Philip Island

Now, I know it's been far too long since the last update and being its Christmas time it's probably even worse.  But The good new is, we're still having an amazing time and still making our way further and further each day along what's becoming a more familiar world. 

  We've  been moving north east from Melbourne since the 13th of December and now just days before Christmas we found a place to sleep just north west of Sydney.  That's what we've been doing every night, finding a place to stay along the way. It's another trick  we learned from some savvy travelers and it's been saving us money and getting us off the tourist track every day since. We don't book ahead anymore, we just drive until we feel like stopping. Then find a safe and level place, usually away from noise and call it home for the night.  Most of the time we find other travelers doing the same but occasionally its just us, alone for miles and nothing but the oceans rhythm to sing us to sleep.  My favorite nights by far. 

Our little green and purple home  on wheels however hideous it looks has been great to us.  We can stop and eat, sleep or read whenever we wish and most of the time wherever.  It's small enough to waddle around in cities and though Juicy rental company should never know this it's been off road just a littler for a good camping spot or two. 

From Melbourne we took the the A420 south until it runs into the Bass Strait, over a small bridge  on the B420 to the end of Phillip Island!  It's not a very big island so we explored it and found a spot overlooking a surf beach to read, have lunch, take a nap and just do nothing before heading to the watch the Penguin Parade.  Ever night just after sunset little patches of penguins waddle up to their colonies after being out at sea fishing for weeks at a time.  For hours emerging from the break in little groups, finding the way to the certain main paths they all take one group at a time then branching off one by one. The babies waiting patiently in their little nests amongst the colony of other waiting penguinos, literally come charging down at the adults begging to be fed.  The adults only feed their own babes and no one else's so unfortunately if one of them doesn't make it back, the babe has to learn to swim and fish quickly, or die.  

This specific colony holds only 6,000 of the 70,000 Little Penguins found all over Philip Island, and that number is low compared to the masses that occupied the island before locals and tourists started trampling the nests to get to beaches and penguin watch.  Over the years more conservation works been put in place and now you can watch all the action from boardwalks at this specific spot. 

We get there after dark and the stadium seating down to the beach was packed so we started up on the board walk above what looked like one the the main paths.  Turns out it was one right under our feet, so when they started ascending up and passed the people in the front/beach section they turned and came up right under the boardwalk where we were standing. Incredible.  There was a little fella charging down at every single group coming up, squawking for food and almost tackling them! He definitely provided sufficient entertainment to make up for the over priced ticket.  It only got better. 

Once the people cleared from the stands and beach up to the board walk, made our way down, all the way to the beach. With no one around we crouched down and waited for the group coming up ahead to pass by us.  Before long they were literally heading straight for us so as still as we could watched them waddle curiously within a foot of us on either side.  Surrounded by Little Penguins, the smallest of the penguin species found in Australia and New Zealand.  The park ranger watching from behind said they rarely do that even with them.  They were closing up or I would have stayed and tried my luck for another close encounter.  Though it was a pricey ticket it was well worth it with experiences like that!

We slept that night at a beach access in a small town on the west side of the island with another van and station wagon camper. With the beach just behind us we fell asleep and woke to the sound of waves again.  That morning I met a Dutch couple with the van on my way down to the beach.  On their way down from Cairns to Melbourne in three months, also only on the island for one night. They provided great tips on must sees and don't bothers along the way and even offered a place to stay in the Netherlands.  They live south of Amsterdam a few hrs where he's a chef too in what they described to be  a very laid back city compared to Amsterdam.   They had also had a green Juicy van through New Zealand so had tricks and tips for improving the not so wonderful features of the thing.  

Philip Island has two wineries so we dropped into one for a tasting on our way out, a quick stop at the chocolate factory and a look at the seals from The Nobbies and then back over the bridge and on to the next spot...

Photos working from Australia

There is a link to the right below "Picasa" for maps and photos that is working and has most of our trip photos to date available for view. We'll be using this site most from now on due to the convenience factor mostly. Hope you like it as much as we do and p,ease feel free to ask questions since we too are still learning about it.

We made it to Melbourne, Australia safely and just picked up our campervan/home for the next month or so. It's hideous and screams tourist but, on a budget it turned out to be the most economical option for us. So, clad in purple and lime green (we'll show pics at some point) we'll hit the road tomorrow for our very long journey up to cairns where we hope to do some scuba diving along the Great Barrier Reef. Many stops along the way to see more "new" family in Sydney and take in the Aussie scenes along the east coast of this huge country! We made a wonderful new friend in Queenstown who's from Brisbone who invited us to stay with him for a couple days and enjoy his city so it's on the itin now as well.
We continue to meet incredible people along the way, some of which we're sure to stay in contact with for the rest of our lives. We're blessed to come accross truly dinamic and wonderfully lovely people.


Love you all and appreciate your gifts of love and support!

Fate by the heart of wine

We wake up in Te Anau and ask ourselves having no set plans for the day. Do we hike and then return to Queenstown on the last day with the rental, or do we drive past Queenstown to do a little wine touring for the day? Not a clear choice but since we'll be back in this area on a bus for Milford Sound tour we decide on the wine.

About two hours and a few stops to throw rocks in the lake later we're in New Zealand's southern wine country.  Instead of stopping at the first one we see we decide to drive all the way into central Otago and then make our way back stopping where we feel out of the dozens of wineries.  Finally at the end of the paved road in Bannockburn we pull off into the Felton Winery which welcomes us in for a free tasting. That's nice since we're quite used to having to pay for tastings in California.  She brings out the Pinot Noir they're known for, a bright Chardonnay we both  really enjoy and a Vin Gris I had never tried before.  It's a Pinot grape without the skins in barrel so it's a white with the slightest hue of peach.  They only make this vintage every few years when they need the extra skins for the Pinot Noir and are left with skinless grapes.  The result is a pleasant mix of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir with almost a Champagne flavor without  the bubbles. Refreshing!

While continuing onto the Riesling and asking her more questions than she probably bargained for she ended up taking us to the actual fermentation tanks and barrel caves filled with French oak and that oh so lovely aroma that comes with them.  She was wonderful and we thought our selves so lucky to have walked in without appointment and had such a beautiful experience.  with wine list in hand and smiles on our faces we were excited for our next adventure.

As we were pulling out we noticed a couple of signs for wineries down the dirt road and we both decided we'd see what we could find off the beaten or in this case paved track.  Apprehensively we pulled in next to what looked like a shed and parked the car by the Labrador sleeping in the shade on this surprisingly hot dry day.  We walked toward the "tasting" sign and went in.  The sign read Desert Heart as we entered this very rustic and simple building decorated with all sorts of elegant and ornate hearts.  A nice lady said hello from the office and stepped out to greet us and once she knew what we wanted she started bringing out the wines. Thanks to the wine writer who had been there the previous day we had before us a longer than normal line-up of their wines including an award winning Pinot from '08.

While working our way from whites to red conversation turned to Hawaii which sparked her right up since in a recent trip to Singapore she met for lunch with some Fellow NZ friends who had just returned from a wine rep. trip to HI.  They had told her of a meeting with a sommelier from "an upscale" restaurant that they raved over and suggested she send him a bottle of wine.  So she sent her bottle to man  she has never met in hopes they might carry her wine.  She continued on with her story very  happy to speak of her travels and experiences.  Following the urge to ask her the name of the restaurant, since Craig had worked at one of the "upscale" restaurants in HI she went to look up the name she had already forgotten.  Craig told her the name of the Sommelier on her way and within a minute or so she came out with a huge smile.  The name of the restaurant was Alan Wong's after all and she had sent the bottle to Mark who Craig knows all too well and will be emailing soon about her wine and our experience with it.   We couldn't believe the the fate that would bring us all the way to this winery tucked away on a dirt road in the valley of central Otago.

We must have spend an hour or more there just chatting and sharing her especially good wine!  She poured us a full glass of the award winner and showed us around her property she bought and cultivated only about 10 years ago.   Most of the wineries in NZ are young in comparison to some of the bigger wine regions of the world but I have to say the majority of the wines we've tried here have been excellent.
She sold us a bottle of here Saignee Rose for a remarkable discount and sent us on our way with lots of love and well wishes.  We left smiling and happy once again for allowing fate to take us on a perfect journey.

This has become our way of doing most things in life and it's working just fine.  We don't plan much too far in advance, allowing the moment to present itself and it more often than not flows right into perfect moments like this one.  Of course there are the moments that don't work out as well and then we just laugh at ourselves and move on.   Some times the frustration takes hold but in the end we're always smiling about it and learning from the many lessons we're learning together.  Life is good to us and we're so blessed to be experiencing it i this unique way!

In our Queensland "home" on the hill overlooking the lake and what they call the Southern Alps for good reason we read and shared our lovely bottle of Rose before heading down to our tent.  What a perfect way to end such a magical day!

   

Abel Tasmen our way!

3 days of kayak, hiking and camping along the Northern Coast of the Southern Island of New Zealand  has been the highlight of our trip thus far.
Most of the Abel Tasmen National Park is only accessible by boat, kayak or hiking in so we chose to do a little of all to get the full experience in the short 3 days we had set aside for it.

Starting at the Southern most tip of the park we kayaked north to a bay called Anchorage where we would camp for the night.  Along the way we stopped at several small beaches, bays and lagoons, some of which you an only access by kayak at high tide  not allowing boats enough depth.  One of the coves wasn't even accessible by hike trail so if you can imagine it's still fairly "untouched".

The only people on this entire beach. 

Magic has been a word i've used frequently to explain the things we're seeing and doing in this stunning country.  This leg was magical in many senses for the scenery and for the way we're choosing to see and take it all in.  Craig and I clearly love beaches and being on the water in any sort of vessel so being just a couple of feet from the water paddling our way with the current was somewhat of an ideal for both of us.  Even when some seals from a nearby island were playing only 30 feet from us and we both felt a little scared it was still our kind of thrill.  You see it's mating season for the seals at the moment so the males get very territorial and have been known to tip kayaks over for getting too close to their females. Hence the reason we stayed relatively far from the breading islands just off shore from the park.  But they decided instead to get close to us.  

I dream that one day it's our boat in that bay. 

The penguins however are harmless and quite cute to see playing around or swimming along close by.  Cruising along with a favorable wind, sticking my hand in the passing water reflecting the ozone-less sun onto my skin is a piece of heaven to me. Especially having the lush bush and jagged rocks watching us pass by them and enjoying life on the move.  ahh, if only words could truly describe how lovely it really is here.  Theres a certain love that vibrates from the earth in a different way i've ever felt, maybe similar to Hawaii but still it's own kind altogether.

Day 2 of kayaking we left it along a beach for a scheduled pick-up as we moved on by foot up the slopes and over to the next valley where we'd set up tent for out last night in the park.  After crossing the desert of ocean at low tide covered with all sorts of shells crunching under our feet, over another hill and down we arrived at the beach camp where we set up camp.  Only having 2 other tents in the whole site was a very welcome change from the thousands of hoodlums  in the last site.  We pitched the tent and took our snacks and books down to the beach for a little evening shell hunt and walk along the beach for sunset again.  It's cold here at nights but the beach is always worth bundling up for.  

For dinner we made a fire which we shared with a nice local couple just enjoying the park for the weekend.  That night we fell asleep to the sounds of waves and woke in the morning to birds chirping all around us.  A perfect day for hiking farther north just passed the beach where we'd be picked up by the last water taxi of the day. Then  back for lunch and our "rescue" ride home on a fast boat passing all the places we'd stopped and played the past days.  A much needed shower awaited us with our car and a nice hot meal of Ramen and veggies.  I went to bed smiling at the opportunity we had to experience nature and the wild in such a special.


 Love life!