beds thus far on our trip, that hostel — if you’re in Taupo, choose the YHA; it’s awesome) sleep.

Unfortunately, the main action area was dark and heavily backlit (by a gorgeous sunset!), so most of my pictures are either blurry or just awful (and blurry). Still, the couple had seemed to be happy to be there, which is what counts!

The father of the bride walked her down the aisle…

…vows were said, and then… the kiss! I can’t tell you how happy I am that that picture at least came out.

It was a fairly short ceremony, complete with a reminder of “what is love”, before the newlyweds marched happily back among family and friends.

After that was a tasty dinner and lively dance floor — I’m pretty sure a very good time was had by all. I loved Carley’s wedding favours: mulling spices for wine or cider! Since I’m not really a mulled wine fan (when I have the option of spiced apple cider), I’ll probably stick with the apple option, but I love this idea!

Hubert and Carley, it’s taken me so long to post this that you’re now back from your honeymoon, but I hope you guys had a great time, and keep your joyous glow throughout your years together! Congratulations!!

Not here! Butter is sold in 500g bricks, and smaller food packets are in 50g increments! Such tidy numbers! So fun! Alright, I’m the only one who finds that exciting. Fine. Next: ketchup.

I’m not sure who is in charge of their ketchup (is it still Heinz-dominated? I don’t know) but it’s quite tasty. Spicier and a little less sweet than the stuff we have at home. The best part though? Restaurants seem to have standardized on this bottle:

So cute! I love it. Despite not being a huge (raw) tomato fan, it totally makes my day to walk past cafe patios where each table is festooned with its own bright little tomato of ketchup. If I ever started seriously making my own ketchup, I would totally want a jar like that for the fridge. …except that I know I’m way too lazy and we’d just eat it out of the canning jar. Ah well.

Yoghourt. I remember this part from Australia: the actually creamy without containing gelatin, delicious, contains real fat yoghourt. My breakfasts have been happy ones, let me tell you.

The next note is about betrayal. The Boy and I, based on our guide’s advice, hit up the Pac ‘n Save for groceries and I have to say: I was impressed. This place is kind of like a No Frills, but with a much, much more impressive set of served food areas. (When was the last time you saw a No Frills with a seafood counter?!) We hit up the bakery to find sandwich buns and were delighted to find a huge selection of pastries (breakfast!) as well. After a deliciously successful first round of muffins and croissants, we went back the next day to restock. Feeling adventurous, The Boy chose something called a “cheesymite bun”. You can tell where this is going, can’t you?

I wasn’t thinking, and assumed it was some kind of jalapeño thing, like cheesy dynamite, right? The Boy, full of hope and trust in the bakery, bought the bun, and tore into it as we walked back to our room. He took one bite, made a horrible face, and I instantly knew what the “mite” was. Well, okay I knew sort of: I don’t know if it was marmite or veggiemite, but since I find both totally disgusting, it doesn’t really matter. (The Boy is also not a fan.)

It will take time, and possibly a little therapy, but I think he’ll be okay.

As a final note, they don’t really do filtered coffee here. It’s not impossible to find: they have it at Starbucks, for example, but… then we’d have to go to Starbucks. So The Boy has been drinking espresso-based drinks for his caffeine fix. I will say, though, that since the country is so cappuccino- and flat white (AKA latte)-driven, they do know how to serve them up nicely.