Last days in Kiwi Land on Island time!

Hey, hej, hallo!

After leaving Queenstown on a shaky plane ride, caused by an approaching storm from the west. If you by any means want to no more about this particular storm I suggest you read my friend Sir James excellent blog about spending a day in the midst of it by clicking, here! When, or if, you read James story my plane ride is like a nice kindergarten story. The plane was a little heavy so we had to remove some of the fuel and instead of a direct flight to Auckland we ended up taking a small detour to Christchurch for a pit-stop.
It was the landing and take off in Christchurch that involved must of the fun, sins that was at the edge of the big weather system it had quite allot of turbulence. Sitting next to an old lady (who did not enjoy this the least bit) I tried to encourage her by smiling and laughing while the plane shook and bumped like a rollercoaster. Though it didn't bother me much sins I've experienced almost the same thing before I have a feeling that my mum for example would have seriously considered to never fly again given she had the same experience :-)

Arriving safely in Auckland I immediately took first the bus, then the ferry and then the bus again before I arrived at my stop by Hekerua Rd on Waiheke Island. Straining under the weight of my bags, I walked slowly down the road towards the hostel. When I, with rising body temperature reached the office the owners three dogs immediately came to welcome me with friendly barks (though with a slight tone of suspicion). Due to low season I got a three bed share all by my self, which was quite nice sins I had the bag full of wet clothes that needed to be dried. The reason of all the wet clothes was the malfunction of the dryer (torktumlare) at the hostel in Queenstown, and not enough time to dry them outdoors.
Unfortunately the moisture in the air on Waiheke, along with some light showers (duggregn) made the drying an ongoing task during my four days on the Island. With not much but audiobook listening to do, I fell asleep early.
Waking up to sunshine and an roaring stomach, I decided to go for a breakfast cafe expedition. Not knowing the neighbourhood I took my chances and relied on my gut feeling, or my empty stomach if you will, to guide me right. After merely 15 min of walking on narrow roads through lush forest I reached a cafe that had a espresso sign, it looked a little fishy but my stomach told me it had to do! Two eggs, bacon, toast and a non school book Cappuccino later I felt quite satisfied with my find. Walking out the door I found to my disappointment that a really posh looking cafe and deli lay right next door. No worries I told my stomach we will go there tomorrow.

Spent the rest of the day trying to find a decent Internet place, which turned out to be impossible, so I settled with checking my e-mail at the library. At the very nice Waiheke fruits & Vegetables i bought some delicous mandarins and apples, and also some Organic Beetroot, some Kiwi goat cheese and spinach. Back at the hostel I made myself a nice beet salad, after what seamed to be an eternity waiting for the beets to boil. Full of beet salad and bored with the American TV shows I retreated back to my room for some more audiobook chapters.

Next day I walked straight back to the posh looking cafe and had a gorgeous pastrami sandwich and a school book Cappuccino (1/3 espresso, 1/3 hot milk and 1/3 foam). Then I took the bus to visit the legendary and arguably the only true cult winery in New Zealand, Stonyridge Vineyards.
The mute bus driver did his best to announce when I was about to get of the bus, I understood by his firm gaze and later waving arms that this was my stop.
Stonyridge is situated near Onetangi, placed on gently sloping hills facing north. It was planted in 1983 by founder and winemaker Stephen White, who had but one goal in mind to produce the finest Bordeaux-blend in New Zealand and if possible the world. Much to the frenchies surprise his 1996 Larose (the top wine of Stonyridge) got first place in a blind tasting in Bordeaux leaving wines like Margaux, Mouton-Rothschild and Latour behind the stern. Walking on to the estate made my feel like walking on to holy ground, just a little bit, it is always cool to visit a truly recognised winery. Upon entering the main building I was Approached by one of the waitresses that asked me if my intentions was to taste wines or have lunch, both I answered with a grin on my face.
At a small bar next to the dining area they had the tasting room, and they let you taste all there wine unfortunately not for free but still not very pricey. Fortunately I had e-mailed ahead an made contact with David Jackson the general manager, who was kind enough to come out and say hi and introduce me to the winemaker Summer Bell. That did not get me taste for free but ensured a very friendly approach from the staff, maybe my notebook gave a good impression as well.
After trying four of there wines including 07 Larose and there Rhone-style 07 Pilgrim (Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre) all but the Cardonnay very impressive wines off immense elegance and complexity. Moving on to the dining room I still had a some wine left in my sample glasses, which I could enjoy with my lamb, as I looked out over the vineyards. As I was savoring my tender lamb the waitress asked me if I would like a small sample of the 96 Larose, does Dolly Parton sleep on here back? I thought and noddingly excepted the offer. The 96 was still alive and kicking, with allot of complexity and still good fruit but it also came scaryingly similar to a Rioja Grand Reserva (perhaps not as much vanilla and dill). Rejoicing in my after lunch buzz I walked out into the vineyards to have a look around and take some photos. Leaving the Estate I walked passed the winery where they where just bottling the 2008 Larose, so I got to taste that as well, which according to themselves was a great vintage.

Next day I was back at my cafe for another sandwich and a Latte. Missing the bus I decided to start walking instead of waiting, and ended up walking all the way to Cable Bay winery (6 km). The stylish looking winery with restaurant lay a top a hill overlooking the vineyards and Auckland. for the price of 5 NZD I got to sample all there wine, a bargain compared to one sample of Stonyridge Larose for 15NZD. They made a very nice Chardonnay and a good quality Bordeaux blend called Five Hills, and also made a girly-men (ett riktigt fruntimmers vin) rose from Merlot. Cable Bay also had a few decent quality wines made from Marlborough fruit to broaden there range, which i tried but that left as lasting of an impression as the latest episode of NZ top-model. There Five Hills Red 07, was another story, doing as good job of imitating Bordeaux as Jim Carrey imitates Clint Eastwood. In other words a very balanced and complex red wine with smooth tannins and black currant fruit with notes of ceder and pencil shavings.

Next stop on my Island wine tasting tour was the Mudbrick Winery, which had a premium tasting package of seven different wines for 10NZD. Really good wines with there two Syrah's making the biggest impression. After tasting a set down for lunch in there restaurant, which at a glance of the menu reveled to have a Chef by the name of Andreas Lindberg, in other words a Swedish Chef :-) Needles to say the food was excellent and the Merlot i had with my truffle poached chicken made a perfect match. Yet another day was soon at its end as I packed my bags that night to head for Auckland in the morning.

I'm happy to reveal that this will be the last blogpost written on Kiwi soil sins I soon have too head for the airport. See most of you soon!
/Martin

End of Harvest and Costume Party with the Frenchies Part 2

Waking up late after a wet night I teamed up with Anne and James to go for a guided tour of the winery held by assistant winemaker Todd Stevens. Very nice and interesting tour throughout the whole process of making Riesling, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir at Felton Road. After a very tasty lunch on the terrace of the Mount Difficulty's restaurant (neighboring winery), Anne being German had no Difficulties in arranging a tasting and quick tour at Quartz Reef by Austrian born winemaker/proprietor Rudi Bauer.


We tried their rare and well made Method Traditionnelle NV, a great Sparkling wine with good firm acidic structure and lively citrusy fruit with notes of bred and yeast. We also had Rudi's very nice Pinot Gris which definitely stood out among the other Pinot Gris I've tasted in NZ. Pinot Gris is somewhat of a new trend grape here in NZ, where I guess both costumers and winemakers are looking to diversify the white wine market from praised and massively planted Sauvignon Blanc. I've found most Pinot Gris to be to flabby, with high content of alcohol (which of course is praised by the masses) aromatic and sometimes parfumee style. But the Quartz Reef Gris 07 has good acidic structure a nice ripe pear and peach like fruitiness, balanced alcohol and a long slightly creamy after taste. In short, a damned good food wine with potential to age.

Last but not least they make a really nice Pinot Noir 07, with firm and structured body nice balanced acidity and lots of raspberry and plum flavors, with spicy notes from the oak barrels.

To finish of an already fabulous day we cooked (read I cooked) dinner together, Lamb with a Lebanese bulgur salad paired up with two half bottles of Quartz Reef one Pinot Gris and one Pinot Noir + an extra whole bottle of Pegasus Bay Riesling. Then Anne made a very nice desssert with vanilla ice-cream and cherries in Kirsch.

Friday morning the 24th of april I woke up with a mission to try some more wine! Took my seriously dirt sprayed Nissan (unfortunately I don't have any pictures to illustrate the matter) down to Bannockburn and Carrick wines for lunch and tasting.

Arriving at Carrick I started of with ordering the fish of the day, seared grouper with Moroccan chick pea and aubergine ragu served with avocado and rocket salad. While my empty stomach eagerly awaited lunch, I started of the tasting with the Carrick Riesling 07. At 12,5% alcohol it was a decent Riesling with all typical features like; crisp acidity, lively fruit notes of lime and a hint of chalkyness (I have to ad that I does not come close to the quality of Felton Road's Rieslings) . I then continued with Sauvignon Blanc 08, not to common wine in these parts of the country, Had all the usual features of a Kiwi SB but just slightly more elegant than most of them more towards the mineral side than the green asparagus inferno.

Carrick Chardonnay 07 showed a good example of what I would describe as a "posh new world Chardonnay" with it's charmingly pear and citrus fruit and well integrated but pronounced toasted oak characters it was far from flabby but still more of a catwalk model than a food wine.

Moving on to reds I got the Carrick Pinot 06 and 07 side by side which was interesting. Wile the 06 showed more of raspberry and almost jammy notes of strawberry and vanilla, the 07 showed more dark fruit characters with cherry and plum as the most pronounced ones, and also firmer tannins and more coffee and liquorice type of toasted oak notes. Both wines where of good quality only lacking the intricate notes of terroir that Felton Road and even more so the Burgundy Pinot's have.

Having tasted all these wines my lunch was now ready and my stomach thanked me immensely for not pursuing any more wine experiences. Sitting outside on the lawn cherishing my perfectly cooked grouper, which i wisely paired with the Carrick Riesling, it felt like the Central Otago wine region was embracing my presence.

After a quick espresso I drove on to visit the Bald Hills winery. This small Estate is situated on the very same gravel road that had caused my Nissan to look like a rally car just arriving in Dakar (driving to and from the Cornish Point vineyard of Felton Road). Bald Hill is a quite small Estate mainly focusing on Pinot Noir, they do both Rieslin and Pinot Gris non of which are particularly impressive. The Pinot Nor 06 on the other hand is a beautiful example of just how good quality you'll get for money here in NZ, especially when it comes to Pinot N.
The Bald Hill Estate Pinot N 06 had spent 11 month's on french oak barrels and shows and intensely red fruity and spicy nose, with notes of raspberries, cherries and tobacco. The medium bodied palet had balanced acidity with medium concentrated fruit flavours of red berries and nicely integrated spicy notes of toasted oak, with a smooth lingering finish. I thought I made a bargain buying it for 44NZD (ca 200 kr) If you're interested it is imported to Sweden by JPC Wines.

Tasting all these wines it was now time to meet up with the Chalet's Crew (Adre ze German and Andrea the loud American) to go to Arrowtown to Rent Costumes for tonights party. Andre drove us in his scrapyard premium edition Mazda stationvagon, a car that just recently had gotten a new battery which at least made it start when you turned the key. 45 min later we arrived in Arrowtown, starting the search for the costume shop hidden away in a private house not in the smack center of the town. After acquiring a map at the iSite we soon fund our way, just in time for our appointment.
The place was in the garage of a private house and very busy, sins there as a 80's party going on that night in Arrowtown. The lady running the place was very friendly and helpful though clearly stressed, she soon found a suitable Minnie Mouse dress for Andrea, a Fred Flintstone one for Andre and I fell for a tight green Riddler costume. We also got a Barney costume for sir James of England and a blue Marge Simpson wig for Anne.

Later that night all suited up we met at the Chalet's (a holiday park = Camping) where we took my car to the party. Arriving early we saw no one in costumes so we decided to park around the corner and drink some beer while we where on the look out for other party guests. After two or three beer my impatience had grown to the point of frustration, so I decided we should go and check it out. With the Riddler leading the gang we silently approached the house of the Frenchies. Fortunate enough we hadn't been fooled into dressing up in costumes and where met by liking cheers when we showed our faces. I think my tight green Riddler suit had a nice mix of complete dorkiness and slight notes of cool villain glimmer.

Though we where first to arrive we where soon joined by The Hulk, Catwoman, New World Man, Wolverine and many others just having a ball. Just a very good way of saying goodbye to everyone in a silly kind of way. I sang Helan Går and drank Absolute Vodka to pass a little bit of Swedish knowledge on to my fellow grape pickers. Sir James showed us all how a real Englishman drinks and fell asleep on the couch towards the end of the Party. And Andrea of course to no ones surprise where loud enough to help some of the late arrivals find the way, and not having to look like fool's knocking on the wrong door. Good on You Andrea! we can always trust in the Americans coming to our rescue :-)

This is all for now, hope you've been able to read it all. As you might understand I made it home safely from the party by foot and had some help picking up the car next day.

Cheers and see you soon!

End of Harvest and Costume Party with the Frenchies Part 1

Hej alla vänner och släktingar där hemma!
Enligt rykten på Facebook så har våren äntligen kommit till de Svenska breddgraderna. Detta låter som skön musik i mina öron, då ja snart återvänder hem. Här i Nya Zeeland börjar hösten bli allt mer påtaglig med lövträd i sprakande färger, samt bitande morgon kyla. Med andra ord det är dags att dra! dessutom börjar snuset sina :-)

Phuu! That took me about 15 min to write and allot of copy and paste to get the å, ä and ö in the right places. But as I've already stated in Swedish my Kiwi time is running up, and I have to say it gives me mixed feelings. Part of me will miss this place for ever but at the same time I'm relieved to be going home and I really look forward to meet everybody at home, I do miss you all! Some of you, not so much.

After having a very nice day off on Sunday we started work again on Monday morning at Elms Vineyard. The night had been clear so morning temperatures was Swedish as all other Nationalities was keen to remind me " Hey, Viking you like the cold don't you?". But the Swede as I'm called was cunning and smart enough to put on gloves early in the morning so the low temperatures didn't bother me much :-) And as the sun was rising higher on the horizon I picked Riesling together with my shivering, schnipping friends. The best thing with these cold mornings is the so called Smoko (smoke break) though no one smokes we get freshly made coffee and delicious scones with jam that thaws the frozen limbs and gives new energy.

Having filled the press with Riesling grapes we moved on to Pinot Noir as the sun eagerly warmed the air to more summer like Swedish temperatures. After picking Pinot for approx. one hour it was time for Lunch which this Monday was provided by Nigel Greening the owner of Felton Road. We had delicious Mediterranean chicken stew with tomato, red peppers and black olives, to this Nigel had made a magical polenta filled with corn and there was of course a few glasses of Felton Pinot and Riesling to go with the food. After that the afternoon seemed to swoosh by as I tried to keep up with the "Human harvesting machine" Marion from France. Foolishly Sir James of England tried to do the same and immediately schnipped himself deeply in his finger, and I laughed Hi, hi Ha, ha!

Tuesday started just like Monday morning except that we where in Cornish Point and picked Pinot instead of Riesling but it was maybe even a little bit colder. I worked in between Manu and Antoine both had foolishly no gloves and where shivering and blowing warm breaths into there hands trying to thaw there cold french fingers. After a few hours of picking really cold Pinot grapes Smoko finally came as a blessing and with it the Sun. It becomes quite obvious why people use to worship the sun in basically all old pagan religions :-)
After Smoko I had the great privilege to have some time to take some photos of all of us picking grapes. So I spent about 40 min running around between the rows and snapping photos of everybody.
After lunch we continued on and sometime around four we had picked all of the Pinot Noir at Cornish Point, which also meant that we had picked all of the Pinot grown by Felton Road.

Wednesday we had a very relaxed last day of picking, as we started at ten in the morning and only had two blocks of Riesling to pick. It was a nice end to my harvest experience to pick these gorgeous looking bunches, some with shriveled botrytis grapes on them. I also got permission to continue to take some photos of the last day of picking, which was really nice sins we had beautiful sunlight and the girls had made funny looking hats to wear sins there was a competition going on.
Then me and David (Aussie) the two chefs had to fill in for Nigel who had to attend to other matters, to cook the lunch. We grilled Beef fillet and made salad of really nice organic tomatoes that was served with baked potatoes. I can assure you that this final Lunch was appreciated by everyone the meat was juicy and tender and the tomatoes where out of this world!

After dinner followed the men's beard growing competition,I had foolishly trimmed my beard during harvest and had no chance of winning the sought after "best coverage award". On the other hand though I easily avoided the "Wants to be a MAN award" as my beard was thick enough to look allot manlier then ze two young Germans.

The women's hat competition where divided into two classes, the "best in show" and the "best creativity". Andrea which probably spent a good hour twirling hear hair into a sort of Dionysus meets the Rastafarian version of Princess Leia, won the creativity award fair and square.

All the winners got a different bottle of wine, and all of us got a really nice black harvest T-Shirt.


After posing for numerous group photo's we where finally heading for ze Pub to trinken some Bier Ja! For some reason the American Andrew talked some of us into walking to ze Pub, basically non of us was sober enough to drive after numerous glasses of Felton wine. Anne our cute German Londoner was in particularly bad shape (she will hate me for writing this obvious truth, but let's face it you where PISSED!)


After about 30 min of walking we came upon our first major challenge "the electric fence". Here is where I made a total fool of my self by fist touching the wire with my hands thinking it was safe to cross, then Loudly declaring "Ze Swede is going to fry his balls", and then with one hand on the fence (completing the circuit) I touched the wire with my inner thigh and got some 5000 volts shot through my jolting body :-) The rest of the group of course reacted with stomach cramping laughter as they thought I'd actually gone ahead and fried my balls. About an hour later we finally reached the Pub and could get our hands on the first pints, Oh Joy!

To be continued....

Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Riesling

Hej, Hello allihopa everybody!

Hope you all have had a nice Easter, hope the sun was shining on you where ever you've spent it. Today I have my first day of sins Easter Monday (Annandag Påsk) and I'm spending it in Queenstown with three of my work colleagues Andre (the quiet German) Andrea (The loud American) and James ( the witty Englishman). Yesterday the three of us went to the cinema in Wanaka, it's fairly well known in the area for it's unusual auditorium with sofas instead of regular fold down seats, they also offer beer during the movie and newly baked chocolate cookies during the mandatory intermission.

The last week we have finished of the Calvert vineyard and all it's Pinot, and now moved on to the so called Cornish Point vineyard to pick fruit over there. The Cornish Point is at the lowest altitude of all the vineyards and really close to the water of lake Dunstan. We had a nice first morning here with beautifully looking grapes that was easy to pick and had good flavours. But after lunch it was a totally different story when we move to a different block which had been under sever attack from birds and bees, which also contributed to quite allot of botrytis (mögel). This meant allot of grapes had to be thrown away and much work in sorting and tidying up the bunches of grapes to get rid of bad grapes and save the good ones.

We have also continued to pick the grapes at Elms vineyard which have been nice. The Elms is the original vineyard where everything began for Felton Road it is also where the winery is situated. But mostly it's the home to the best blocks which produce the greatest Pinot Noir (blocks 3 and 5), Chardonnay (blocks 2 and 6) and Riesling (block 1) for Felton Rd.

I've also been to a very nice dinner this Thursday at Gareth's (the boss) home. We had great venison with roasted potatoes and really good corn. We also had some nice cheeses brought by Anne (really funny German lady that lives in London). And off course allot of wine, I had the privilege of driving so I had to spit the whole time :-( Unfortunately my blind tasting skills seamed a bit rusty and I didn't do very well, but I had allot of fun anyway.

We are expected to finish the harvest on Wednesday the 22nd of April, and then I'm of on my last few adventures before flying back home. Probably stay in Cromwell until the 25th to visit a few other winery's before I go to Queenstown for the weekend and then I fly to Auckland on the 27th. from Auckland I will go to Waiheke Island to stay there for a few days and visit some more wineries and relax a little before going back home on may 2nd.

See you
Martin

Harvest work at Felton Road

Hej på er allihopa där hemma, and around the globe!

It's now been a week sins I first arrived in Cromwell, to start harvesting at Felton Road. Today it's Good Friday (Långfredag) and we have a day of, which I've so far spent in Glenorchy north of Queenstown walking in beautiful forest and looking at all the beautiful mountains surrounding the area.

Started my work at Felton Road last Sunday by unclipping nets, which meant that we took off plastic clips that look like the ones you would normally find on bread bags. There are allot of birds on this island and most of them like Pinot Noir very, very much so to protect the grapes you have to put nets over them.

On Monday the weather was a bit shaky with light showers in the morning so we started at nine instead of eight. Then we picked Pinot at the Calvert vineyard for about 5 hours before more rain made it impossible to continue. We picked all the grapes into plastic crates of about 8-10 kg, because the grapes where going to be shipped to the north island and made into wine by Craggy Range. So at the end of the day they where loaded onto a big truck, that would drive them to Hawkes Bay in about 48 hours.

Tuesday looked nicer in the morning with no rain and just partly cloudy, so we started to pick grapes at eight. Started to get to know more and more people, a great mixture of french, german, swiss, kiwi, chilean, american and to my great surprise Oskar from Stockholm. Oskar was just staying for a few days before going to Sydney then on to Bangkok and back home.

On Wednesday Gareth (the Boss) had decided that I should go to Queenstown to get my Passport so that I could get my IRD number (skattenummer) sorted. So I just helped to pick grapes in the morning before lunch. We did pick the prestigious block 3 and block 5 of Pinot Noir that are made into the most expensive wines that Felton Road makes. The grapes tasted really good, much flavours nice firm acidity and above all concentration.
At lunch break it was time to shoot off for Queenstown, a very nice and curvy road that is allot of fun to drive and takes about 35min. The Immigrations had my Passport with a working permit placed inside, YES! before heading back to Cromwell i went to the post office and picked up a IRD application form, being really hungry I had a big hamburger at Fergburger, very tasty!

Back in Cromwell I picked up a letter that confirmed that I was working at Felton Road. Then I drove down to the post office and filled out the form and mailed it before I returned to Felton road to help finishing of the days harvest and help with cleaning of all the buckets that we use for the grapes.

Thursday morning was really cold with snow on the tallest peaks surrounding the valley. Though the morning was cold the day turned nice and sunny with warmer and more comfortable temperatures. We picked a mixture of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir at the Elms vineyard, not in to the same buckets of course. At the afternoon break we headed back to the Calvert vineyard to pick some of the last rows of Pinot over there.

Sins most things where going to be closed on Good Friday in Cromwell i went to by some grocery's and to fill up the car with gas. Then we went to the local pub for karaoke night :-)
I didn't sing but a drank a few pints of organic beer and listened to allot of country music :-( before the night was over.

Ha det!!
Martin

Maori "Hangi" dinner and smelly vulcanic activity

Kia Ora!

Right now am back in Queenstown to work for Felton Road, arrived yesterday just in time to meet the rest of the harvesting team at the local pub. Today, Saturday I have a day off, so I decided to go to Queenstown to get some of all my photos sorted (read copied and doing backups). I have found a favorite Internet place here with mac computers, which was needed sins I got virus on some of my memory cards and my Ipod after using allot of different PC (or CP) computers all over New Zealand. So now I can delete unwanted virus files and hopefully be able to use the Ipod on PC computers again.

Rotorua and Auckland 31st of March to 3rd of April

Took the Nakedbus (cheap bus company) from Napier to Rotorua at 7.55 in the morning. After spending allot of time at fancy wineries drinking expensive wines and having gourmet food it was unpleasant to be reminded that I'm just a regular worker traveling with the rest of "Le Poebl" (Pöbeln). But I guess that I had to pay that price for last weeks luxurious life style :-)

Arriving to Rotorua we (read Åsa) decided to book a Maori dinner called "Hangi" and also a trip to Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland. When all was booked and paid for we started to walk with all our bags to the hostel, quite a walk with all the luggage :-)
Then we decided to go for a coffee and also to visit the Rotorua Museum which we had received a free ticket to when we booked the other activities. The coffee was OK (Starbucks) and the Museum was small but nice with some Maori art and sculptures and also a nice movie about the history of Rotorua co-starring Bret McKenzie (FOTC). Then we went back to the "Funky Green Voyager" our hostel, so that I could get some sleep before the dinner.

A shuttle bus picked us up to take us and a few others to the Hangi. Arriving at the Mitai (the family name of the Maori tribe) Village we where lead in to a big dining tent, didn't look all that different than a regular Octoberfest beer tent. The start of the Hangi felt really touristic, not that I've been to a Canary Island "Grisfest" but i got a feeling that it would look similar if everyone was sober and not all of the tourists where Swedish.
We where welcomed by a Maori man that would bee our guide of the whole event, he of course welcomed us in Maori Kia Ora! He then explained to us "the tribe of many nations" that we needed a chief that would lead our tribe, lucky enough for a shy Swede like myself a Australian guy felt the urge to become Chief and volunteered. Our Maori guide showed surprisingly good language skills and when he asked around which countries that was represented among us "the tribe of many nations" (which turned out to bee no less that 22) he could say hello, welcome and chocolate cake in all different language. He did this in flawless Danish and Chinese to just give you an example.
Then we went to look at the Hangi food which was cooked traditionally by digging a hole in the ground and then filling it with hot rocks, then putting the food over them in a steaming basket and finally covering everything with damp cloths.

Then we went in to the forest to visit the Mitai tribe and see there Waka (war canoe) and a show with traditional greeting ceremony and music and of course the famous Haka. This was really nice especially the show and the ceremony because it made the whole experience less touristy. Then we walked back for an excellent dinner and some chocolate cake for dessert. To finish the evening off we went back into the forest to watch glow worms and some of the native flora and fauna like the silver fern.

Next day we woke up quite early after a good nights sleep, eager to go to the thermal wonderland. Also this tour included a pick up at our hostel. First stop where at a geyser called Lady Knox, which erupted at approx 10.15 every day, with a little help from a guide who put some soap down into the geyser which caused it to erupt a few minutes later.
After the geyser we went to the main thermal park Wai-O-Tapu, where we had about 1,5 hours to wonder around by our self's. There was a quite dense sulfur smell covering most of the area, so it took some time getting use to. The landscape was stunning though and it felt a little bit like being on another planet. Me and Åsa walked around all the craters, thermal hot pools, sulphur spewing holes and arsenic lakes and took allot of photos. When we'd finished we met up with Volker (one of the many, many, many Germans we met on the trip) and Naomi (some kiwi relative of his). They took us to a really nice natural hotpool area where you could swim in naturally heated pools, which we didn't do sins none of us had swim clothes.

Then we spent the rest of the day with them, eating pizza by the lake and watching some black swans. Then I discovered that I'd lost my drivers license (Grr, f**ck, faan, Scheiße) got a little panicked. Then I remembered that I left it at the Hostel in Napier as deposit for my room key instead of money and when we checked out I got 20 dollars back, being me and it was early in the morning I excepted the 20 dollars and forgot my drivers license. After a few phone calls I had sorted the problem and they promised to send it to me in Auckland the following day Phu! :-)

That night I cooked a farewell dinner for Åsa, Volker and Naomi at our Hostel which had a more than decent kitchen. We had French green lentils, sweet potato and lamb racks with some nice red wine and while serving the food I immediately got the question from two girls if the could adopt me :-)

Next morning I took the bus to Auckland. After about 3,5 hours I reached the biggest city in New Zealand, and I found my hostel quite fast as well. Then I immediately went out to find something to eat, and also to look around in the city. Some two hours later I returned to my hostel just in time to meet up with a very nice British girl that had brought my drivers license from Napier YES!! I was ready to continue my travels, and I could relax and fall asleep easily.

See You All Later!!!
MARTIN