Get it? ...back...kayak? I know, it's terrible. Just go with it.
It's been a week since our trip, so I feel like it's time to get off (on) my butt and update this thing! I'm not sure how another year passed so quickly, but here we are: same country, different city. The usual things we look for as signs of spring (birds, flowers) have been here all winter, so now it's just more birds and more flowers. Plus some heavy rain, and the occasional warm day! Hurray!
We'd planned a road trip north for our anniversary, but Lady Waka was making some horrific squealing noises—last Friday I finally took her in to get fixed while Josh was at work. It set us back $300, but it was pretty great to start the car without deafening any passersby, so...I say, worth it. Josh has done a couple of minor fixes himself in the last weeks too. My city man, getting all rural...he does me so proud.
With Lady Waka fixed, we were ready to hit the open road and start anniversary-ing it up! We saw our first sheep in the road; that felt like a milestone. I made the mistake of trying to sketch while we navigated the twisting, turning mountain roads and regretted it immediately.
We rented a place right near Abel Tasman, hit the grocery store, (This licorice-flavored ice cream we've been slightly obsessed with turned out to be on clearance. It's like they knew.) and cooked ourselves a delicious dinner. It was more of a relaxed, walk on the beach, sit in a hot tub, eat lots of delicious food kind of holiday, so we didn't go full-on tramping, but we did do a short stint on the Abel Tasman trek. It was beautiful. The trees form a tunnel over the path, which as a pale person, is like a gift from god. Prettiest sun protection I ever had.
It's been a week since our trip, so I feel like it's time to get off (on) my butt and update this thing! I'm not sure how another year passed so quickly, but here we are: same country, different city. The usual things we look for as signs of spring (birds, flowers) have been here all winter, so now it's just more birds and more flowers. Plus some heavy rain, and the occasional warm day! Hurray!
We'd planned a road trip north for our anniversary, but Lady Waka was making some horrific squealing noises—last Friday I finally took her in to get fixed while Josh was at work. It set us back $300, but it was pretty great to start the car without deafening any passersby, so...I say, worth it. Josh has done a couple of minor fixes himself in the last weeks too. My city man, getting all rural...he does me so proud.
With Lady Waka fixed, we were ready to hit the open road and start anniversary-ing it up! We saw our first sheep in the road; that felt like a milestone. I made the mistake of trying to sketch while we navigated the twisting, turning mountain roads and regretted it immediately.
We rented a place right near Abel Tasman, hit the grocery store, (This licorice-flavored ice cream we've been slightly obsessed with turned out to be on clearance. It's like they knew.) and cooked ourselves a delicious dinner. It was more of a relaxed, walk on the beach, sit in a hot tub, eat lots of delicious food kind of holiday, so we didn't go full-on tramping, but we did do a short stint on the Abel Tasman trek. It was beautiful. The trees form a tunnel over the path, which as a pale person, is like a gift from god. Prettiest sun protection I ever had.
We didn't have tons of time to hike, but we did still get to explore this quiet beach, collect seashells, and stare down a seagull.
Josh booked us our first ever kayaking trip, which was really fun. The guy who rented us the boat gave us a little speech emphasizing that kayaking, like relationships, was all about communication and teamwork—making us feel like contestants on a Bachelor date. And I left my sequin gown at home. Shoot. | |
On our official anniversary we drove over to Nelson and pretended to be super fancy while we toured a winery and ate lunch there. It was a bright, perfect, sunny day, but not hot so we ate outside in the shade with soft cozy blankets on our laps. Heaven! Our waiter (an effusive middle-aged man with dyed-black Trump hair) turned out to be an American expat, and grew very attached to us over the course of the meal. When we went to settle our check he mentioned there were job openings there, and part of me really wished we could take him up on that. I mean, name me the person who wouldn't want to work at a beautiful vineyard.
We've already been on so many wine tours, but I always seem to come away with something new. This time we learned about the fermentation process—specifically that a vintner can either choose to use yeast or whatever naturally occurring ambient bacteria just happens to be lying around (i.e. do nothing), and that picking grapes off their stems leaves tiny holes for that bacteria to get inside, so fermenting grapes in bunches actually delays the fermentation process inside the grape, changing the flavors that will ultimately come out in the wine. Fermenting in bunches gives the wine more of that earthy, 'dirt' taste it turns out I like so much. :)
The number of variables is incredible: not just in the harvest itself, the decision to use yeast or not, and whether to keep your grapes in bunches, pick them individually, or include stems or skins, but also the seemingly endless combinations of all of these, how long to keep the mix at each stage, whether to store it in new or old barrels, whether those barrels will be seared, how heavily they will be seared...it goes on and on and on, decisions just piling into infinity. Although ask me to taste the differences between all of these small choices and I really couldn't tell you. I'll leave that to the professionals.
And connecting some dots: they were really proud that they had earned an organic certification, and I remembered the last organic vineyard we'd visited (in South Africa) raised ducks to keep pests at bay—but New Zealand has SO MANY BIRDS that it's already naturally equipped to deal with this problem. Our enthusiastic waiter confirmed our hunch. Although if it were me, I'd still keep ducks around. They're so friggin' cute!
After lunch and our tour most of the afternoon was gone, so we headed to the beach to do some sketching and to observe the most important part of our anniversary celebrations: reading all your wine bottle notes! Getting them out turned out to be harder than expected...
After lunch and our tour most of the afternoon was gone, so we headed to the beach to do some sketching and to observe the most important part of our anniversary celebrations: reading all your wine bottle notes! Getting them out turned out to be harder than expected...
Note-reading, definitely still fun the second time around. A couple of people had some ideas about what we should do next...
We got a few nice little reminders, like this one:
We learned that our former college president approves of us...
A couple of messages didn't need words...
And we got a limerick!
AND now this entry has gotten maddeningly long, so here's the speedy version of the rest:
We stayed in a beautiful cabin!
We had a fabulous breakfast!
We went for walks in the woods!
We saw quails!
It was great. Love you all!
We stayed in a beautiful cabin!
We had a fabulous breakfast!
We went for walks in the woods!
We saw quails!
It was great. Love you all!