Our Great New Zealand Adventure with S&M - The Conclusion

We topped off our tour of the Northland with a stop at Muriwai Beach at sunset.  We marveled at the black sand beach and the beautiful colors of the sunset through clouds.  We took group shots with an unrivaled back drop of the sea.  And then we watched the Westpac Rescue Helicopter transport a man off the beach below after a hang gliding accident. We learned the next day that the man survived the accident.  

Sunset over Muriwai

Now that's a good lookin' group!

Westpac Rescue Helicopter on the beach

Thank you to the proud sponsors of this amazing adventure with two of our best friends!  This fun filled trip was made possible with your support.

EY and Westpac representin'

We seriously laughed more this week than we have in years.  We loved exploring New Zealand with S&M but good company was only enhanced by the incomparable landscape and new experiences. 

Our Great New Zealand Adventure with S&M - Part Sheepworld

At some point during our trip, Sarah "sheepishly" admitted that she really wanted to go to Sheepworld on the way back to Auckland.  The remaining 3 of us begrudgingly agreed despite the hefty $27 price tag for entrance and a show.  Thank goodness for Sarah's humble admission as our Sheepworld experience turned out to be one of our favorite parts of the trip!  

Sheepworld!!

We started our Sheepworld experience with a light lunch followed by a tour through the petting zoo park.  We saw (and fed) cute little lambs,  rather gross cows, emus, and an aggressive little duck.  Our little ducky friend followed us around for the entire walk and gobbled food pellets out of our hands with his silly little bill. 

Our ducky friend

You can tell my true feelings about the cow and his tongue being near me

Being a weekday in the middle of winter, the four of us made up the entire audience of the afternoon show.   The show started with a demonstration of sheep herding with a traditional "staring" sheep dog.  This type of dog doesn't bark but instead herds the sheep simply by staring them down.  We were then treated to a demonstration of a new dog in training.  The farmer was training a new different type of sheep dog that herds using the direction of it's barking.  Click here for a video of the new pup in training.

The new "barking" dog in training

After the herding demonstration, the sheep needed sorting and Sarah was the lucky volunteer for this job.  She sorted the sheep by the color painted on their head as the sheep ran through the chute.  Next up, a sheering demonstration.  Or in the case of only a 4 person audience, a hands on sheering workshop!  Sarah, Mark and I all got a turn at sheering the sheep with the help of the farmer.  Click here for a video of my sheering experience and the restless pup in training. 

Hands on sheering!

For the grand finale, 5 little white lambs (5 weeks old) were brought in for bottle feeding.  Each of us got to bottle feed a little cutie (I got to feed two at the same time) and they gobbled it down!  I think Sarah and I were in heaven at this point!

Serious cuteness!

Twins

The feeding line up...can this be any cuter?

Just as we were preparing to leave, the farmer brought in two tiny baby, brown lambs (not even a week old) that were ready for one of their first bottle feedings having just been separated from their mother.  We got to hold the lambs while feeding them a bottle.  They had the prettiest blue eyes and struggled a little with the feeding.  Sarah was a natural but I needed a little help to get my little one to eat. 

Little lamby

Samies!

That is one happy girl!

Our Great New Zealand Adventure with S&M - Part Duo

The following day we made our way to the west coast of New Zealand where we would spend the next two nights in Ahipara, a cute little town on 90 mile beach.  Our cottage had an amazing view that made even doing the dishes a pleasure!  We played some rugby (read American football with a rugby) on the beach and Justin even caught a few waves.  We made pad thai for dinner and caught the All Blacks game.

Click here if you would like to see a little video of 3 Americans playing rugby on a beach in New Zealand.  

View from our cottage in Ahipara

Our boys playing rugby on 90 mile beach

90 mile beach in HDR

Hood-rat SN

The next morning we set out early for our trip up to the far north tip of New Zealand at Cape Reinga.  Our first stop was Rarawa Beach.  This time we got to enjoy the amazing white sand without millions of bugs and we saw a brilliant rainbow that caused our men to frolic underneath it!  We were chased away from the beach by a brief rain shower but made it to the car relatively dry.

Couple shot

Frolicking....

Next stop, sand boarding at the sand dunes.  We had a blast sliding down the dunes like kids and Sarah declared the moment her favorite of the trip.  We saw another beautiful rainbow at the dunes and stopped for various photo ops with sheep and cows along the drive back to the main road.   

This little guy posed just for us

Car as a tripod group shot before we headed out for sandboarding

After a picnic lunch, we drove up to Cape Reinga where we had the place to ourselves!  It was quite a contrast to the busy Easter weekend of our last visit.  We got some great photos without other tourists getting in the way.  The Cape is one of my favorite spots in New Zealand and I really enjoyed getting to share my second trip with two of my best friends!     

Love this view!

The light house at Cape Reinga

The only other tourists in the area took our photo

Which way to Dallas?

Our Great New Zealand Adventure with S&M - Part I

In early June we had one of our best NZ adventures yet when our friends Sarah and Mark (S&M) visited from Dallas.  S&M arrived on Tuesday and we had dinner on the wharf at Urban Turban before calling it an early night so our jet lagged travelers could get some rest.

The next day Justin had to work so S, M and I set out to climb Rangitoto.  The day was spent hiking with friends, laughing, smiling, and enjoying the views.  Using the self timer on my camera, we managed a few shots of Mark and his posse.  The day was much clearer than our last trip to the top of the volcano and thus the views even better! 

Mark and his SN's

The next morning the four of us set out on a road trip adventure to the Northland!  We had lunch on the water in Whangarei and arrived in Russell in time to enjoy our wonderful view and explore the town a little.  We made dinner in our cottage that evening and enjoyed laughing over a few wines with old friends!

My perfect angel

The fog over Whangarei Falls

View from the back porch of our cottage in Russel

The following morning I made time for a run along the beach while S made breakfast.  I discovered a trail to a nearby bay and picked my way along with no issues until I reached the rocky beach and tripped over my own feet and fell off the foot or so drop off.  I scrapped my legs and hands up pretty bad and had to rest for a while on the beach before recovering enough to run again.

After breakfast, we took a small ferry to Paihia for shopping and lunch at a local Thai place.  As per the usual, our travels centered around eating.  We had dinner on the water in Russel at The Gables where we enjoyed a "fancy" dinner.

I'm on a boat

Mid-winter Birthday Party and Exploration

This past Saturday Justin and I attended Rebecka's 32nd birthday party at her apartment across from ours.  As Rebecka is from Sweden and normally celebrates a summer birthday with a traditional strawberry cake, she thought it would be fun to have a mid-winter celebration this year in the southern hemisphere.    She ask each of us to bring a traditional dish that we ate in the winter but the catch was it had to be vegetarian.  After some deliberation, I decided to take a pie.  And because I am lazy, I thought a buttermilk pie would be an easy yet still traditional southern American treat.

Turns out I was wrong.  My attempt at a buttermilk pie resulted in an epic pie making fail.  I bought what I thought was a frozen pie crust from the supermarket which was tricky because Kiwi's don't actually make sweet pies.  So I choose from the variety of frozen pastry crusts available.  I popped my crust in the oven while mixing up the buttermilk pie inner-eds.  When I pulled the pie crust out of the oven it had shrunk to about half the size of the pan!  After this fail, I thought, I'll just make my own crust....it can't be that hard.  Well, turns out it can be.  After walking to the store to buy more flour and carefully mixing and rolling out my dough with a make-shift rolling pin (aka a triple sec bottle), I was rewarded with pie crust dough that would not even stay stretched out long enough to make it into the pan.  At this point I had about 45 minutes until the party and no make up on.  So I scrapped the idea of introducing my Swedish friends to an American treat and got out two bottles of wine!

Pie crust fail

The party was a success despite my epic pie making fail.  We celebrated with gravad lax (dill-cured salmon with mustard sauce), lussekatter (saffron rolls), glogg (mulled wine with almonds and raisins) , and 3 dishes of Janssons Fretelse (potato and anchovies casserole).  Evidently Janssons Fretelse is a popular Swedish dish!

Example of lussekatter as I didn't take any photos at the event

Justin and I spent a good deal of the party playing with an adorable 18 month old little girl from Malawi and her 2 month old little sister.  They were both so cute and Kyra had the cutest curly hair! 

On Sunday, we took the 3 US interns out to explore the west coast of Auckland.  There are currently 3 interns (Ashley, Keila, and Tiffany) from the US working in the Auckland office as part of a global intern program.  Ashley is from the Dallas office and attended Baylor.  Keila is my counselee and is from the Seattle office.  Tiffany is from our New York office and I have no further connection to her.  We had a fun day visiting Piha beach and Karikari waterfall, hiking to White's beach, and capping off the day with lunch and tastings at a local winery in Kumeu. 

Keila posing with the EY umbrella for an intern photo contest

Lindsay and Keila in front of Karikari Falls

Piha Beach....always beautiful

White's beach was a 2.2 km hike straight down from the road.  Add to this the fact that it was an extremely windy and slightly drizzly day and the hike was not that enjoyable.  However, we conquered the trail and made it back to our car in one piece!

The crew hiking down to White's Beach

White's Beach from the trail

White's Beach.  It was so rough that day.

The Baylor crew and fun with photo editing

Rangitoto and Devonport

Justin and I had a couple of short adventures recently.  We climbed to the top of Rangitoto and we visited Devonport (again).  Rangitoto is the volcano in Waitemata Harbour that can be seen from most places in Auckland.  On a Saturday morning, we took the ferry to Rangitoto and climbed to the summit taking a detour on the way up to the lava caves.  The lava caves were really cool and we used a torch to go deep into one of them.  The views from the summit were amazing and we were the only ones at the top so we had the place to ourselves.  We had a snack at the top and quickly discovered some cute, little, green birds that were brave enough to grab dried fruit pieces right out of our hands.  The whole hike took just over 2 hours and we were back on the ferry to Auckland just as the rain started.  It poured down rain for the rest of the day so we were lucky to get in a dry hike before the storm!  The pictures are a little foggy due to the impending storm.

Justin with the Auckland skyline in the background

From inside the lava cave

Cute little guy

Lindsay at the summit

Justin at the summit

Close up of our little friend

The next weekend we took a ferry over to Devonport and explored Northhead and the little main street.  Although we have been to Devonport numerous times, the walk to and up Northhead is very enjoyable and the views from the top are amazing so we enjoy it every time.

View of Rangitoto from Northhead

Canon at the top of Northhead

Auckland from Northhead