Today, April 25th, began the first of Adela’s two birthday day’s. I say that because technically it’s not April 25th yet back in the states, so we decided she gets 42 hours of birthday. It started with a little bit of a birthday surprise from Todd and Katy – they had woken up early and decorated the AirBnB with streamers and balloons! Todd had also started cooking breakfast, which was yummy eggs and potatoes. These were the eggs that we bought from a random roadside stand and the yolks were absolutely enormous! After breakfast we spent a few minutes deciding what to do and then realized we had to book it to the Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland because we had the exact amount of time needed in order to make it to see the Lady Knox Geyser go off!
We got to the geyser right as the presentation started. There was already a big crowd and the ranger (?) made everyone who was standing on their benches sit down before she’d start. We had a mediocre viewing area between two really tall people for the show. She described how the geyser was first discovered – prisoners were washing their clothes in the naturally hot water when one of them dropped his soap. The carbolic soap caused the geyser to erupt, spreading laundry everywhere. Afterwards the prisoners threw more and more soap in to see it erupt. Pretty funny. The natural cycle of the geyser has it erupt every 24-72 hours so they induce it to erupt with some surfactant. It had a pretty good sprout of water come up, but Todd said when he was there it erupted for a solid forty plus minutes.
Next was the rest of the geothermal wonderland! (Adela had thought we were just there to see the geyser and was concerned) This region is where the Pacific and Australian plates meet so it’s really active. We waited in line for a cappuccino (with chocolate on top), a dirty chai (with espresso, not extra chai), and a birthday apple square. After securing our energy we began the grueling (only because we had walked 13 miles the day before) 2 mile trek. It took us through by some collapsed craters, smelly rivers, and a brilliant blue/orange pool called the champagne pool.
The champagne pool drains over a feature called the sinter terraces. We weren’t quite certain what a sinter was but it looked pretty cool. What wasn’t cool was the people sticking their hands in the water… c’mon. After the champagne pool we walked over to a few more geothermally active pools. The farthest spot was a brilliant green lake! Definitely work the walk, the lake is green due to the constant algal bloom supported by the warm, nutrient rich water. On the way back we stopped at an even more neon green pool! Adela was 100% sure she saw Draco Malfoy here too, I’m only 99% convinced. We’ve been checking his twitter constantly to see if he’s in New Zealand
Our drive back got us back in time for lunch and to fulfill the first birthday request of the day – an authentic New Zealand meat pie. They’re nice and fluffy bread with meat in the middle. Adela described hers like a chicken pot pie in a flaky crust. Super delicious! After lunch we took a little stroll along the coast of Lake Taupo – the giant lake in the middle of the north island – and played some games. It was getting a little bit late so our next step was to get changed and drive to another hot springs for a nice mineral soak. This time we went to the Wairakei Terraces. We arrived around 5:45 and they closed at 7 because it was Anzac Day – their holiday to memorialize their troops from WWI. That left us a solid hour of soaking, which was definitely worth it. All the warm water has signs to not get your head in it, which I think is just because the water isn’t chlorinated or anything. I don’t think they actually have the brain eating amoebas there. Afterwards we had birthday dinner and drinks at a local brewery/pizza place before calling it a night on the first 24 hours of birthday.
We slept in a little bit on Friday (the 26th) and lethargically packed the car to get ready for our drive to Napier. The premier wine region of New Zealand is the Marlborough region on the south island, but Hawke’s Bay is one of the more prominent places on the north island. The drive was very scenic and we made our first winery stop of the day at the Linden winery where we had a tasting and bought some bottles. Next we needed more lunch so we navigated our way to a meat pie bakery in Napier and stocked up on meat pies (which have become somewhat of a theme). The AirBnB was only about five minutes away but when we got there we had a little bit of a stressful parking situation. In that there wasn’t any easily accessed parking. In hindsight that should’ve been something I factored into the lodging decision a bit more.
After putting our stuff away we waiting for our wine tour guide, Frank, to pick us up. There were two other couples on our tour, and he said it was a little bit of a mystery tour of where we were actually going. The first stop was New Zealand’s oldest winery – Mission Estate. It was founded in 1851, although it has moved around a little since then. We had a very complete tasting here and learned a little bit about the wines of the region. One thing I thought was really interesting was that in the mid 80’s New Zealand sold pretty much terrible wine and the government paid them to uproot the old vines and plant better ones. I’m sure some people still make table wine though.
After Mission Estate we drove to Moana Park where we had a lovely sit down with one of the owners who took us through a tasting. They also had yummy home made bread. We finished up here and then made our way to Oak Estate – an even smaller winery than Moana. Moana’s special claim is that they try to limit how much they spray and not use any preservatives. I think Oak Estates thing is their food. We got an appetizer plate which had an extensive variety, but none of the four of us were big fans of the pate so we gave it to the kiwis.
After eating and drinking in the vineyards we drove to our last winery stop – Unison. Here we had a great tasting with a lot of really good explanation on how everything is done. Their wine was also probably the best we had all day. The tour wasn’t over though – our last stop was at a local brewery for some beers and fries. We each had five full tasting glasses to drink, which was probably a little bit too much beer to end the day. Adela and I spent the time talking to an older couple who were up from Christchurch. Many people in New Zealand were capitalizing on the fact that they could take three days of vacation. And have ten days off. Our night of tasting ended with a drive back, where we all tried to sing along to Country Roads (we just knew the chorus). We still needed food so we went out for some Thai and then played a game of Settlers before I passed out.
