first port: stewart island (oban), new zealand

Friday, December 9, 2011

Halfmoon Bay (Oban), Stewart Island, New Zealand

Stewart Island is the southern most inhabited island of the New Zealand archipelago and was our first port in New Zealand. The ship was anchored off shore and we had to tender into the port on smaller boats. This was a fun first-time experience for me and Tim laughed at all the questions I had for him about it! When we got to the dock, we had a few hours to explore the town before we had to be back to catch our Pelagic Bird Cruise excursion, so we headed up and over the hill to the town of Oban. The population of Stewart Island is about 500 permanent residents and we pretty much walked through their neighborhood on the way over the hill to “downtown!” The scenery was beautiful and we took the long way to town, which included a stop at an overlook at the top of the hill that had great views of the water. Once we got into “town,” we checked out the general store and bought some wine to take back with us on the ship for our cabin, then walked around the little fishing port. There is exactly one hotel, one major restaurant/coffee shop, and one general store on the island…yet they have a visitor’s center. We figured the visitors center was just something they temporarily set up since they knew the cruise tourists were coming into town. Anyway, after we were done looking around town, we stopped into the restaurant to split a plate of incredible blue-eyed cod fish and chips and a bowl of potato veggie soup. To top it off, we had a table at the window which provided some entertaining people watching! 

Overlook in Oban, toward the port of Halfmoon Bay, with ship in view

Honeymooners in Oban

Beautiful flower on the trip up and down the hill into Oban

After lunch we made the trek back up and over the hill to the port to catch our excursion, the Pelagic Bird Cruise. The tour guide for the ride was from Stewart Island and was the daughter of the family that own the company and boats for the excursion and her good friend was our captain. They provided us with a bunch of great stories about the region and really were knowledgeable on the animal and sea life in and around Stewart Island. Our first stop was to see a popular species of bird native to New Zealand called the “shag” (yes…I giggled when they said this!). There are many varieties of shags in New Zealand and our guide named off about 6-8 types that she could see just in one the area where we were looking. Our second and third stops were in the same area, where we saw how blue-lipped mussels are harvested and saw the workings of a sustainable salmon fishery. The salmon fishery was particularly interesting in that they only breed and fish what is dictated by demand and they work in a process whereby they divide the salmon based on “age” so that they are always making sure to replace what they fish. They also move their offshore fishing stations every two years so that the area beneath the station is not saturated with salmon droppings.

On our way from the salmon fishery to our next stop was the highlight of the day – we encountered a pod of 8-10 dolphin! They were so lively and swam around and along side the boat, playing and jumping in the wake and putting on quite the show! They stayed around us for close to 15 minutes and we enjoyed every second of it – Tim taking some incredible photos (like the one below!!!) and me trying to catch everything on video….leaving lots of work for Tim in editing that video as I’m sure I couldn’t keep the camera focused for my excitement!! 

I'd say my husband is an EXCELLENT photographer!

Once the dolphins decided they were done entertaining us, our captain took us to our final stop to see if we could coax some Albatross our way with some fresh catch-of-the-day. He put the fish out there and we waited a bit, with only a bunch of seagulls coming around for the catch. Then in swooped a HUGE 6-foot plus wingspan bird – the famed Albatross! I was in awe of how gigantic this bird was and almost couldn’t believe my eyes. My awe increased tenfold when 3 more Albatross made their entrances to sit on the water for their share of the catch. You can see the beautiful shots Tim got below, a close up of an Albatross sitting in the water, and another in flight. 

Again, my husband takes great photos - Albatross in flight

Huge huh?!

On our way back to port, the captain spotted a New England fur seal lazily sitting on a rock sunning himself so we really capped off a great afternoon.When we got into port, the last tender was waiting to take us back to the ship.

We have to thank the Meyer family for the gift of this excursion – it was a great experience and gave us wonderful memories of a perfect day on and around Stewart Island. 

Thank you Lee, Deb, Amber, Geoff and Molly! We love you!

We are here!!

We have arrived at our place in Cairns after quite a long trip. We flew from San Diego to LAX, then LAX to Sydney for 15 hours. We had a few hours in the Sydney airport before we boarded a 3 hour flight to Cairns. We arrived here in Cairns and picked up our rental car...and Tim had his second experience driving on the opposite of the road (first was in St. Thomas last year) and his first experience driving on the opposite side of the car! Right turns and roundabouts have been quite the experience and often include commentaries from me of "uh, are we on the right side of the road...oh wait, I'm confused!"

After we checked in, we went into town to find some dinner. We came across a place in the guidebook called "Cock & Bull" (insert joke here) and decided to give it a try. It was a pub-style casual place so we each got a beer, called XXXX Gold, and split a mix-grill plate.

After dinner we headed to the local grocery store to get some breakfast and lunch stuff for the next few days then headed back to get some rest.

We are now having breakfast on the patio and will probably drive around to see what's here. The weather is very tropical - hot and humid with the chance of rain a bit later.

Before we left, our furry daughter was quite upset and clearly wanted us to taker her along...you can see her showing that she can fit in the suitcase in the photo below! :)


We hope to blog as much as we can about our adventures and we'd love to hear from you all through an email or through comments on our blog posts!

Lot of love,
Nikki and Tim

we're still alive!

hello all! sorry about taking so long to put up another post - we've been busy enjoying all the island has to offer. our last post was for tuesday and wednesday so let's catch you up on the rest of the time we were on the west side of the island, which was thursday, friday and part of saturday. 

thursday was an "errands" day since we were making dinner for the "surfer guys" that were on the island for vacation at the same time as we were - the surfer guys come to SubPalace on the weekend when they are in the area to surf so tim's parents have gotten to know them pretty well over the past few years. each time they are in hawaii at the same time, they get together for dinner. before our errands, we stopped for lunch at poke stop, a recommended place on diner's, drive-ins and dives and below is a photo of part of one of the dishes we ordered...cute huh?! :-/

part of the shrimp and short rib lunch we had

after lunch, tim and i picked up some great steaks at costco and then ran around the area looking at different shops and of course making a trip to foodland (island grocery store) to stock up on our freezer bags that we love! we started our cooking when we got back and had a great dinner.

friday was our trip to the north shore with tim's parents.  we had some rain off and on through the day, but it didn't really change our plans since the rain was quick when it did come through and it stayed nice and warm even with the rain. we checked out the place where tim and his family used to vacation ever year when he was younger and spent some time walking the beach there. we also made a trip to pipeline, where the waves are the biggest on the island during the winter. the waves weren't huge that day, but the view was impressive as always. following our trip to the beaches, we had to make the obligatory stops, including surf 'n sea, matsumoto's shave ice (guava, pineapple and mango - YUM!), and kua'aina burger shack for lunch! when we got back to ko'olina (the timeshare location), we headed out to the beach to relax and soak in some sun! we made a great BBQ smoked pork dinner that we enjoyed on the balcony with live music from the bar below. we packed up our stuff as tim's parents were leaving to go home the next day and we were headed to waikiki to finish out our stay.

the next morning (saturday) we said goodbye to ko'olina and were dropped off by tim's parents at the moana surfrider hotel - a beautiful historic building in the middle of waikiki that was turned into a hotel by the westin hotel group, but has maintained its historical charm. since we have been here, we have seen at least 3 separate couples a day dressed in wedding attire taking photos throughout our hotel - it is a popular venue for Japanese couples to tie the knot. anyway, we were a bit early to check into our room, so we headed out in search of breakfast. after we walked around downtown waikiki a bit, we changed into our suits and headed to the hotel pool, which is next to the banyan tree bar that has beautiful live music all afternoon and evening. we enjoyed the relaxation time and even were served fresh cut pineapple by the pool staff. when our room was ready we headed up to find that it overlooked the banyan tree bar and courtyard and even had a view of the ocean out of one window! we settled into our room and then headed off to meet the surfer guys for mai tais at the mai tai bar in the royal hawaiian hotel - a perfect start to the waikiki portion of our trip! we finished off with dinner at the cheesecake factory since we were lucky enough to avoid the 1.5 hour wait by finding seats at the bar right away. we walked off some of our meal by taking a stroll down main drag, kalakaua avenue (say that three times fast).

we woke up early sunday morning to be picked up for our scuba day. after waiting for a while to get on the boat, we were finally on our way to the west side marina for our two-tank dive. tim brought his new purchase, a go-pro video camera that comes with a waterproof housing, so we were able to take some videos of what it looks like underwater in hawaii. see the video below to meet one of the friends we made on our second dive... 

after a long day under and on the water, we got back to our hotel, showered up and then headed out for dinner at a great sushi restaurant that we found through yelp. we were seated at a great table outside and had some incredible sushi rolls! we tried a fantastic spicy tuna avocado roll, duraku roll (a restaurant special, featuring seared ahi, pickled radish, and shaved onion on top of a california roll) and a waikiki roll, with pineapple and macadamia nuts incorporated, again, with tuna. We finished our dinner off with an incredible (and sinful!) dessert of tempura brownie - just what it sounds like, with a nice serving of vanilla bean ice cream on top...to die for! tim hasn't downloaded those photos yet, so we'll have to do a separate posting of all the great dishes we've had!

monday morning we got up early again, but this time to meet the surfer guys for a surfing lesson! tim has surfed before, but it was a first time for me - they put me on a 10 foot board and, as promised, i "floated like a cork!" the water was incredibly clear and warm - so much so that we didn't mind sitting on the boards waiting for the sets to come in. i seemed to be able to get the basics of paddling, sitting on and turning the board around and was able to get up on the board 1.5 times - i say "1.5" because the first time i got up was only for about .5 seconds! i think i have caught the surfing "bug" but am not sure how long that bug is going to last with the freezing water we have in southern california most of the year...it may just be a "warm water vacation" kind of bug! we do have video from the trusty go-pro, but those need to be uploaded so we'll do a posting for those videos too at a later date. after the 2 hour rental period on the board was over, we headed back to the hotel to lay on the beach and take a siesta - after all, we were up at 6:30 that morning. we were able to get some of our souvenir and gift shopping done before meeting with the surfer guys again for dinner at duke's - a tradition for them on their last night in oahu. we finished a great dinner and capped the night off with mai tais again at the royal hawaiian.

ok, now we're all caught up to today, tuesday. we got ourselves up and going relatively early as we headed to climb to the top of diamond head crater for the spectacular views of waikiki.  video for this will come at a later date too as it hasn't yet been uploaded by the video guru! today was quite a bit more humid than the last few days have been, but we had some sprinkles on the way up to the top that cooled us off a bit. we spent some time at the top then headed down to be sure we had time for lunch and to rinse off before our couples massage appointment at the spa at the hilton hawaiian village. we highly recommend making an appointment for that spa - it was first class and the staff was great! we emerged incredibly relaxed and meandered our way back to our hotel to pack before dinner. so here we were - making our update post before we head to dinner on our last night in oahu. we are sad to leave, but have had a great time here and made many new memories...this time as husband and wife!


thank you all for following us and we apologize for the delays in postings, but hope that this has made up for that delay. like we said, we plan to make a few more postings in the next few days with some of the videos and photos we've taken along the adventures of our mini-moon! to hold you over, some photos from my phone...

north shore beach

royal hawaiian mai tais!

beautiful plumeria on the way down from diamond head

lots of love,
mr. & mrs. y

Days one and two

We arrived past schedule yesterday afternoon and were met by Tim's parents at the airport. We headed to Costco for dinner supplies for the week - it's always interesting to see how the grocery stores or Costco stores in different areas carry different products. We were able to get some great ahi poke (raw tuna, mixed with green onion and soy sauce) and a beautiful sashimi plate at the Costco here, that we have never seen available at any Costco near us.  

Once we got to the timeshare, we unpacked a bit and then headed straight down to the pool, where the weekly luau was starting. We took a dip and did a few laps around the pool before going back to the room and sitting on the balcony to watch the luau - prime seating!  We didn't last too long last night due to the three hour time difference, but we slept great and woke up well rested this morning.

We hit the gym this morning, then headed to the lagoon in front of the timeshare to relax and enjoy the beautiful weather. We were lucky as there was some cloud cover for most of the morning, which kept us from getting too hot. After lunch, we showered up and took the shuttle over to the new Disney resort, called Aulani, that opened earlier this year. We saw the construction when we were here last year, so we were curious to check it out. We all thought it felt very "Disney" and definitely knew we were at a Disney property. We decided that we would not stay here with our kids when we become parents (don't get too excited...that won't be for a few years), but that it would be a nice possibility for a day trip to spend time at the pools, lazy river and play areas. We walked back to the timeshare from Aulani along the lagoons and enjoyed the mild evening weather. We started dinner when we got back - fish tacos with pineapple salsa, wasabi mayo, salad and margaritas!  It was quite a feast and was enjoyed by all.

Tomorrow we plan to relax again and then will meet up for dinner with some frequent customers of the sub shop who are on a surf vacation here.  For now, some photos from the past two days:

Ahi (tuna) sashimi from Costco - yum!

The view we get to wake up to each morning!

Relaxing on the beach at the lagoon with sand on my feet!

Disney's Aulani Resort

 

 

 

Part of the Aulani lobby - the photo doesn't do it justice.

Good night!