Back to Nelson

We've actually been back in Nelson for over three months now and have finally just gotten the blog up to date! So what've we been up to these days?

Well...

After recovering from our awesome road trip...

It was back to work for us! I returned to my job at the front desk working my regular hours for the first month. As peak season is now over, my job has since been on an “on-call” basis. Andy, however, has been busy with new projects. The main one he is currently working on is building a new website for the Maitai.

Also... remember back in December when we upgraded from our tent to a trailer? About a week after we returned to Nelson, Carol decided to move us into a cabin! With winter coming, she figured it would be warmer for us. Additionally, it is closer to the communal kitchen and toilets and comes with a comfier bed and a larger fridge. Definite upgrade!

Home sweet home

In other news, it is officially winter now here in New Zealand with June being a particularly cold and wet month. Our days of jandal-wearing are over and we are finding ourselves bundled up in the warmest attire we can muster (not saying much). That being the case, as Andy is finishing up this last project, we are beginning to plan our trip back stateside! We still have lots to do, but our flights have been booked and we will be back in Seattle in exactly one month! Can't wait to see everyone when we get back :)

Gold Fever: Part III - Louis Creek

After an eight hour drive from Moeraki, we spent the last night of our trip at Kawatiri Junction (about an hour south of Nelson). The next morning, we were on our way to Louis Creek for one more hit of gold fever. We were pretty tired at this point and, if you can believe it, didn't take any pictures... It was quite an adventure though.

Initially, we planned to go panning at New Creek, but a sign for the road it was on told us that it was unmaintained and that any vehicle without four wheel drive should not make the attempt. In fact, we got stuck just trying to turn around. After dislodging the van, we made it to the road for Louis Creek and were met with a similar but less dire warning (4WD needed in wet conditions). But after crossing a ford, and anxious to start panning, we went for it.

Part of the road was cut into the bedrock and Jasmine described the drive in her journal as a terrifying real-life Indiana Jones ride. Although it wasn't muddy, there were huge grooves in the road that had to be avoided at all costs. When we got to a point where I could safely pull over, we did. Up ahead of us was a bridge over a ditch. Wide tracks were filled with water and I felt we had pushed our luck enough. We decided to continue on foot.

I'm glad we stopped. Crossing that little bridge was a muddy affair and I don't want to think about what would have happened if we got stuck. Luckily we weren't far from the trail-head and after a few minutes we were panning for gold. A few hours later, we were ready to call it a day after processing one last bucket. This was when I found a monster flake:

OK, so it isn't the mother of all nuggets but compared to my first speck (on the right) it is massive!

I credit Jasmine as my good luck charm as she was the one who collected that bucket. We headed back to Nelson and took some time to relax. A week or so later, the gold bug still had ahold of me. I returned to Louis Creek on my own. This time I parked at a nearby campground and hiked in. While I didn't find anything on the scale of my big find (probably due to leaving behind my lucky charm), I still had fun.

As winter rolls around and my duties at camp have started to pick up, I am done panning for awhile. Panning for gold is a lot of hard work and cannot be considered profitable. In the end, it is really just about getting out into nature and learning about geology.

Here is my 'pile', maybe $1-2 worth of the good stuff. To me, it is priceless.

Behold! The Moeraki Boulders

As we left Dunedin, we decided to wrap up our trip and make our way back to Nelson. We just had one more item left on our must-see list: the boulders at Moeraki Beach. About an hour north of Dunedin, these giant spheres are really impressive. Geologists believe they were formed over millions of years. Maori tradition explains that these rocks are debris (eel baskets, gourds, and sweet potatoes) turned to stone from when the Āraiteuru, a mythical ship that brought the Maori's ancestors to the South Island, ran aground a few miles south. The Āraiteuru itself became a reef off the point of land in the background. Either way, they are really cool and a lot of fun to take pictures of!

It was a wet and windy day so trying to strike a pose on one particularly smooth rock proved to be quite a challenge:

In the effort, my shoes, already on their last legs, were sacrificed to the mud and stone. But in the end it was totally worth it:

Note: It is much easier when you have someone who can just lift you on to the rock.

We enjoyed the Moeraki Boulders so much we wanted to take one home with us...

...Needless to say we didn't make it very far and had to leave it behind.

Climbing the World's Steepest Street

After growing up around some pretty healthy hills and skiing some pretty steep slopes I was a little skeptical of the title that Baldwin Street claims. While not as steep as some of the slopes I have been on, it is an almost unreal experience that pictures just cant do justice. Here I compare it to a hill that some kids (and most adults) in my old neighborhood are afraid to sled down in the winter:

187th Street in Kenmore, Washington	Baldwin Street in Dunedin, Otago

It is hard to tell from the pictures so it is easy to get the idea that Baldwin Street isn't that steep. But trust me, it is! Having hiked up 187th Street a number of times, it pales in comparison to the climb here in Dunedin. We were not in a big hurry to bust our chops so we took our time and had a bit of fun taking pictures on the way up:

Once you reach the "summit" you can't help but feel a smug sense of accomplishment:

At the top there were some more opportunities to continue our wacky photo-shoot. I deeply regretted not bringing something to roll down the hill. I think something on the safe side like a ping-pong ball would have been alright but my imagination was dreaming of a physics experiment involving yoga balls and all the spheres used in professional sports (including bowling and pool). In want for something to roll, I decided to use my body. I didn't make it far before losing my nerve:

Each year Cadbury rolls thousands of coin-size chocolate balls down the hill for charity: youtube.com:'baldwin jaffa race'

And like any proper tourist trap, there is a souvenir shop where you can get a certificate to commemorate your achievement:

Be doubly sure they know how to spell your name!

Stay tuned as we start the return leg of our journey back to Nelson.

Touring Cadbury World

Let me preface this by saying that our expectations were ridiculously high. I imagined frolicking in a room made entirely of edible treats and had the tune from “Pure Imagination” running in my head upon arrival.

Andy put it this way: “You go there expecting to find something on the scale of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. You end up experiencing something a bit more down to earth, but it is still interesting to see the industrial production process...”

With that said, here was our experience:

Only a couple blocks from the Octagon, the white Cadbury building with its purple accents was easy to find. At first I thought we must be at the back of the building, but soon realized that this facade was the actual entrance:

Underwhelmed by the exterior, we entered the building to discover that the inside was an entirely different story! We were immediately dazzled by a golden mountain of sugar-infested goodies and moving animatronics. To the left was a giant chocolate bunny and straight ahead was a retail shop stocked full of Cadbury treats.

To the right was the visitor center which we were eager to explore, but were quickly whisked away by our tour guide: an older gentleman in a purple hat and overalls. Our tour was about to begin!

We were led into a back room with a group of about 20 others, and given small bags of chocolate to munch on while we watched a short dvd about the history of chocolate and the beginnings of Cadbury. Afterwards, we were led outside through a back door where we had to store all of our belongings into lockers (unfortunately, we weren't allowed to bring cameras with us on this tour).

We were shown a few of the old Cadbury trucks and taken into a separate building where we walked up and down stairs and through a number of white corridors, stopping every now and then to watch a short video on a tv screen or to learn how chocolate was made through visual diagrams on the walls. Throughout the tour, we would be quizzed on what we learned from the initial dvd and rewarded with even more chocolate!

There were a few highlights on this tour. Towards the end, we got to see a few of the machines they used to create their confections and also to sample some of their fresh liquid chocolate (so good!). And of course we saw the chocolate waterfall (or “chocolate fall” as they call it). If you ever wondered what one ton of liquid chocolate looks like (falling down 5 stories), this is the place to be. :)

At the end of the tour, we retrieved our belongings and were able to get a few pictures of some of the attractions out in the courtyard:

We then took the opportunity to browse the visitor's center, which honestly was the best part of Cadbury World, in my opinion. There were a few samples to try (i.e. raw cocoa beans) and a number of rooms and sets to walk through, each one filled with interesting information about chocolate and its evolution over the years. This area reminded us of the Small World ride at Disneyland ("...without the awful soundtrack" -Andy):

All in all, the tour wasn't bad- it just wasn't all we expected it to be. Part of that could've been that we were there on a Saturday and had to go with the shortened 45-minute tour, which did not include the factory/manufacturing area (the full 75-minute tour that allowed you to see the machines in action unfortunately did not operate on weekends). A bigger part was most likely that we came in with unrealistic expectations (where are the oompa loompas??).

Maybe we didn't see a colorful room full of edible plants and mushrooms or ride in a boat on a chocolate river... but we did learn a lot about the history of chocolate and were left with tasty treats to last us the long journey home!

Dunedin: My favorite big city in New Zealand

We are getting close to the end of our trip! Located on the east coast, Dunedin was the last city on our must-see list. Although I mentioned once that I was not a fan of big cities, I have to say, I was close to changing my mind when we first arrived...

After a long morning of driving, we had finally made it to the 2^nd largest city on the South Island. At first, it looked very much like Seattle- big gray buildings and huge confusing roads. But as we followed our GPS towards the city centre, we were met with this:

Dunedin Town Hall and St Paul's Cathedral

Known as the Edinburgh of New Zealand due of its Scottish heritage, Dunedin is characterized by its historic buildings and we were blown away by the amazing architecture we found in and around the city centre.

Robert Burns statue (a Scottish poet) in front of Dunedin Town Hall, and the First Church of Otago

Dunedin Railway Station (the 2nd most photographed building in the Southern Hemisphere, after the Sydney Opera House)

Law Courts across the street from the railway station

To add even more character to this interesting city, Dunedin's city centre isn't even a square, as you might expect, but an octagon. “The Octagon” is surrounded by interesting buildings (as seen above) and a number of busy cafes:

It is naturally a lively area, but seems to be a particularly popular hangout spot for college students. This makes sense, as the University of Otago (New Zealand's first university) is nearby.

When it came to deciding what to do here, we had to consider both our limited funds and our limited energy (By this point in the trip, we were all but spent, figuratively and literally speaking). Should we visit Larnach Castle (the only castle in New Zealand) or see the yellow-eyed penguins on the Otago Peninsula? Museum or Art Gallery? Beer tour (Speights Brewery) or chocolate tour (Cadbury World)? And then there were the many beaches to choose from...

When it came down to it, the castle was too expensive and the penguins were too far. We'd seen many museums, art galleries, and beaches already during our time here in New Zealand. I'm not much of a beer drinker and, if you can believe it, Andy is a bigger chocoholic than I am. In a nutshell, we went with Cadbury World!

From what we read online, Cadbury World is a must-see for any chocolate lover. The tour is very informative and includes free samples! One fan likened the experience to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory (complete with chocolate waterfall). With a description like that, how could we resist?!

Check back to see if our experience lived up to all the hype!