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Archive for December 20th, 2010

20th December
2010
written by Justin

Since many of you know that we’re a couple of snobs when we’re drinking, I thought I’d outline the experiences we’ve had with beer while we’ve been here.  As you may know, New Zealand is well-regarded for its wines, but it also has a selection of tasty local breweries.  We’ve tried:

  • Steinlager – this was a part of our away party.  A reasonable lager for export, and drinkable, but not a beer I’d seek out in Belgium.
  • Mac’s – This beer was found mostly on the North Island so far, and in supermarkets.  They have a full range of beers from their pilsner to their “Black Mac”.  I preferred their red bitter, and Hazel liked Mac’s Gold.
  • Speight’s – We’ve only had their “Gold Medal”, an unremarkable but tasty ale.
  • Tui – This is a local beer brewed in the south of the North Island.  Very popular judging by the number of pubs that have a sign branded Tui instead of branded with their own name.  Tastes remarkably like Newcastle!
  • West Coast Brewery – We went to the brewery of this one, and tasted their range of beers there, but we weren’t too impressed.  Their two lagers were our favorite.
  • Monteith’s – We also went to this brewery, which was much cooler, but we were unable to do a tour due to time restrictions.  We did buy a variety six-pack that we’re working our way through, though!  Some very tasty beers.

Some beer photos along the way:

Monteith's Brewery/Museum

West Coast Brewery Tasting

More on the wine later!

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20th December
2010
written by Hazel
This might be a long one because we’ve been busy!  I’ll hit the highlights.  We’ve had several days of amazing weather which has allowed us to get in some really great hiking.  We’ve also had several days of torrential rain and horrible sandflies.
We had an awesome uphill hike to Rawhiti Cave.  It was absolutely huge and full of awesome cave stuff.

Cave!

It was HUGE!

We camped at a great campsite at Karamea (the middle of nowhere – very NW of South Island) and had lots of fun adventures, including being offered a bacon sandwich on the beach by a Brit and a Kiwi who were out fishing.  We hung around and a family pulled up in a Jeep.  After a chat they took off only to back the Jeep over and onto a log – STUCK!  They ended up having to dig it out while we stood observing.  It was very, very funny.  Minutes later the fishing rod went crazy and they pulled in a very large red snapper.  Awesome.

That campsite was at the start of one of the Great Walks – the Heaphy Track. We hiked just the very beginning of it, but it was incredibly beautiful.

Awesome view from the beginning of the Heaphy Track!

The next day we went to the Oparara Basin to see the Limestone Arches.

Gates of Moria Arch

Apparently this arch was named even before LoTR was filmed in New Zealand.  It was awesome because you had to climb in through the back of the arch and then could walk around inside.  A little drippy, but so cool!!!

Oparara Arch - too large to photograph!

The Oparara Arch is the really famous one.  It’s over 200 meters long, and pretty much impossible to photograph.  You can go right up inside it and a river runs through the middle.  The arches were really worth the long gravel road up to them!

These birds would hop right up to us in the woods

Today we went to the Franz Josef Glacier.  They have a path to the glacier that lets you get right up to the base of it.  It was pouring with rain and fairly misty, but an awesome short tramp across the rocks to the base.  We got some good pictures and then pretty much swam back to the car.

Us at Franz Josef Glacier

We got right up close to it - no zoom needed!

We decided yesterday it was about time to do something about Christmas, so we went to The Warehouse (like Target or Wal-Mart) and got some gear.  Mini Tree, Tinsel, CD of Christmas songs and we’re much more in the Christmas spirit.  Our van is all decked out.  We named the tree Sir Edmund Christmastree in honor of New Zealand’s great mountaineer.  I’m hoping to find an ice-pick ornament to complete his look.

Sir Edmund Christmastree

So that’s the update from here.  We’re heading up into the mountains tomorrow and then over to Christchurch for Christmas.