around the world in 180 days

Except for the weather, which was quite windy and a little rainy, yesterday was an all around great day. We stayed in the small town of Renwick, which is in New Zealand’s famous Marlbourough valley, the heart of NZ’s wine production. There are 105 vineyards in the Marlbourough area, and a good portion of them are within short biking distance of Renwick. The place we stayed at was kind enough to rent us bikes for $10 apiece; we’d checked elsewhere and the cheapest we’d found for the whole day was $50 per person–way too expensive.
Before we left to bike around and taste wine, we brought the car to the panel beaters (which is what Kiwis call auto body shops) to get an estimate on what it would cost to fix it. I’d taken the car to a place in Wellington before our ferry left and he quoted me $450–a damn fortune. We explained the situation to these guys and they went right to work, buffing out most of the mark and painting over the small area that couldn’t be buffed out. It isn’t perfect, but I bet that’s all the rental shop would have done, after charging us the full repainting price. I asked the guy what we owed him before we left and he said “no worries. Now you can tell people how nice Kiwis are.” Kiwis are very, very nice. As long as everything passes muster with the rental car people, we got the car fixed for free.
Touring the wineries was great as well. We visited about 10 over the course of the day, trying all their different varities and ending up feeling pretty good and biking a little wobbly by the end of the day. We bought a couple of bottles, nothing too expensive. We were looking (of course) for something inexpensive and good tasting. We tried many that were one or the other, but only a few that were both. I could go into depth about what kinds of wine are made here and how they differed from vineyard to vineyard, but I’m getting bored just thinking about writing it, so I won’t put you through anything like that.
Today, we drove and drove, about 2/3 of the way down the south island so we can go to a Rugby game tomorrow night in Dunedin, which is at the south of the south island. We stopped at a place that is famous for being a nesting site for a couple of different kinds of penguins. One, the yellow eyed penguin, is rare, and we saw a few of them. It was strange seeing penguins on a plain sand beach–my mind, at least, associates them with snow. I got a couple of halfway decent photos, and we might go out tomorrow morning to see if we can see them a little closer.

Yesterday was a very long day. We woke up beside the Whanganui river and slept in Wellington, which is about a 5 hour paddle and another 5 hour drive away. We’re staying with Rich, a friend of Beth’s, from Anna’s work, and we are very appreciative of the accomodations he’s offered us. It is from his computer that I am posting and it was on his floor that we slept last night, and very soundly, I might add.

The section of the river we did yesterday was great fun; there were three big rapids, the largest we’d seen thus far, and it was quite and adventure to navigate through them. The first was a breeze–we took on a little water, but a bit of bailing in the slow section after took care of that. The second was terrifying. At first, it was difficult to see where the water went, so we didn’t know where to go. Then, once we’d entered the channel, it was very rough and, once the current had us firmly and we didn’t have much ability to maneuver, we spotted the enormous rock in the center of the channel, which, of course, we were heading straight for. We managed to miss it, but shot straight toward the bank of the river: a solid rock cliff. As the water turned, though, so did our canoe and we made it through without tipping. The third rapid was huge, with big swells. We took on lots of water and spun completely around (which is dangerous, particularly when you’re perpendicular to the current), but made it through upright and only a little wet. On both the second and third rapid, we saw people who came down after us tip and go in, which made us feel all the better about ourselves.

After the canoe ride, we had to go back to where we started to pick up our car and then drive down to Wellington. We finally made it here around 10 at night, but we were both tired and along the way, I had a close encounter with a guard rail. I was too focused on staying to the left, I guess, and nicked the rail on a corner. Shit.

So I called the rental company today and they said I could either fix it or return it as is and pay them to fix it. We’ll have to get a couple of estimates and figure out how long it will take to get it fixed before we do anything, but that’s a headache that I wish we didn’t have to deal with. The damage isn’t too bad, just a couple of scratches, and if it were my car I wouldn’t even bother fixing it, but unfortunately, it’s not. These rental places are real sticklers about not damaging their cars, about you being responsibile and all that nonsense. Oh well. We’ll deal with it. It just means that we’ll be eating 2 minute noodles and peanut butter from now until july. Hooray.

Another beautiful day on the river today. We paddled through a few mild rapids, but mostly the river was slow today. We stopped for lunch at the "bridge to nowhere" which is a bridge they built after world war II, ... [Continue reading this entry]

We are spending tonight in one of NZ's many Department of Conservation (DOC) huts. This particular hut is about 40 kms down the Whanganui River from where we started our journey this morning and about 50 kms from where we ... [Continue reading this entry]

Ok, I haven't written in a few days because we've been busy doing stuff about which to write, right? We rented a car, a tiny little toyota hatchback with a 1.3 litre engine, on Wednesday and left Auckland for ... [Continue reading this entry]