The largest free outdoor festival in New Zealand, we knew we had to go to the Newtown Festival. Newtown is the section of Wellington where the immigrants land. It is a vibrant mist mash of cultures, lots of fun to walk around in. They had 16 stages for music and over 400 vendors. It covered 11 city blocks. It was to some extent overwhelming but we dove in.
We also bopped around Melbourne. So much to report.
Beer Run. There was one very important stop that was a must do— a special trip to a beer store. While the local craft beer here in New Zealand is very good, the imported beer selection is not great. I was missing my Japanese and Spanish beers—Hitachino Nest and Alhambra. I vowed that if they had the beer in Australia, I would bring some home. Before we left, I asked Google for an answer, and I found a store that sold both. We taxied out to the Richmond neighborhood, and there was our heaven. We skipped through the store like two deprived kids oohing and aahing at all the beer from around the world. We put together 16 bottles and lugged it home. We were carrying so much beer, our luggage was overweight. Oh well, it was worth it. Second greatest beer run ever.
Dinner. We ate omakase (a tasting menu) at Minamishima, a highly rated Japanese restaurant, where we enjoyed some rare and unusual sakes to accompany an interesting mix of small plates featuring tuna, eel, wagyu beef, golden eye snapper and flounder fin to name a few. We love gorging on Japanese food and sake. This was one of the better Japanese restaurants we have visited.
Market. We wandered around Queen Victoria Market, a monster food and retail market in downtown Melbourne.
Made up of several buildings, with merchants offering everything from cheese to fruits to meats and sweets, t-shirts to cheap sunglasses to sheepskin everything, it would have been easy to spend the entire day wandering around. Unfortunately, we were traveling and had no way to keep food cold. Worse, New Zealand is strict about what comes in, so we could not pick up food to bring back home. That was very disappointing because, guess what? I love food. It was like food heaven, but no, the customs Gods would not allow it.
The Triennial and Avocados. We also happened to be there for the National Gallery of Victoria’s Triennial, a multi-discipline exhibition of artists, projects, performance art, painting sculpture and so much more from all over the world. We spent some time there. (The granddaddy of this kind of art extravaganza is the Venice Biennale.).
Here are some random photos of installations:
One exhibit, a documentary film, The Avocado Legacy, really has me concerned avocado farming in Mexico. The societal obsession with avocados (think avocado toast) has resulted in the industry exploding in Mexico. While avocados are extremely popular and big business, avocado farming is intensely bad for the environment. So much money can be made that forests are illegally logged by criminal cartels to clear the way for planting avocado trees. This logging decimates the monarch habitat by cutting down their trees and filling acre upon acre of land with a monoculture. You’ve seen pictures of the thousands of monarchs roosting in the trees at a preserve where they stay for the winter. That habitat is being destroyed in the name of avocados.
The local women, who live with the forest and feel they have a connection to it and to the butterflies, were angry that the illegal logging was taking place and they banded together to take on the cartels. While the women eventually prevailed by blocking roads and threatening the workers, an environmental advocate for the monarch habitat was murdered because he was so outspoken about the clearing of the native forest for avocados.
I had no idea of the impact of avocados on the environment and all I can say is, don’t eat avocados grown in Mexico.
Finis
We had never been to Melbourne or that area of Australia, so we did some sightseeing too. Instead of renting a car we opted for bus day tours—one along the Great Ocean Road and the other to Phillips Island, where we watched Little Penguins waddle and petted a koala.
The Great Ocean Road follows a portion of the southeastern coast of Australia. Built by returning soldiers after World War I, it is a gorgeous drive with spectacular ocean views. With every turn of a bend, oooks and aaahs would erupt at the sight of waves crashing onto rocky coastlines, or at beaches stretched far into the distance with the sands playing off the clear blue water. Our goal was a view of The Twelve Apostles, very photogenic rock formations, best seen at sunset.
On the way, we stopped in Kennett River to see koalas in the wild and in fact we did see a koala being a koala. Here he is sleeping in the crook of a tree.
They are very, very tired most of the time. This has to do with their diet of eucalyptus. The leaves don’t provide much in the way of energy (no carbs) so they are just zonked most of the time. You can tell he just fell asleep in the middle of a meal. His back was to us, so the pic is not great. But damn it, we saw one that was not in a zoo or sanctuary.
We also stopped at Loch Ard Gorge, part of Port Campbell National Park, for some views of spectacular cliffs and roaring ocean.
Hurrying along, we bolted down dinner in Port Campbell before racing off to see the Apostles at sunset. At this point, there are only four stone pillars left, others having eroded and fallen into the sea. I am not sure there ever were twelve. To hear the tour guide, the name Twelve Apostles was a marketing gimmick. No matter what they are called, it was hard to resist taking dozens of photos from every last angle.
In a separate tour, we headed to Phillips Island. First stop was Moonlit Sanctuary, home to native species, conservation efforts, and where we had a photo op with a koala. They are absolutely adorable and soft and easily distracted by eucalyptus leaves.
Next off to the Little Penguin colony and the nightly Penguin Parade. The colony is situated in a cove surrounded by rolling hills. Unlike the penguins of Antarctica who nest on rocky beaches, the penguins here nest in burrows that dot the hills. The penguins pair up to produce offspring and every day, one sticks around to guard their home and the egg or chick, the other swims off for dinner. At dusk, the swimmers come home after a hard day at sea. They wash up on shore in large groups. After a careful look around, they make a mad dash across the open sand. Trying to avoid being picked off by a predator, foxes or large birds, there is safety in numbers. Once across the sand they spread out, following trails that crisscross the hills leading to home. They call it a parade but it is more of a penguin rush hour with hundreds of penguins waddling through the dunes.
On this night, it was cold, really cold, and the wind was blasting off the ocean. We sat huddled on risers waiting for their return. The penguin parade path is lit with a type of light that allows us to see them, but they cannot see us. I would imagine they could hear us, but they seemed okay and quickly walked their path hurrying along, anxious to get home and into cover. Adorable. Just cute as can be. Unfortunately, to make sure the penguins are not startled by flashes, photography was prohibited. So we have no photos. They gave us stock photos instead. This does not do any justice to what we saw.
I admit that I am a fan of Taylor Swift. I am not a Swiftie per se, because I don’t really have time to follow her every move, thought, outfit or boyfriend. But I have her albums and like her music. I also admire her tenaciousness. She is one tough broad from a business perspective. Her taste in men might need a bit of fine tuning, but how to make money and keep fans interested, the woman just knows.
New Zealand is not always on the concert tour circuit, particularly Wellington. And that played out here. While she was coming to Southeast Asia and the Pacific part of the world, she was not coming to New Zealand, not even Aukland. She was playing Japan, Singapore and Australia. My plan was to find tickets at one of these locations and do a little sightseeing along the way. Those were the location options.
Could tickets really be that hard to get? Well, Japan was completely out of reach price wise. Singapore was more affordable, but the dates were not good and there were not many tickets available on resale sites. That left Australia. Sydney or Melbourne. I decided to try Melbourne. We had never been to that city and the concerts, there were three, fell on a weekend so Matt would not have to use too many vacation days. Flying to Australia from New Zealand is relatively inexpensive, certainly cheaper than flying to Japan or Singapore. In addition, in certain states in Australia, it is illegal to charge more than 10% above a ticket price for resale. If I could snag an Aussie ticket, I would not have to take out a loan. In terms of scams, I was protected because Stub Hub guaranteed the tickets would be valid. Plus, Tay Tay was protecting the tickets from scammers by withholding release.
I plunged in and, incredibly, I found reasonably priced tickets, much less expensive than the thousands of dollars people were paying, as many news stories reported. With tickets bought, we made our plans to visit Melbourne and the AU state of Victoria. This was September 2023.
Six months later, February 2024, we boarded the plane bound for Melbourne. Approximately 99.9% of the people on board were going to the show. There were Swifties everywhere—preteens, teens, young adults, and mature women like myself. They wore decorated cowboy hats and friendship bracelets and Taylor tees. Many were dressed in pink. The captain announced that we were on Air New Zealand Flight 1989 and the passengers erupted in cheers. He said he did not know why everyone was so excited about the Flight number but her would ask his daughter who was a Swift fan. (It’s a clever reference to a Swift album.)
Matt was one of the few men on the plane and certainly one of the few men going to the show. He kept telling people the best thing about going to the show would be the lack of line for the men’s room. Little did he know that the women would take over the men’s rooms.
There were three shows. The stadium was configured to seat 96,000 people, which means that she would play to 288,000 people in three days. She could easily have filled it three more times. The entire city was abuzz. As we traveled around Melbourne, we saw women headed for the stadium. I soon realized that I was not prepared in the least to go to this show. Women were dressed in full-on Swiftie fashion. The costume of choice was sequin dresses, white cowboy boots or white go-go boots, and faces adorned with lots and lots of glittery makeup. I don’t think I have ever seen so many women in sequins. But I had no time to find sequins anything, so I let it go.
On the day of the show, we arrived fairly early because 96,000 people is a big crowd. Plus, reports were that tens of thousands more planned on sitting outside of the stadium to listen. Sure enough, the grounds were packed but well organized. Large tents were set up for merch sales. By the time we got there, there was not much left. Swifties are mostly tiny teens and preteens and all they had left were size XL and up. I opted for an XL. Matt was elated he could get a shirt in his size.
As we entered the stadium, we were handed lighted wrist bands. We had no idea why. After waiting for about two hours in the blazing sun, it was time for Taylor. The three-hour marathon concert had begun and 96,000 of my closest friends sang every word of every song. The three teens and their mother sitting in front of us knew every song, every line, every move. It was cute at first but then I started to get annoyed. I came to hear Taylor Swift perform, not three screaming teens and their mum from Melbourne. But there was not a thing I could do about it.
Our seats were not bad. We could see everything and, of course, her stage set up and cameras were perfectly situated. She was also miked perfectly. I could hear every word she sang and uttered. I knew most of the songs, but certainly not all. Those wrist bands we were given were part of the show. They would light up and blink in a specific color, or all colors, according to the song/mood. You will see in the pictures that the entire stadium seems to be lit in red. That is the wrist bands for the Reputation songs. This was a fun addition and made it sort of participatory, aside from all the singing.
I would not call it a great show. She was good. It was a good show. I reserve the word great for a Prince concert. That man put on a great show. Or maybe U2. They always put on a great show. But Taylor put on a good, entertaining show. I took an unofficial poll of every tween I saw coming back from a show, many for whom this was a first concert. Just about everyone said it was wonderful or even magical.
And I was there. Matt was there. I’ll remember it all too well. (Stupid Taylor joke).
Was it worth the trip? Sure. Because in addition to the concert we got to see Melbourne and a small part of the south coast of Australia.
Gosh it sure did feel good to do some berry picking. Matt and I spent the year (or two) that was COVID picking fruit of every kind at a local farm. It allowed us to be outdoors and out of the house. Summer is short here so when I saw a sign for blackberry picking, we sought it out almost immediately.
In Maryland, we, and every other picker, worked on filling large containers, gallons of the stuff. My freezer would bulge with fruit. Here, people are much more reserved, picking small amounts, maybe just enough for a snack. When we arrived, the owner of the farm offered us a bucket. It was small, maybe two gallons, and it did not take long to fill it. When we showed up to pay for the berries, the farm owner was delighted, of course. A young girl saw our overflowing bucket and gasped, “Mommy, look at what they picked!” The mother’s jaw dropped. I smiled and rubbed my belly, “And they are all going right here.” Lots of giggles.
The farm also had a sunflower field. Here is some sunshine:
There is a large geographic region area to the east of Wellington known as The Wairarapa. I am not sure why it is The Wairarapa, but that is what they say. It is a rural area with lots of vineyards, cattle, and sheep. With no cities and a sparse population, a dark sky reserve has been established there. There is also an area known as The Pinnacles, with eroded canyons much like the Badlands of South Dakota. But while the Badlands are eroded into soft rolling hills, with deep channels, the Pinnacles have eroded into large pillars more reminiscent of Bryce Canyon. We decided to take a joy ride.
Unfortunately, a rock slide has rendered the trail to the The Pinnacles impassable. Although we did get some sense of it just from the eroding hills next to the road.
Since we had driven all that way, we decided to keep going to Cape Palliser on the southern tip of the North Island with a working light house and a lot of fur seals. This is the southern most point on the North Island.
This coast is directly exposed to the South Pacific, which means spectacular views of large waves and rock formations. The road was so close to the sea that in some areas, the road had collapsed. At the Cape, we found clear blue waves rolling along the shore while seals sunned themselves on the rocks.
Here is a fun fact–because the New Zealand coast is so rough and exposed, there are few harbors or marinas or even boat ramps on the coast. Instead, boat owners use tractors to launch their boats from the beach. Here at Te Horo Beach it is not unusual to see a tractor drive down the road towing a boat and off to the beach they go.
On this trip, we saw an entire boat yard of boats and tractors in a small town on the way to the cape. I assume that because this is a fairly rural country, the choice of a tractor was obvious. In many towns there is a community tractor that anyone can use. Maybe this is done in other places but I have only seen it here and I think it is pretty interesting no matter where it is done.
I really, really hate beets. And here I am living in a country that eats beets the way we eat tomatoes in the U.S. Beets are everywhere. They show up in dips, sandwiches, salads, relish, and horrors, ingredients in cakes, brownies and tarts. To prove they are ubiquitous, let me introduce you to the McDonald’s Kiwiburger. It has a beet on it. A beet. Yikes!
They are also quite fond of sweet potatoes, which they call kumara. All winter they are featured in magazine recipes, on restaurant menus, and presented in overflowing bins in the vegetable aisle. I don’t hate sweet potatoes. I just feel better when they are not around.
There are other random foods that always seem to be available such as cilantro, rhubarb, watercress, and white Swiss chard, which they refer to as Silver Beet. (Again with the beets.) I like all of these foods. I just find it odd that they seem to be staples.
I have already done a discourse on sausages. Sausage is their go to summer barbecue meat. Easily, 50% of the meat aisle is sausages.
In the summer, cherries are everywhere. Just regular sweet cherries, nothing exotic. Although I did run across Rainier cherries at a fruit and vegetable market. The owners, a young couple who are very happy when I show up with my wallet, decided to try and sell them. I think it was going badly until I came along and bought half of their inventory. They called them white cherries and I guess that is somewhat accurate. But I explained they were called Rainier cherries and that they are considered premium cherries in the U.S. (They also cost a fortune in the U.S. Here they went for a song because no one knows what they are.)
Plums are also very popular. For the past month or more, roadside signs have appeared offering plums for sale by local farmers. There are several varieties and they are used in yogurt, ice cream, cakes and pies. There are some more exotic fruits like tamarillo and feijoa, which are fruits from South America.. These arrive in the autumn and people just go crazy for them, particularly feijoa, which is also made into yogurts and desserts.
After all that, God bless them, but they still do not understand tomatoes. You can buy them here but they are fairly bland. I have not seen an heirloom tomato anywhere. Their use of them in sauces and salsas tend to reflect the blandness. Here is a good rule–don’t buy their ketchup. Seek out Heinz.
Every culture has its way of saying things and New Zealand is no different. Many of their idioms or word choices come directly from British English. Some of it is original to New Zealand. Some of it is puzzling.
Our favorite is “sweet as.” They do not ever finish this thought. They just say with clear delight, “sweet as…!” I would define this as meaning “awesome” or “cool.”
How about being greeted with “How are you going?” This appears to be some mish mash of two of our sayings: “How are you doing?” and “How is it going?” I understand that Canadians also say this so perhaps this is British English. Whatever it is, it makes my head hurt.
When something needs to be or has been solved or figured out, they say “let’s get that sorted” or “now that we have that sorted.” This word is used a lot. It seems to be used as a replacement for “solved,” fixed,” and “taken care of” among others. This, too, is British English.
To say hello, they use the Maori greeting “Kia Ora,” which means “have life” or “be healthy.” It is pronounced as the two sliding into one word “Kyee-ora.”
Sometimes, where we might say “thank you,” they say “lovely.” For example, they ask, what is your address? After I give the information, their answer is “Lovely.” I am never clear if the information I have given is lovely or if they are affirming my loveliness for giving them the information.
“Hi” is “Hiya” here. It is often pronounced with a bit of a trill, song-like.
Laugh if you will but I have decided to learn to play croquet. I saw an ad in the local paper where a croquet club was having a “Have a Go” Day. I never played croquet in my life except for the back yard game we played as kids. But I thought, what the hell?
I quickly learned that croquet is a vicious game. And I love that. Imagine if, as part of the game of golf, the other players could knock your ball away from the hole, in fact, clean off the putting green, before you have the opportunity to putt it in. That is croquet in a nutshell. The goal is to get your ball through the hoop before the other side and along the way your job is to make them miserable by knocking their ball as far from the hoop as possible. You are preventing them from scoring while they are preventing you from scoring. There is so much strategy involved and yet, no matter how you decide to proceed, you still have to make the shot. In that sense it is somewhat like curling or perhaps playing pool. You can have a plan but you still have to make it work. As a pool player, understanding the angles helps a lot but getting the right amount of weight on the ball and controlling the direction will take years to master.
I am playing what is called Golf Croquet. This is more for socializing and fun. We have partners, with four players in a game. We chat and laugh and have fun. The serious minded play something called Association Croquet, which I understand has very little socializing. It is just a player and his mallet. I am not in this to become a pro. I am just trying to have some fun so I will stick with Golf Croquet.
I am the youngest play in this group by far. Only retired folks can play croquet in the middle of the day. But no matter their age, they are way better than I am. What is really nice is that even though it is a vicious game, everyone is quite polite about it. Everyone, even opponents, helps me figure out the game and gives me advice on how to hit the ball. New Zealanders are polite as it is and playing this game just emphasizes it. I get a lot of “well played,” and “very nice shot” if I make a good shot, as well as “hard luck” when I miss. At the end, we shake hands and go on to the next round.
I am told I am pretty good given how little I have played. I think I am more lucky than anything. Still, hopefully in a year or so, I will have improved enough to actually know what I am doing.
Matt and I both came down with COVID about a week into January and the month disappeared with nothing to do until the very end. We had recovered and w e had tickets to see the Foo Fighters on January 27. They came to Wellington! Oh, the excitement!
Wellington has problems getting music acts to play here for two reasons. It is a small city and there is an enthusiasm problem and there is no mid-size venue. You get 5000 seats or you get a stadium. Limited places to play mean limited acts.
But Dave came. He did not fill the stadium, but it was a pretty good crowd. I got to jump around and head bang. Thanks Dave!
And yes, a concert in New Zealand is like a concert anywhere. People dance, people drink too much, people howl.
The concert was on December 30 and we decided that if we were going, we might as well make a weekend of it and stay for the New Year’s Eve celebrations. That was a mistake. While we had a fine dinner at the hotel–roast lamb with delicious fixings–the planned evening of entertainment was a bust.
As I have mentioned, it is summer here and all of the kids are out of school. Apparently, they all headed to Wanaka. It was like Ocean City, with teenagers and college kids roaming the down town streets, girls giggling and screaming, and boys emitting massive amounts of testosterone. It was just another round of kids partying to excess. We got out of there and went back to the hotel to watch the fireworks from lakeside. It was a nice display.
On January 1, 2024, we said goodbye to Wanaka. I missed my cats and needed to be home.
We love Fat Freddy’s Drop, a New Zealand band. They never tour the U.S. and we went to great lengths to see them live in Europe. (go to https://marshaschmidt.com/2022/12/06/july-9-19-europe-fat-freddy/ to read the story). We assumed that if we were living in New Zealand we would have more opportunities to see them. But that has not been the case so far. So when we received an announcement that they would be playing the Rhythm & Alps Festival on the South Island, we decided, well why not? This music festival, a three-day extravaganza of music, camping and partying takes place in a grazing field outside of Wanaka, a picturesque resort town bordering Lake Wanaka in the Southern Alps. Wanaka is known for skiing in winter and summers on the lake.
The music festival was okay. There were several stages, the main stage, a DJ stage and others dedicated to smaller acts. Rather than sitting in the field all day, we bought seats in a tent near the main stage so Matt would have a place to sit, and we would be out of the brutal Southern sun. FFD was the headliner, so we had to wait for five bands to play before they came on. That was painful. We did discover one band we really liked. But the other four? Yikes! One was a New Zealand woman who apparently has hit it big in Nashville. No clue who she is but people seemed excited.
One of the bands, My Baby, was really good so I walked down into the crowd toward the stage to get a closer look and feel.
I stopped and focused on the band. I was swaying and clapping as she sang a blues song when I noticed out of the corner of my eye a few yards in front of me a young man, maybe in his early 20’s, facing me and dancing with his beer and making gestures like, “great band, huh?” I realized that he was trying to engage with me. I was not interested in engaging with him and his beer. I stepped out of his view. He was not deterred. He stepped into my field of view again gesturing. I stepped farther to the side. Then his girlfriend stood next to me and started dancing and smiling at me as if I was dancing with her. I most assuredly was not. I had the normal East Coast reaction to someone getting in my space. I was ticked off and ready to snap, “I’m trying to watch here!” But I refrained. As I did with him, I stepped away from her, but unable to take a hint, she followed. I started to wonder if they thought “hey, look at the grandma getting down at the festival.” As soon as I thought it, her boyfriend starting recording with his phone. Yes, he was going to record his girlfriend dancing with the old lady at the festival. Generation to generation we can all enjoy peace and love and music and all that crap. I ignored both of them as best I could. To say I was irritated is not saying enough. I finally had to walk away unable to enjoy the moment with My Baby. I am sure a video of me ignoring this girl is floating around somewhere on social media.
And that my friends is the problem with festivals. The music is secondary to socializing and drinking. If you are there to actually hear the music, you have a problem because your experience is going to be impacted by everyone who is only there for the party. And yes, I know I used to be one of those young folks there for the party. But after decades of festivals, I find it tedious now. Been there and done that. I loved seeing Fat Freddy’s Drop, but I think I am going to skip the festival circuit from now on. Matt’s prediction is that this will hold until they play another festival. It will be tedious, but I will go.
It is finally, finally truly summer here. The skies are clear, the weather fine. It is like the Pennsylvania summers from my youth when a hot day was 85 degrees and the nights were cool enough for a sweatshirt. Great day for boogie boarding!
On Christmas, we would normally stay in our pajamas and watch movies. That works for winter but for summer, we could not sustain it. We went to the beach even though it was an overcast day and I made pierogis for dinner. I have not made them in years. They are not summer food, but I wanted them and they are not really something you can find in the grocery store here.
I kept reading about a tree known as the New Zealand Christmas tree. The Pohutukawa blooms with deep red flowers beginning in December. The flowers shine with golden pollen laden tips. These trees are native and protected. If you cut one down, you will be facing a heavy fine. They are stunning in person.
These trees are native and protected. If you cut one down, you will be facing a heavy fine.
I thought for sure that I would be able to purchase an artificial Pohutukawa tree as a Christmas decoration. I was wrong. So I bought some artificial Pohutukawa blooms and used them to decorate my artificial pine tree. It looked pretty cool.
It is summer here in the Land of the Long Cloud. That means kids are out of school, and it is vacation time. And, oh yes, it is also Christmas and New Year’s. Events that the Northern hemisphere spreads out over the year are compressed into two months and, during the two weeks of Christmas, the country shuts down. Take a vacation folks, it is mandatory.
The school year ends in December and starts up again in February. Because of this overlap with the holidays, the Kiwis had to pick—Christmas or vacation. Vacation won out. Families spend time focused on summer vacation with the beach, barbecuing and all of the fun that comes with summer—swimming, biking, and generally goofing off.
The result is that Christmas seems almost like an afterthought. In the U.S. we go all out—lights, trees, blow up snowmen and lighted deer. Enter into the Kiwi equivalent of Home Depot here and you will not find a section full of Christmas decorations. There are Christmas lights for sale, sure, but they are limited to a few shelves. There needs to be room for barbecue grills, outdoor furniture, fire pits and patio umbrellas.
We did not ship our Christmas stuff, the artificial tree and bulbs and assorted trimmings and decorations based on the assumption we could buy it here. We were stunned to learn that finding these baubles was difficult. In the U.S. every store has a Christmas section with tree decorations, wrapping paper, cards and the like. Christmas tree sellers abound. Not here. Here, most department stores had little or no Christmas goods for purchase. We thought we would at least get a fake tree. That was not easy. I had to order it over the internet. I think I saw one place where real Christmas trees were for sale. Nor did we see houses lit up like the Las Vegas Strip. In fact, you are more likely to see outdoor trampolines than Christmas decoartions. (These people are really into trampolines.)
In the U.S, you go into any hotel, restaurant or store and Christmas is everywhere. Here, most shops and commercial establishments were not decorated at all. During the holidays we went on a trip. The hotel we stayed at had one forlorn looking fake tree stuffed in a corner with no decorations on it.
When it comes to food, the Northern Hemisphere is experiencing winter. Food is warm and comforting. Here, the Christmas food is cherries and strawberries. More than one person told me their fondest memories are of cherries on Christmas morning. We have indulged in that tradition in spades. We have been eating cherries and strawberries for the past two months. The Christmas dessert is pavlova with a fresh fruit mix of strawberries, blueberries and cherries. I am not into pavlova. We go with a chocolate dip. And barbecue. Did I mention barbecue?
This is not to say they don’t celebrate Christmas. They do to some extent. It is just that all of the commercialism, all of the excess is not here. Barbecues and the beach are far more important at this time of year and their Christmas memories are wrapped up in summer and vacations. The country helps when most employers require their employees to take off Christmas and New Year’s week, meaning the country more or less shuts down. Matt was required to take time off. We could get nothing done with most companies during the two week holiday. Even the government shuts down.
Here in Te Horo Beach, all of the vacationers showed up for the two weeks. The beach, normally populated by about six people, was a lot busier, with cars and trucks, and folks fishing and swimming. I was kind of annoyed that people were on my beach, but most left after the holidays.
I guess you could say that one way to take the commercialism out of Christmas is to be presented with something else more fun and interesting. If you had a choice between Christmas trees and lights and barbecuing and vacation, which would you choose? To be sure, Christmas lights and decorations help when the weather is cold and dismal. And it is nice to spread out the events of a year rather than forcing everything into a two-month period. Still the lack of excess was refreshing to say the least. And the Kiwis did not seem to mind at all.
The signs announced “Whitebait,” at restaurants and “whitebait season” at sporting goods stores. The excitement was obvious. It left me perplexed. What is whitebait and what am I missing?
After some investigation, I learned that Whitebait is not a type of fish per se. It is any fry fish (juvenile) that happens to be swimming by. For the French and Italians, that may mean tiny silver fish like anchovy or sardines. Whitebait for the British is sprats, a small silver fish. So, for Europe, think tiny silver fish that are fried and then eaten whole as an appetizer, and washed down with wine or beer like so:
In New Zealand, whitebait is not the small silvery fish. Here whitebait is the juvenile of any fish in the Galaxiidae family. The juveniles, (they look like larvae to me) are translucent and kind of icky. But fishing for them is a New Zealand cultural tradition and they are considered a delicacy.
Walking on the beach one day, we ran across some folks fishing for whitebait. This is what they were catching:
Yikes! That did not look appetizing and worse, how much work does it take to catch a meal? Turns out, it can take a lot of work. Whitebait are returning from the sea in large schools. They are caught using a large net. Some people take large pole nets and drag them through the surf to sieve up the fish. Other use box nets, shaped something like a soccer net but much smaller, situated across a stream or in an area with a current. The juveniles are swept into the net as they head upstream. I have provided a few links if you want to get a sense of how this works.
Or to: https://www.fishing.net.nz/fishing-advice/how-to/whitebaiting-tips-and-techniques/
The season lasts two months, and a lot of people are ecstatic when it arrives. Obviously, there has to be a trick to eating them since they are so small. Usually, they are turned it into whitebait fritters. Some people have a tendency to swoon when they talk about these fritters. Other Kiwis do not understand the fuss. Matt and I will eat just about anything so we had to try whitebait fritters to make up our own minds—swoon or meh?
Here is what we were served.
Honestly, it was kind of tasteless. There was some vague fish flavor but mostly I tasted egg batter from the fritter, which really was more like an omelet. The good news is that it did not feel like I was eating worms. The cooking soften them to the point that they just melted. Even so, I don’t think we will be joining the mad rush for whitebait fritters when the next season comes.
I previously wrote about the prohibition on buying and selling trout in New Zealand. The only way for me to have trout for dinner is to catch it myself. So, for my birthday, Matt hired a fishing guide to take us out in pursuit of the cagey brown trout.
I would not say I am an avid fisherman. My idea of fishing is to hire a guide who provides the equipment and takes me to a place to fish. He/she hands me a rod ready to go, points and says fish there. My hope was that by hiring a guide, we could at least get the feel of fishing for trout. And we made clear to the guide that fly fishing was not in the cards. I have to catch a trout by using a lure such as a spinner, or nothing.
Because he was not local, we agreed to meet halfway, which put us in Upper Hutt, to the north and east of Wellington. His idea was for us to fish the Hutt River. Sounded fine to me. What do I know? He’s the guide. He brought both rod and reel and fly-fishing gear. He wanted me to at least try fly-fishing. But we started with a regular fishing rod.
The guide, James, reminded me how to use a fishing rod. Seriously, I have not done this for years. Paranoid after the sand fly attack, I put on fingerless gloves to prevent bites on my hands. On my first cast, my gloves were so slippery, the rod flew out of my hands and into the river. A lot of laughter but no panic. I waded in and retrieved it. Then I removed the gloves.
The guide kept pointing at shadows he said were trout. He urged me to cast near the shadow. God knows I tried. He even tried. No luck. So we moved on to the Lower Hutt, closer to Wellington. Even though we were in a suburb, the river was crystal clear and once again, we could see the fish. But they absolutely refused to take us up on any of our bait.
At this point, frustrated at our inability to catch a fish, the guide pulled out his fly-fishing rod. He showed me how to cast. I wasn’t very good at it but worse, I wasn’t interested in it. If you can think of a hard way to catch a fish, fly fishing would be it. Fly fishing is a belief that you can outsmart a trout by sneaking up on it. It struck me that this is a guy thing. Only a man could come up with such an inefficient way to catch a fish. There is a technique to learn, flies to tie and waters to wade. It’s a whole world devoted to trying to catch a fish by pretending to be a fly on the water. There has got to be an easier way! I am in this for a meal, not a trophy. I will stick to spinners thanks.
Regardless of the type of gear, the entire day was a bust. The fish simply were not biting. No trout for my birthday dinner.
But we were not deterred. Having had a refresher on how to fish, (at least I needed it), we agreed that we would outfit ourselves with some gear and see if we could successfully fish for trout in the local rivers. The guy selling us the equipment thought we were kind of kooky—two Americans telling him we had no clue what we needed so just tell us and we will buy it. No, he did not take advantage of us. In fact, he did not sell us everything we needed as we learned later on.
A few weeks later, we headed to the Otaki River, which is very close to us. We had been there for about an hour with nothing to show for it when I gave up. I could not find a fish. Matt had lost a lure and, not wanting to spend the time to tie on another hook, he asked to borrow my rod. After a few casts, he got a bite and reeled it in. Tada! Lo and behold, Matt caught a rainbow trout in the Otaki River.
The salesman at the outdoor store forgot to sell us a fishing net, so the poor thing was flopping around on the ground. We did buy an “immobilizer” meaning a club to hit the fish on the head and stun it. But this fish simply did not want to be stunned. It took a few blows. I felt bad. I did not like hitting it. But a person has to do what she has to do to get a meal.
I cleaned it and cooked it up. Delicious! Finally, I had trout in New Zealand. I should add, along the way I foraged some nasturtium to garnish the asparagus, so I guess we can call this living off the land and water.
While we were waiting to see the penguins, we spent some time on trails around the lodge. This one was an educational trail through the rain forest. Being a rain forest, we did not see much sun while we were there. One day it rained 60mm, which is 2.5 inches. If you visit a rain forest, you have to assume that it is going to rain and you have to be willing to go out into it. I have to admit, kudos to the folks living and working there. It is just way too gloomy for me.
Now it was time for penguins. The penguins live in the forest that lines the shore along a small bay on the Tasman Sea. It is odd to think of penguins as living in a forest, but penguins live in all kinds of places. Some like the South African penguin live in burrows, some favor rocky shores, some favor forests. To get to the habitat, we had to walk through the rain forest and cross a few streams.
Wait. How did Matt ford streams and hike through a rain forest? Matt can do a lot of things that people do not expect. Gerry told us that Anne did not think Matt would make it. But Gerry thought he was entitled to try. He did not double time us along the path. We went at Matt’s pace. Matt carries a portable stool which he uses to give his feet a rest and Gerry was more than happy to pause. As for the streams, I had on gum boots. Matt had on his waterproof shoe covers and we both kept our feet dry.
Gerry took us to a secluded cove where waves crashed over huge black rocks.
The penguins are endangered and few in number. So this was not like the nature documentaries you see where people are wading through thousands of penguins. The beach was empty. The penguins nest in the forest surrounding the cove. Like most penguins, the male and female take turns watching the eggs. One goes out to sea for food, the other stays behind. As they return from the sea, they land on the rocks, then hop or walk across the rocks and sand and waddle up a hill into the bush. We were there to observe them as they went back and forth.
Gerry positioned us on a log, and we waited. In a few minutes, the first penguin came out of the bush and down the hill to head out to sea.
Damn, penguins are cute. You just have to smile when you see them. They have that side-to-side wobbly walk, their little heads pushed forward, their bellies almost covering their feet. They flap those little wing-fins to balance as they hop from rock to rock. Just damn cute.
Okay. One penguin sighting. We waited some more. As we waited, we talked about everything—conservation, penguins, birds, world events, questions about America. Gerry was up on the current politics, so we got questions about Trump of course. One thing I have learned here is that, to New Zealanders, Americans are kind of like penguins. We are interesting to observe, and they so want to understand our habits. And of course, some of us wobble when we walk.
As we waited, we were engulfed in thousands of sand flies, the devil of the South Island. When you think sand flies, you might think annoying flies like you find around farms. Or you might think of gnats. You might even think, well, I have been swarmed by mosquitos. Sorry, but your imagination needs to take it up a notch. Sand flies are evil, blood sucking insects whose bites are sharp and filled with toxins that will make your skin look like you have been rolling in poison ivy. And the bites are just as itchy, if not itchier than that. God must have really wanted to make us miserable to create those vampires.
I had on black pants for no better reason but that was all I had to wear. Unfortunately, black clothes attract the flies. Gerry kept telling me this, but it was most unhelpful given I was miles from the lodge and had nothing else to change into. (If only they had warned us about the clothes before we arrived!)
I was soon covered with hundreds of flies. I had brought along natural repellant that I bought at the lodge. Gerry scoffed and offered me Deet. I declined. Since the only exposed part of me was my hands and face, I figured how bad could it be?
It was bad. Very bad. I finally put on some Deet but being the insect magnet that I am, it really was of no help at all. So I just tolerated them, shooing and swatting as needed. (By the time I got home a few days later I had giant welts. I tried in vain not to itch. But the feeling was so intense all I could do was scratch as hard and as long as possible. Counterproductive I know. But at the time it felt so right.)
After two hours we had counted fifteen penguins, coming and going from nest to sea and sea to nest. Gerry said that was the second most sightings for the season. Plus, the location was so beautiful that the bug bites were worth it. Take a look.
