Bavaria Day 5, bumming around Munich

On our last day in town, If we did nothing else, we only wanted to do one thing for sure, and that was catch the glockenspiel. We slept in, did a little shopping at the Aldi, and then made our way down to the Marienplatz. We got there pretty early, so we had time to wander around the victualien markt. Picture the best farmers market you've ever been to with an amazing assortment of local and imported vegetables and fresh fish, cheeses and meats and all kinds of interesting stuff. We wandered back into Marienplatz just in time to grab watch the show and catch up with Dave. We grabbed some lunch at the Nordsee and then were ready to go hit the museum circuit. My original plan was to hit alte pinakotek and the the Deutsches Museum, but alas, I hadn't noticed that alte pinakotek is closed on Mondays. Good thing too, because we spent 4 hours in the Deutsches Museum and saw less than a quarter of it in any meaningful detail. The good news is most of it has descriptions of things in English and German. If I were you, I'd avoid the mining section unless you are fluent, because it is a really really really long section with very little translation. After the museum we stopped back in Marienplatz to do some shopping at the very insane Kaufhof. I'm not sure if it was the time we were there or what, but it was absolutely crazy busy, and the heat must have been turned up to 70 degrees. It made it hard to buy anything despite the fact they had much of the stuff we were looking for. It didn't help that I was lugging around a giant box full of Weihnachtspyramide. I had fallen in love with them on my first visit and had been pricing them out the entire trip, and had finally found the best prices from among the 3 seperate markets that I'd visited. After loading up on some more chocolate, we grabbed a train back to the hotel. I'm not sure how I always end up traveling during rush hour carrying a giant box, but I manage to do it about every other trip. We met back up with Dave and Kathy and wandered out to grab some dinner. Today was the big day to visit the Hofbrau. We had a wonderful dinner there and enjoyed the delicious beer (some of us a little too much) and then wandered back to the hotel. The flights on W's employer turned into garbage, so we ended up taking the mid day flight the next morning on a partner airline. I didn't love ther business class seat, it got almost flat, but was still at an angle that made you feel like you were constantly sliding out of it. They did give us a really cool lindt advent calender (mine wasn't quite this fancy, but close) that I enjoyed every day since then. Their entertainment was cool, and I even got to see the Knut the polar bear movie. It is definitely worth watching. Best part of the flight: the house gin is Bombay Saffire. The rest of the pictures are here, Enjoy!

Bavarian Winter Wonderland

Bavaria Day 4, Riding the Rails to Nurnberg

Another Early morning on our 4th day found us once agian on the DB headed for Nurnberg. Word association always leads me to Nurnberg trials, but it's reputed to have a really fabulous Christmas market, and we intended to go find out for sure. The Train drops you off a short distance from the Alstadt, and we took a brisk walk through town, trying to make it in time to see Nurnberg's Glockenspiel. We were bombarded with candy shops and Gluhwein and Nurnberger sausages and Lieb Kuchen along the way, and made it just in time to stare up into the huge clock tower to see it's slightly dissapointing clockworks. But it's one of the things you're supposed to do when you're there, and we were happy to oblige. The Christmas Market itself was a lot of fun, and we even found an official Christmas Market Beer.



Even more interesting were the sister city stalls, with some representatives from Atlanta. They had oreos, a jack daniels punch, and little bulldogs and yellow jackets to sell. ( you can assume I did not buy, or go talk football). We were headed off to see the Kaiserburg when we got distracted by by the beauty of St Sebalduskirche. We stopped in to take a gander and while there realized there was an english walking tour that we really should consider. Unfortunately at this point my trusty camera started to misbehave, and I started to imagine life with a new camera. While we were waiting for the walking tour of Nurnberg to start I tried changing the battery, which reset the camera date and made the order of my pictures wacky, but did lead to the camera actually functioning properly again. I wasn't sure whether or not to be dissapointed by that.
The tour Makes stops at a museum, a delicious looking friedp potato stand at the market,the Kaiserburg, a leper colony turned student dorm and the Albrecht Dürer haus. Along the tour we saw a really great looking bakery that W and I stopped into grabbed a coffee and dessert and ended up sitting at a table right next to some other people on the tour who had the same idea. We met back up with Dave and Kathy, and decided to take a tour of the Frauenkirche, which promised an overhead view of the christmas market. Unfortunately the tour was in German only, but we tolerated it for the Balcony trip payoff. We were not dissapointed by the views.

We were then ready to wander off and find a little dinner, and we stumbled upon the best find in town. Inside a door that seems too short for people and down a steep flight of stone steps is the most charming little restaurant perhaps in all of Bavaria. If you're in Nurnberg, you absolutely must visit Nassauer Keller. It would have been a great restaurant for the atmosphere alone, but then the food arrives. We found it quite accidently and were greatly rewarded for bravely climbing down the stairs. After dinner, we once again climbed on the train and made our way back to munich.
We climbed right into bed anxiously awaiting sleeping in a little the next day and just bumming around Munich. And here's this picture, for no other reason than I love churches at night.

Bavaria Day 3 Living out Fairy Tale Dreams

On our third day we rose early again and made our way over to the train station to make the 2 and a half hour ride from Munich to Fussen. We found some good seats on the train and settled in for the trip. We'd brought along some coffee, and packed our standard German breakfast for the ride. We even met a nice young couple to talk to, she was doing an internship at the Hofbrau (Jealous!!!!).
We were on our way to see to of Germany's most famous castles, Schloss Neuschwanstein and Schloss Hohenschwangau. We were working from the Lonely Planet Bavaria and the Black Forest Guide, and it walks you through the process pretty well. Get off the train, catch the bus to Schwangau, walk to the ticket booth buy your tickets to both castles, and enjoy. The tickets you buy are for a specific time, so we got ourselves a little cushion and stopped in for a little lunch at the Hotel Mueller nearby . We then marched up the hill to Hohenschangau and took some pictures, and then went in for our tour. Unfortunately they don't allow pictures inside, because the furnishings and decorations are as fancy as you might expect of monarchal spending gone wild. Especially impressive are the wedding gifts given to the castle's inhabitants, they are truly the answer to what do you give the couple who has everything. After the first tour, we wandered down and got in line for the horse drawn carriage ride to Neuschwanstein. We were afraid the timing would be a little tight, but the carriage ride only takes about to minutes, and it is a long way up hill for tired tourists. The best Karmic retribution of the day came when we watched people who were in line behind us practically run us over running up to the front seat of the carriage so they could sit in what they thought were the best seats, and they probably were nice seats, until the horses took a little bathroom break about half way through the journey. The finished parts of Neuchwanstein are absolutely amazing (it was never completed due to Ludwig's mysterious death during construction), and our tour group (70 strong) was big enough that lots of people were snapping pictures while the guide wasn't looking but I chose to take the rule abiding position and just enjoy the sights for myself. After the tour we had a drink at the cafe and sat down to watch the little movie about the life of Ludwig II. Unfortunately for us the power went out right when it was getting good, and it was closing time so we'll just be left to wonder. By the time we were done, the carriages had stopped running so we took the walk downhill on our own. That did give us time to shoot some pictures on the way down. We then made our way back to the bus stop where we had to wait for what seemed like forever on a night that was getting to be quite cold.We grabbed a bite to eat in Fussen at a restaurant not really worth mentioning and then made the train ride all the way back to Munich, there was some heavy napping along the way, and when we arrived back in munich we decided to try one of the many Kebab shops nearby. The food there was tasty, and just enough to fill us up for sleepy time. After this day we really could live happily ever after.

Bavaria, Day 2 Remembering a dark time for humanity

On our first day we'd paid a visit to the Aldi to buy some bread and some meat and cheese, so we could start day 2 with a delicious German breakfast. We were up early, and headed for Dachau to visit the concentration camp. The S-bahn ride takes about 25 minutes, and then you catch a bus out to the concentration camp. For such a serious activity, the bus was filled with english speaking tourists.

We got there just a touch too late to see the documentary movie in english, which I suspect probably contains the most sobering images. We spent the 2 Euro on the self directed audio guide and bundled up tight to walk around the groounds. I'd been to the Holocaust museum in St. Petersberg Fl, and one of the things I remembered most about that experience was they actually wanted you to reach out and touch the railcar they have on display because it adds an extra sense to your experience. As much as was physically possible I reached out and tried to touch the items on display. In the warmth of a St. Pete summer day, it's hard to imagine the stark coldness of a winter day in a concentration camp at Dachau. From the creaky opening of the wrought iron gate, to the harshness of the cement walls, there are not enough adjectives to describe the misery that must have been felt here. Hardest of all to imagine was the roll call on the wide open parade ground. The prisoner uniform didn't look nearly warm enough to make survival possible on this windsept open field where prisoners were forced to stand at attention rain or shine to be counted. The inscription on the gate says work will set you free, a propaganda play since Dachau was supoosed to be a re-education camp not a death camp or source of civilian labor. As you walk through the museum, you can't help but feel nauseated by the way people were denied their humanity for no apparent reason other than their place of birth or disagreement with Nazi ideals, not that any reason is ever good enough to treat any other human being like anything less than fully human. The tour includes a thorough museum, a reconstucted baracks where regular prisoners stayed and the original isolation cells. The Long dark hallway of the isolation cells still gives me a chill to relive, I can't imagine a worse place to live in constant fear. The final piece of our tour was the cremation/gas chamber area where what looked like a shower turned into death. The numbness you feel here is almost unbearable. We finally made our way back out tot the front gate, and took the bus back to the train station, ready to eat and ready to start enjoying the trip again. We just sort of started walking through downtown looking for a restauarant and discovered a cozy little place called Gasthaus Drei Rosen

It's off the beaten tourist path, but does have an english menu and the most wonderful Bavarian food. W had a ribeye with herbed butter that I'd still like to go back and get 3 more of, and I had the Allgäuer Käsetopf, Schweinelendchen auf Käsespätzle mit Rahmschwammerlund gemischtem Salat, Which is a pork chop seved over a pot of cheesy german noodles with a mixed green salad that was absolutely amazing. Have yourself a Lowenbau Dunkel (Dark) while you're here, and it will easily wash away some of your sadness. From there we had a few minutes to try to walk up the hill to get to Schloss Dachau before it closed. We didn't make it in time, but the Hofgarten behind it was still open, so we stopped to take some pictures and then spent some quality time at the Dachau Kristkindlemarkt and enjoyed a Gluhwein and watched some little angels parade in to open up the market. We grabbed the bus back to the train station and made our way back to Munich from there. After a brief respite at the hotel, we made our way out to the Spatenhaus for dinner. We ate more typical Bavarian fare, and snuck out with a few of the pretzels that they start you with (a to-go box is not a very common site in Germany). We arrived not really all that hungry and struggled mightily to put down a whole meal.

We then made our way to once again to the tollwood festival for a gluhwein and a dessert crepe I managed to get us a little lost on the U-bahn on the way there because there's a Theresenwiese station and a Theresenstasse station. After our gluhwein and dessert, we took the little stroll back to the hotel, we had another early morning to face the next day.

Grüß Gott Bayern

For the past couple of weeks I'd spent every spare moment sitting at a computer trying to cram as much German into my cluttered brain as was physically possible. It didn't go all that well, but for what we paid for our copy of Rosetta Stone, If I learned anything at all it would be worth it. Filled with a few German words and big dreams, we piled into a plane on Wednesday with travel buddies Dave and Kathy and made our way to Germany. W's employer has recently upgraded some of their vehicles, so we got to play with the new video games and on-demand movies that are available in Business class. You can play Tetris against another passenger, which turned out to be pretty cool or hold em against several others, but it wasn't working that well. Unfortunately for me, I was so entertained that I didn't sleep very much on the new lay flat seats and arrived nice and tired. We landed in Frankfurt, and decided we'd grab the short flight from there. On a 45 minute flight Lufthansa manages to get you a nice little meal in business class, and we were suddenly on the ground in munich. It's a 45 minute S-Bahn ride from the airport to the Hauptbanhopf (main train station), and only a short walk from there to our destination. We rested and freshened up at our hotel, The Courtyard Marriot Munich City Center. Not much of a view, and the service isn't spectacular, but it is only 2 blocks from Munich's Central train station. Plus, it's right next to a discount clothing store and an Aldi. The Kik is particularly handy if say you forgot to pack your long underwear and need something to stop your legs from freezing at night. After a little time for rest and a refreshing shower we wandered off to the train station and took the S-Bahn to Marienplatz. The Christmas market hadn't opened up yet, so we made our way to a restaurant that Tanta Rosita recommended for us. We sat down for dinner at Haxnbauer and had some really delicious roasted pork products. Kathy who had originally turned up her nose at the idea of pork knuckle but was a good sport and ordered it anyway. It was worth taking the risk. Dave had what turned out to be the best Weiner schnitzel of the trip. We enjoyed the first of many tasty beers, and had a really fabulous apple strudel for dessert. W and I dropped them back off at the hotel and made our first trip over to the Tollwood festival. On our visit last year we thought we'd just happened upon the timing of this festival, but it turns out it lasts most of December every year. We even recognized a rude crepe vendor from last year (we got our crepes elsewhere). No pictures the first day, except for the restaurant, we didn't see anything we hadn't seen on our first trip.

Trapped in the Office

Trapped in the Office
Originally uploaded by jrherron

Some days even a crappy mind numbing day at the office can lead to this view out our building's windows. Did mention how nice it is to live here?
Yeah.... I thought I did.

Yikes, a whole month!

My My.Yahoo page always shows me how long it's been since my last post, and I was a little alarmed this week to see that it had been a whole month since I'd stopped in to post. Trust me, you don't want to read about how I spent 12 hours in my cube being a spreadsheet jockey, that enriches neither your life or mine. So, what have I been up to lately? Well,I got myself nice and dressed up for Halloween, going as scrooge,trailed closely by 3 co-workers who were dressed as ghosts of products past, present and future. It was well received around the office, and landed my team and I the best group prize in our little competition. That got us all lunch at the San Francisco Soup Company, the place where most of my company's executives eat. Despite how busy we'd been at the office I still found time to get out and vote on November 4th, and for the most part I was pretty pleased with the results. In some movie I saw long ago, there was a fellow lightly complected brother who said that "one day light skinned brotha's would be back in style". (This was in those days where dark skinned bald headed guys with goatees were all the rage) It would appear at least for now, that the long promised day has arrived. I say I was pretty pleased because somehow a gay marriage ban made it through all the way on to the California state constitution. The fact is that a vote for yes means that you not only disagree with gay marriage, but that you think it's the state's responsibility to make sure that two people who love each other can't make a formal statement of that. I think those ought to be separate issues. I'm pretty sure we haven't heard the last one though. It's likely to be tied up in court forever, and even more likely to re-appear on a ballot at a later date. Oddly enough the gay Marriage ban passed, but parental notification for abortions did not. So it's quite possible that people got out and voted for one and not the other? Very strange indeed. I somehow managed to get older last week too, celebrating in style with friends at a restaurant I'm suddenly very passionate about: Betelnut in San Francisco. I'd heard good things about it, and it completely lived up to the hype. I don't know that I've ever had better fish than the Oven smoked seabass with ginger-cucumber namasu (order two, they're small, and you'll want more). We also had the Szeshuan style green beans that are even better than the famously delicious green beans that we had at the little restaurant across the street from the Lido Hilton Beijing. On Friday, we had a chance to check out a place on our side of the bay, Bellanico. Wine list: Great, Food: Awesome, Seating: a little tight, and kind of noisy, but really a cool neighborhood place. Desserts: Amazing. Over the weekend I watched another disappointing Saturday for my beloved Auburn Tigers.

Shrimp on a reef
Originally uploaded by jrherron

It's been a long season an has the potential to get much better or much worse with Alabama on the schedule in a week and a half. Today's awesome news, I might actually have a picture published in an online travel guide called Schmap. Needless to say I'm stoked. I'm "on the short list" so it's not final yet, but it's one of the few times someone who doesn't know me has actually thought my photography was worth while. It almost makes me a professional travel photographer (excluding the getting paid part...minor detail).

Day 12, Australia Again

On our first trip to Sydney two years ago, we were there just before the opening of the Sydney Wildlife World. This trip, that was our first priority. After a good nights sleep, we wandered our way over there, and sat down at the attached Lizard Lounge and had some breakfast. When we were buying our tickets we let them talk us into the Wildlife World and Sydney Aquarium combo pass, since we like a good aquarium anyway. We really enjoyed our trip to wildlife world, getting nice and close to koalas, hanging out with the butterflies, and getting uncomfortably close to creepy crawly bugs. Then we wandered over and played at the aquarium, mostly breezing through the exhibits since we'd been there before, and spent most of our time hanging out with the seals and at the big tank with the sharks in it. But we did find a really cool looking fish that I've renamed an Auburn Tigerfish. Next we took the subway to Bondi junction and grabbed a bus out to the beach. We tried to remember where we'd eaten before, but ended up finding ourselves an outside table at Papa Giovanni Pizzeria and Seafood. We had some tasty Calamari, and a four cheese pizza, along with a few beers. With a little lunch to keep us going, we then walked down to the beach to test the water, and decided we'd have to be crazy to get in it that cold. So we walked from Bondi down to Bronte beach, and caught the bus from there back to Bondi Junction. There we caught a bus to take us to Randwick for dinner at Bombay Bloomers. W met the owner a few years ago at work, and we've made a point to visit every time we're in town. So far it's still the best Indian food I've eaten in the world. We grabbed a bus back down to Circular Quay from there and then went out to explore The Rocks a little. We found the Observer Hotel and decided to sit down and have a pint, and listen to the live music there. W managed even to win our bar tab on the slots. We explored The Rocks a bit more then headed back to the room, worn out from a full day on the go in much hotter weather than we'd experienced just 48 hours before. The next morning we grabbed a little brekkie at City Extra, Which is seriously good food at an awesome location. You have to order something that gets you the fresh bread while you're there. It has what might be the best views in town, and it was fun to watch Sydneysiders shuffle on and off the ferries. Then it was time to get on our way, a quick cab ride to the airport, and on our way back home. A couple of first class seats and one of the nicest domestic based crews I've ever flown with were waiting for us at the airport, and we even managed to pick up a few bottles of a delicious aussie wine we'd had on the flight in from Queenstown. It was a great end to a trip, and a quick transition to being back at the office. To catch up with the entirety of the photographic experience be sure to see:

New Zealand 1 (Auckland to Huka Falls)

nz part 2 (Huka Falls to Queenstown)

NZ Part 3 (Doubtful sound to Sydney)

Day 11, Crossing the Tasman

Finally the time had arrived to bid farewell to New Zealand, we packed up all of our stuff got in the car once again and made our way downtown. We had a very delicious final lunch at Fergberger (site works poorly in some browsers) . I had the little lamby and wished I had discovered it earlier in the trip, I might have eaten one every day. Yes, that does mean I held a baby lamb one day and had a lamb burger the next, but... circle of life. Then we reluctantly went to the airport, and bid adieu to our faithful rental car companion. Be warned that rental car dropoff is a long hike from the terminal across an unpaved lot, not easy to manage with lots of overstuffed luggage. We were disheartened to hear about a canceled Qantas flight as soon as we got on the terminal, but fortunately it was an Auckland flight. When we checked in they asked us to wait nearby, a familiar tactic if they're not sure you're going to get on. The weather was lousy, and they frequently weight restrict the flight, so it was a little touch and go. Eventually they did give us 2 exit row seats, so we were glad, and hustled through the terminal out to the plane. The flight from Queenstown to Sydney is only 3 hours, but we still got surved a hot lunch (we both went with the lamb casserole) and got a little bottle of wine that we really enjoyed. (there was no charge for the wine either). The dessert was the best part, because just when I thought we weren't getting a dessert, out comes a flight attendant with a Streets Magnum Chocolate Ice Cream bar for everyone. Best. coach. class. dessert. Ever. We arrived in Sydney after watching Get Smart, and needed to figure out some way to get to our hotel. We also had to bypass the very tempting tax/duty free store that you are forced to walk through. We found a shuttle service to hotels for only $13AU per person, which seemed much easier than navigating the train and then walking with our bags, or overpaying for a cab. We set ourselves up at the Sydney Harbour Marriott Hotel at Circular Quay. Our room was awesome, and we got a view of the harbour and opera house without having to spend an arm and a leg. After our somewhat stressful day at the airport, and 2 weeks of hustling we were ready to spoil ourselves a little bit so we stayed in to eat at the hotel. The Seafood buffet on the weekends is incredible. We splurged on the buffet our last trip to Sydney when we stayed at the Hyde Park Marriott, so we knew it would be good, but this was above and beyond even that. There was tons of fresh sashimi, balmain bugs as far as the eye could see, crab legs, and lots of lots and other choices. There was even someone preparing noodle dishes to order. The range of Desserts available was like nothing I have ever seen. But those are not even the most important features. The real maker of this deal was the wine buffet. $24AU for pour your own from a selection of 4 local reds 4 local whites and a sparkling. Between wine and sashimi, we more than got our money's worth. Stuffed, we rolled ourselves back to our room and crashed.

Day 10, Down on the farm

The tenth day was our final full day in New Zealand, so we had to make it count. We started the day with a bit of laundry, and then we were ready to find some breakfast. We found a little mall food court and sat down to eat at the Sagun Cafe and Indian Cuisine our waitress for the morning was a very nice lady who we correctly gussed was from Brazil, she chatted with us for a while about what to visit in Brazil, and where she'd been in Florida, and how it was perhaps time to start using her masters degree. We wandered around a bit downtown, and then it was time for our Water Peak Farm & Barbeque Excursion. We had spent the previous 8 days seeing sheep at every turn, so it was finally time to get up close and personal. We spent about 45 minutes cruising across lake wakitipu, landed on the farm and dug right in to a delicious lunch of grilled meats (including lamb) and they had a nice selection of cheeses for dessert. Then we went over to watch a sheepdog and shearing demonstration, where we finally got W her opportunity to hold on to a little lamb. The sheepdog demonstration was cool, they have two types of dogs, some that bark, and some that just use eye contact to move the sheep. In this case we saw the "eye" dog. After that they had a spinning demonstration, and not long after that it was time to head back on the boat. We sailed over on the TSS Earnslaw a fully functional coal steamship, where you can look down into the engine, and see a guy down there with a shovel and a big pile of coal. We had a short turn around back in Queenstown for a charter fishing trip. We fished with Stu Dever, and I caught one trout, the 2 other people on the boat caught a couple of nice salmon, and poor W didn't catch anything. I forgot to warn her that going on a guided fishing trip with me is a bad idea I frequently end up just throwing away money while other people catch fish. The captain definitely knew what he was doing and was a nice guy about it, he just wasn't quite good enough to overcome my fishing jinx, but we can't blame him for that. Plus he promised us half off next time, so we'll definitely have to come back and take him up on it. We worked up a big appetite reeling in all those fish.... oh wait that's not what happened. We were hungry, so we found ourselves some dinner at Avanti. I had the frutti del mare pasta, and W had some prawn skewers that we both enjoyed. Then it was time to go back and pack for our trip to Sydney the next day, and we had two weeks worth of accumulated information pamphlets to sort through. and a 1 carry on bag limit to try to deal with.

Day 9, Losing My Doubts

On day nine, our morning started with a 6:45 a.m. pick up at our hotel for the Real Journeys Doubtful Sound Nature cruise. We had a few anxious moments when the cab didn't show up early like we'd been told to expect, but eventually it did and dropped us off at the Real Journeys office downtown. There we jumped on a nice moderately comfy bus (the seats are a little close together and aren't necessary wide enough for two full sized people, but the glass roof is really cool). That bus was headed for Te Anau, with another Japanese tour group headed for Milford, but was stopping to drop us off so we could head south. W and I both grabbed a nap when the road got pretty steep and curvy and woke up just in time for our drop off. We climbed on board a smaller less comfortable bus, and it took us and 8 others to the dock at Manapouri. Once there we gathered up our picnic lunch from the cafe, had a cup of coffee for good measure, and then climbed abourd our first boat for the day. Lake Manapouri is beautiful, and the hour and a half it takes to get to the other side is time well spent. I spent most of the time climbing up on the upper deck to take pictures until I was too cold, then back downstairs to thaw out or until something looked picture worthy. Once across the lake you stop at a small visitors center that tells you about how the hydroelectric power station works, and then you climb on board a third bus that takes you across Wilmot Pass to Deep Cove, the entrance to Doubtful Sound. The Doubtful sound cruise is non-stop beautiful, and is worth every penny you spend on the trip, and every second you have to spend on the road to get there. Occasionally they'll stop the boat to get a close look at something, especially if there are seals or penguins about. The water was always calm because of how deep in the valley you are, and our picnic lunch was actually quite good. After exploring a few arms of the sound, and traveling all the way out just far enough to see the rolling Tasman Sea, you head back towards deep cove, and once again on to your bus. The bus then takes you deep inside the Hydroelectric plant where you get a short tour, but it's mostly cool because of how far underground you get. Plus the bus driver has to turn the bus around at the bottom of the tunnel, which was a pretty impressive move. After the plant, it's back over to lake Manapouri for a run back across it, and only one big bus on the way back to Queenstown. You get back about 7:00, and are ready for some dinner. We grabbed a little internet time, and then went over to Brazz to find some dinner. Brazz has a cool mix of really huge dinner plates, thin crust pizzas, and tapas, so we went with two of the tapas and a pizza. We started with lamb backstraps with feta, and fried camembert nuggets with a cranberry dip that were out of this world. Our pizza was delicious too, and turned out to be just the right amount of food. From there we got ourselves into the Minus 5, where I strongly recommend the polar blair drink which I'm trying desperately to remember what it contained. Tired from a full day, back to the hotel we went, and promptly crashed.

Day 8, Onward towards Queenstown

Day 8 began with the usual routine of getting ready to leave yet another hotel. I got up a little early, so I went to check out the other restaurants in Lake Tekapo village, to pick out a likely candidate for breakfast. The longest line was outside Doughboy's Bakery and Cafe. For such a small place, the assortment of pies and quiche's and assorted baked goods was mind-boggling. We settled on a few items, some coffee for me and a tea for W, and grabbed some sandwiches for the road. We took a stroll around the lake, but the weather was still not being cooperative enough to get our postcard style reflection picture (I know... next time). Then we climbed back in the car and got on the way to Queenstown. We just had to get out of the car for a few minutes a couple of times to stop and check out the scenery. This was one of the many times where I felt like stopping to snap pictures every 10 minutes, but we did get out for a stop at Lake Pukaki. We also made a brief stop in Omarama at the Wrinkly Rams. Alas, no wine at the wine bar for me while driving, but we did get a tasty cup of coffee and some cookies. We thought about staying for a sheep show, but there was this huge group of Japanese tourists there, and they were keeping the owners of the place so busy we couldn't get any real information. After 3 hours of driving we found ourselves in Queenstown, and made another i-site stop. They found us a room, but threw us a curve ball when the nice young lady at the counter recommended going to Doubtful sound rather than the Milford. We rushed much of the earlier part of the trip with the thought that Milford sound was the one thing we absolutely had to do, so with a little skepticism I said yes, but had trouble turning off the worrying part of my brain. So, we got ourselves booked in a hotel, on the doubtful sound trip, and on a barbeque cruise on the TSS Earnslaw. We took off for another Gondola/Luge trip, where we got a great look at Queenstown and lake wakatipu. We even spent some time coordinating ourselves the best luging picture ever. After burning up all our luge rides it was time to find our hotel, and while we didn't end up with a perfect lake view, it really wasn't too bad for what we paid, and it was too cold to sit out on our porch anyway. Once we got ourselves settled in, it was time to find some dinner. Our hotel, the Scenic Circle Arum Resort gave us a great book that had menu's for all the restaurants in town, which only seemed to make choosing one that much harder. We had a couple in mind as we walked downhill towards downtown. We settled on Guilty Bar after reviewing the full menu outside. We made a bet with ourselves that our waitress sounded Californian, and sure enough she was from not very far away from the bay area. Our meal was going great I had a really great ribeye, done perfectly with a tasty sauce and fries, and W had Clam chowder so good I forgot where we were for a moment and we had a tasty calamari starter. It took us an un-naturally long time to get our check, but other than that our meal was awesome. We went back to the hotel for another one of those nights with an early alarm clock call.

Day 7, Christchurch and Lake Tekapo

On the sixth day it was time to get up in the morning and do a little laundry, we packed what seemed like a lot considering how many places we had moved in and out of in 5 days, but when we got right down to it, some clean clothes were going to make the rest of the trip a lot better. So I jumped out of bed in the morning and used the free washer, and it was only $2NZ to use the dryer, and then we made our way to the Christchurch Gondola. The GPS got us a little lost on the way, but eventually we made it. Of course they had a cafe up there, so we started with some breakfast and took in the views. The beach just seems to go on forever.

Next we went to downtown and paid a visit to the i-site, where we arranged our stay for the night. Then we jumped on the Tram that takes a guided tour of the downtown area. We regretted not having more time to jump on and off the tram (add it to the list for next time). We checked out the cathedral (which of course has a cafe) How much more would I go to church if there were an attached espresso bar? And then we found some food vendors in the square, One guy was selling delicious fully loaded baked potatoes, and someone else was selling the tastiest spicy bratwurst. After that stop for a snack, and a can of Lift and we were on our way to the next stop on our journey, Lake Tekapo. We did make one little stop on our way, when quite by accident we bumped into the Trocadero Bakery. I badly regret not ordering a second éclair, the cream in the one I ordered was smoother than anything you've ever put in your mouth.
Lake Tekapo is the most beautiful color blue you've ever seen, because glacial ice grinds down the rocks into the tiniest pieces that stay suspended in the lake water. On calm clear days it perfectly reflects the surrounding mountains, but as you can see we were not there on a calm clear day. A thunderstorm eventually chased us away to our hotel, the Godley Resort where we had a mostly unobstructed view of the lake and the mountains and a patio facing the lake. Too bad it was frigid. We took a look at the food that was available and settled on the hotel restaurant staffed by one energetic girl who was hostess bartender server and bus person. I had a wonderful piece of salmon raised nearby in a glacial lake and W enjoyed the most tender roasted lamb you can imagine. By this time in the trip I'd learned to order coffee with dinner, especially If I'd had a drink, if I wanted to stay awake for longer than ten minutes after we got back to the room, I think my flat white wasn't strong enough on this day and I crashed hard.

Day 6 , On to the south island

The hard thing about doing really important stuff when you're on vacation is that you wake up way too often wondering if you've accidentally overslept. So began day six, where it was absolutely vital that we make the 9:00 a.m. inter-islander ferry to the south island. We knew it was a short trip from the hotel, but got up early so there would be nothing left to chance. I think we were the 3rd car in line. The Ferry ride is an extremely scenic 3 hour trip around the tip of the south island, across the cook straight through Picton Harbour an in to Picton. It was really cool to watch all of the freight and trucks get loaded on to the ferry. (before the cars) and then we cautiously drove on to the boat ourselves. I'd read stern warnings about taking a Dramamine before you get on, because it could be interesting, but our passage was quite smooth.
We grabbed some breakfast on board, and even had a beer to help make the trip a little easier. The views from the upper deck were worth the price of admission, bu there's a movie theater, a business class style deck (we decided it wasn't worth the upcharge this time) multiple places to eat or drink and even some live music. The good news about being early to the ferry is you're first off too, so we were quickly on our way to the Picton i-site. We needed a place to stay in christchurch, an a nice lady there found us a place recommended a place to eat along the way, and told us about Ohau bay seal colony. I wish I'd gotten her name, because she was absolutely money on recommendations. We took the scenic coastal road carefully eyeballing every sign, and wishing longingly that we had time to stop at the hundreds of wineries we passed (next time...) Just when we were giving up hope of seeing seals in the wild, along comes a sign that was a good candidate, and then another. Our two stops were the seal colony, and a scenic waterfall walk. We went too far to catch the scenic walk, so we decided we'd go back to it after dropping in on the seal colony. They were mostly lazily sunning themselves on the rocks and occasionally moving around, having little seal fights, and making some noise. Having what we thought was our fill of seals we went back to the must see scenic walk, and it was 10 minutes as advertised. We got to the waterfall at the end, and found a young seal swimming in the pool below it. I got down on a rock, and he didn't take to kindly to that and promptly chase me off of it. Then three more of his friends came waddling up the creek to play too. Eventually we made our way to kaikoura to the third place our i-site lady recommended the Kaikoura Food Company. You absolutely must make this stop if you're on the road. Make sure you try the rum raisin fudge too. We then made our way to Christchurch and checked ourselves into the Lattimer Hotel. We were excited that it had laundry facilities, and the concierge recommended a restaurant for us. We never made it to the recommendation, after driving in too many circles on the one way road we finally just parked someplace and walked until we found a menu that looked good. It was a little late, and apparently the staff at Viaduct decided to spend all their time on their closing duties rather than help us. I'd totally bash the place, but the food was actually really really great. I had some farm raised venison that was awesome. We had a beer at the hotel bar, and chatted for a while with the Irish bar tender, he wanted to talk US politics and immigration policy too. We then settled into our spacious room for the night with plenty to do the next day.