Look Mom, We Made Friends!
by Adam & Lara on 04/04/10
Unfortunately they're French Canadian.
But aside from that they're actually pretty cool. We met Pat (last name - Champagne, I shit you not) and Kim in the Bay of Islands. Since then we've all been traveling in the same direction so we can't seem to get rid of them. Their first language is French but they both speak English fluently when sober. They've been teaching us how to speak French, starting with swear words.
Pat, Lara and Kim lounge in their self-dug thermal pool at Hot Water Beach.
They drive a borrowed 1983 Honda Civic which has a hand-operated choke and a possum tail hanging from the rear view mirror.
Pat's hat is both sweet-as and filthy-as.
Livin' Large in Onemana
by Adam & Lara on 04/04/10
Carrie, a friend of ours from San Francisco, happened to be visiting her folks in Onemana, a small town at the base of the Coromandel peninsula. They generously took us in for the weekend and showed us NZ livin' at it's finest.
Oh cool, their house is all modern-like. Let's check out the inside!
Oh neat, there's a balcony!
Aww, too bad the view sucks.
Jeff (Carrie's dad, who is so the man) and Uncle Chris explain something awesome to Lara while Carrie and Holly (Carrie's mom, who is a hardcore Cranium player) prepare libations and foodstuffs.
The next day Lara and Carrie got a chance to LAY OUT OMG!
We made a stop at Uncle Chris and Aunt Erna's orchard where many varieties of vegetables, both big and wee, are proudly sold.
A weekend well spent. Thanks Carrie for your hospitality, and for the opportunity to make the rest of our friends insanely jealous.
The Steema Becomes THE SNAPPA
by Adam & Lara on 04/04/10
We've been doing a lot of fishing (with moderate amounts of catching) and eating a lot of fish. It's mostly been snapper, which feed near shore when the tide is moving. They have a well-earned name due to their good sized set of chompers:
Snapper - great for eating or for getting rid of unwanted fingers.
Parked outside the Napier R.S.A. (that's another story), The Snappa silently waits for it's next victim - perhaps a Mazda Bongo or Citroen Berlingo - to drive by.
Adam fulfills his dream of painting something weird on a car, legally.
Lara also helped for about 5 minutes.
We're letting the new look soak in before we add gills and fins.
Wild on Waiheke
by Adam & Lara on 04/02/10
Happy Passover/Easter, etc. For all of you complainers, we'd like to stress that we already apologized for the sporadic barfing (or chundering as they call it here) of blog posts. Interwebs here is totes sucky. But we just arrived in Wellington, a city at the southern tip of the North Island that is on some World maps, so we can finally share more stories.
Before we left SF, some of our friends (namely Sam, Molly, Erin, Aimee and Olga) got us a generous gift voucher to the Cable Bay Vineyard in NZ. As friends we were flattered, but as alcoholics we were launched into a drooling, bloodthirsty hysteria. So after our campy adventures up North we decided to treat ourselves to some fine dining and drinking.
The winery was located on Waiheke Island about 10km off the coast of Auckland.
Steema's first ferry ride! Being pennywise travelers, we opted for the cargo ferry because it was cheaper than the cushy passenger ferries. So we had the pleasure of chillin next to a garbage truck.
We didn't have to use the Muster Station, but good thing we knew where it was should we have needed... muster... ing.
When we got to the island we had to find our way to the vineyard. The nice fella that owned our B&B gave us walking directions. Unfortunately "Kiwi directions" (as we have started calling them) are always lacking several important details, often replaced with wildly innacurate hand gestures and salutated with the phrase "ya can't miss it." We missed it.
This was about 30 minutes into our hike, in the middle of a forest/swamp, before we realized that the path we were on was the wrong one. 25 minutes after this picture we ended up in the same spot we started, which was in a field next to a pile of poop. We didn't take a picture of that.
Boom there it is, mofos.
And she's happy again. Didn't even have to get her drunk.
Following our 6-wine tasting, we each got a glass and a fancy-schmancy appetizer and sat out in their sculpture park.
Not too shabby. That's Auckland off in the horizon to the right.
Not sure what those sculptures are supposed to be, but Lara assured me they were classy and awesome.
2 glasses of wine and 1 duck foie gras later the restaurant opened up. We were the first ones in, and therefore got prime real estate.
This pic will probably be appearing in the 2011 Cable Bay Vineyard brochure.
Between courses we took a shot outside in front of the sunset. As beautiful people, we've pretty much mastered the take-a-picture-of-ourselves move.
Campervan livin' at it's best: rack of lamb and beef ribeye, supplemented by garlic mashed potatoes, broccolini and braised greens and fried potato wedges with aioli.
Having been a good boy, Adam got pie for dessert.
Thanks again to Sam, Molly, Erin, Aimee and especially Olga. Without you we would have had to begrudgingly pay for our gluttony with money and our health, instead of just our health.
Full pics from this trip can be found here.
Slaughter Park
by Adam & Lara on 03/25/10
In the states we do this thing called litigation where we blame other people for shit that we should have known better about. Hence, anything you do comes with a warning or disclaimer of some sort. And if what you're doing has any real potential to hurt you, you either have to sign a waiver beforehand and wear a helmet during.
There aren't nearly as many pants-shitters in New Zealand, and therefore they have not developed a culture around people suing each other. The result is that you do everything at your own risk.
That's why we weren't expecting the water slides at the Waiwera Infinity Thermal Spa to be so god damn painful. Granted the guidebook did describe them as "suicidal." But we thought they were just being cute. And granted the slides were made out of steel and bolted onto a giant rickety wooden tower with ripped, moldy carpet stapled to the floor. But we just thought they were being cute.
The second slide did the same thing, but dropped us in the pool from about 7 feet in the air.
Adam went down the third slide first, and in the final bend went airborne and slammed into the side. This made a loud noise, similar to the sound of slapping a wet side of beef against a 50 gallon drum. After hearing this Lara decided to take the stairs down. We passed on the 4th slide, which was gated and had a sign reading "If you want to ride this slide, please ask a lifeguard to unlock it."
When Adam was able to breathe again, he asked Lara where the closest movie theater was that was playing High School Musical 3 (standard Adam question). Good thing the "Movie Pool" happened to be running it at 4pm.
Fresh Mullet, Bra!
by Adam & Lara on 03/25/10
Coincidentally, you're bound to find some fresh mullets at the rodeo.
2 Fish, 1 Adam
by Adam & Lara on 03/25/10
Dear Diary, I just caught 2 fish. AT THE SAME TIME, BEYOTCH.
Xoxo, Adam.
Bay of Islands Spring Break 2010
by Adam & Lara on 03/25/10
From Cape Reinga we drove south along the east coast to Paihia in the Bay of Islands, where we spent 4 days relaxing and recovering from our grueling lives on the road.
The first day we set off on a 22-hour fun-filled adventure cruise around the bay. The boat, oddly named "The Rock," is an old car ferry turned pleasure cruise with a bar, pool table and lounge on the first level, and dorm rooms up top.
The Rock, cruisin for pleasure and the occasional bruisin', which to us is also pleasurable.
On said pleasure cruise, we did everything from snapper fishing and night kayaking to snorkeling and diving for sea urchins. Not to mention target practice on a rubber duck, which we all took turns shooting at as it trailed behind the boat.
Aiming for the kill, Lara stands between a Rock crew member and a fellow pleasure-goer from Norway, a country where people tuck in their T-shirts.
Time to snorkel - everybody take your shirt off and jump in! Except for you, Adam. Please keep your shirt on.
But all these activities aside, the highlight of the Rock tour was Adam's NZ debut of "the Nipple Song" which he performed to a cheering crowd of Germans, Canadians and Kiwis alike. (It appeared they were all nipple fans as well).
Adam shreds it just before the 2nd chorus.
The next day we took a charter boat out into the bay to do a little snapper fishing. Adam had quite a few fish already under his belt, but was looking for the big guys. Lara was determined to finally snag her first fish of the trip, and ended up reeling in THE catch of the trip-- a butt ugly, abdomen-sized John Dory, which Adam cooked up for dinner (delicious) while Lara gloated and drank white wine.
What in God's name is that thing!? And how is it able to hold that John Dory so perfectly steady?
Note: both parties ended up catching a fair amount of fish and we walked away with a week's worth of dinners. But...the John Dory was still the best. Just sayin.
