Hokitika Wild Food Festival

For about the last twenty years, the small town of Hokitika (population approximately 4,000) has hosted a Wild Food Festival. It is an opportunity to be different, audacious, bold and perhaps even a bit nutty. The venders compete for prizes in most outrageous food and costumes, and the people who attend try to be outrageous in their costumes as well. Needless to say, a fair amount of beer is consumed, making the various dishes go down a bit easier--at least initially.

There was also live music all day. Jon and I particularly liked a band led by a Maori who sang covers by Willie Nelson and Steve Earle. He also did an original version of Katy Perry's I Kissed a Girl, with the last stanza going, "I kissed a sheep and I liked it." It was a fun day, even though Jon and I refrained from trying anything too creepy and we stayed quite sober throughout the event.

This vendor sold a BBQ sauce for game meats.

Festival attendees.

A chef cooking White Bait.

Yes. These women are selling desserts may from the unique
dairy product, cow colostrum.

Made us chuckle.

Jennifer has some Elderberry Tea from
Max of Where the Wild Things Are.

These goat ladies were selling goat cheese.
Not too risky to eat, but loved their costumes.

Cricket Hors d'Ourves

Chocolate Crickets

Fried Grubs. Yum!

Entrance to Hokitika's Beach

Kiwi Kalua

A Young Party Girl Dancing to the Music.

Mandolin Player in the Maori guy's Band

How to make a healthy milkshake!

Gut Rot Moonshine.
All tasters we saw did not handle it well.

Enough Said.

She was adorable.

Two PM and already a full day.

Wild Game Salami

We call them Rocky Mountain Oysters in America.
Here, the vender just shouted, "Sheep's Baaaawlls."

3 Rockin Women
Covering 60s Motown Songs.

The most outrageous...Stallion Semen Shots.
Too gross.

But this lady was very encouraging.

Happy butterflies.

White Bait (look like minnows) in pancake batter.

These worms look almost appetizing.

South Island, New Zealand

New Zealand's South Island is far less populated and the landscape seems far more rugged. We began our exploration on the northern peninsula at Abel Tasman National Park. The shoals along this coast go out so far that at low tide boats simply rest aground, or, the locals use tractors and trailers to pull their boats ashore. Certainly a new experience for us, but it allowed us to kayak up the coast and be ferried back to our campsite.

We also got to see the "pancake" rocks at Punakaiki, a cool geological formation of eroded limestone, the layers of which were created by immense pressure on alternating hard and soft layers of marine plant and animal sediments. We visited the funky town of Hokitika and its Wild Food Festival (see blog posting). Finally we went to the Franz Joseph and Fox Glaciers and took a helicopter tour of other smaller glaciers in the region. Totally cool.....

This tractor is hauling our outboard boat to shore.

Low Tide. No apparent worries.

The Abel Tasman shore at low tide.

A cormorant sunning himself.

Jennifer kayaking from the bow.
Jon always has my back!

Lunch break on the shore.

Pancake Rocks at Punakaiki.

Punakaiki

Hokitika Beach

Sunset on Hokatika beach.
Later we saw the young girl in the buggy with her
father and a group of friends night fishing. Their house backed
up on this beach. Nice life.

Glacier touring.

NZ's mountains are young and still forming, thus
they are really steep. Hopefully this photo gives
a sense of the topographical grade.
It would be a very difficult climb, except for mountain goats.

Helicopter view of
approach to Shackelton Glacier.

Shackelton Glacier

These crevices can be 80 feet deep.

Franz Joseph Glacier

Franz Joseph. You can see hikers to the lower left of the glacier.
It's the end of summer here, and ferns are growing
from where we took this photo.

Fox Glacier; about 15 miles south of
Franz Joseph Glacier.

Geothermal Village, New Zealand's North Island

The Central Eastern part of New Zealand's North Island is very geo-thermally active. There are geysers, hot spots and volcanos all over the area. In the late 1800s a massive eruption wiped out a fairly large Maori settlement and killed a number of people. The survivors were allowed to relocate to another thermal field. They would not likely get such permission today, given the unpredictable nature of active thermal fields, but luckily for us, we got the opportunity to visit their village where about 30 families still live in their traditional way. We got to taste traditional food, see a family of dancers perform and demonstrate how they make their costumes, and tour their public spaces. The Maori, like the other Polynesians we encountered in the South Pacific are kind, gentle and generous. It was nice to get a taste of their culture one last time before we move on to other places and peoples. There are two churches in the village, one Anglican and one Catholic. Apparently a past chief divided the village down the middle and made one half Anglican and the other half Catholic. When asked what the difference between the two churches was, he reportedly said that one came from Rome and the other came from England, but basically they are the same..... Obviously, they have incorporated their traditional motifs into the church's design. While they have added Christianity to their religious practices, they have not necessarily given up their traditional faith either. It reminds us of the native Americans in the American Southwest. Personally, we find their open mindedness refreshing!

The Village's Catholic Church

The old bath....it erupted a few years ago

Our guide shows us steamed corn from one of the geysers

A Not-So-Frightening Maori Dancer

A Not-So-Frightening Maori Dancer

Showing Her Truer Nature

The Ham of the Group

North Island, New Zealand

We left Christchurch and headed for the North Island, passing through Kaikoura and Picton along the way. Though the capitol, Wellington, and the largest city, Auckland, are located on the North Island, we did not spend any time in these cities. We drove an amazingly narrow and curvy road through the Whanganui River valley. The scenery was beautiful and some of it was in the Lord of the Rings movies.

Approximately 90-95% of the Maori population lives on the North Island, so it was there that we got to re-experience Polynesian culture. Below are some pictures from the Koriniti Marae. After traipsing through geo-thermal fields, we met up with our cruising friends, Andy and Rhian, on the east coast town of Napier, famous for its Art Deco buildings.

Catching up with fellow cruisers Andy and Rhian

Koriniti Meeting House

Carving Above the Door

Gravesite Outside the Marae.
Leaving food is common; this is the first time we saw beer.

The Whanganui River

Hydro-power is an important source of energy.
Waterfalls like this are why.

Landscapes change quickly in NZ.
We went from mountain to lumps in minutes.

A Geo-thermal Field

It's Serious Business

Black Swans

NZ Ferry

The easiest way to travel between the North and South Islands is by taking the ferry. The South Island ferry port is the small town of Picton, which has a lovely bay and marina and about 2 square blocks of shops and restaurants. While picking up some groceries there, I ran into a Dutch couple whom we met while cruising in Tahiti. They were spending the cyclone season in New Zealand, as most Pacific cruisers do, and were passing through Picton on holiday. The cruising world is certainly small!

The ferries carry pedestrian passengers, vehicle travelers like us, truckers, and......SHEEP. At one time sheep out numbered humans in New Zealand by 8 to 1. Today that ratio is down to about 5 to 1, as the country has expanded its cattle industry and tried to diversify its economy.

Picton Bay

Ready for Departure.

There were more sheep on our ferry than people.

Christchurch's Earthquake

We arrived in Christchurch the day after the February 22, 2011 earthquake.  Ours was the second plane to land at the airport (it had been closed after the quake); the Taiwanese Search and Rescue Team was also on our flight.  It made for an interesting baggage claim as all their gear was in large orange crates.  We arrived to an airport full of people in shock.  Most were tourists trying to get out; many having to go to Wellington to get new passports before leaving the country.  Ceiling tiles were on the floor, but it mostly looked intact.  Nets placed under the glass ceiling seemed to have been in place from the earlier earthquake in September 2010.

Our hostel was just outside the heavily damaged Central Business District.  The hostel was an old jailhouse and all the guests had left.  A chimney was crumpled and the right side of the building was off limits.  As we were picking up a camper van early the next morning, the management let us stay for the night (about 7 hours), but we stayed on the upper floor and kept our heavy steel door propped open, just in case the aftershocks got dramatic.  It was a restless night.  We experienced a 4.6 aftershock at the rental agency, waiting to pick up our van the following morning....that was as close to an earthquake as I hope we ever get.

We seriously considered canceling our trip, but had non-refundable airline tickets and had paid a hefty deposit on our camper van, which would enable us to be outside of the disaster zone.  Since our flight was not cancelled, we brought some bottled water and hopped on the plane. Once on the South Island, we considered sticking around Christchurch, and offering our assistance.  After hearing authorities urge everyone to leave town if they could (to keep the roads clear and minimize demands on the devastated water and sewer systems), we headed out to explore the islands.  

We're very glad we got the chance to see New Zealand, but the heart breaking losses of the earthquake permeated every aspect of our visit.  To add insult to terrestrial injury, a few days before leaving NZ, the earthquake and tsunami in Japan occurred.  As for everyone at home, it was heart wrenching to watch the television coverage.  We left NZ feeling a bit vulnerable as we headed back to our seemingly small boat and the vagaries of natural forces and oceans.

Below are some pictures we took in the Christchurch area.  Most are self explanatory.

The grey matter is liquifaction; sand and silt that boiled up from underground.

There is a woman in a yellow jacket on top of this pile of rubble, obviously going through it  looking for something.  Given the state of this rubble, we think this was the result of the September 2010 earthquake.