For the past six months we have described our situation as “Stuck in New Zealand”. But to be honest, we have been more than happy to be here; and we really thought we could leave if we wanted to do so. Well… we can’t. What?? Seems as though when every country on earth says “No US citizens”, they mean it. We cannot go to Europe, UK, Hong Kong, Australia or anywhere else we have checked, even though we have not stepped foot in the USA in over two years. We have scrutinized immigration requirements and appealed to embassies and consulates and even asked the US embassy to help. No dice. So we have had to cancel our house sits in Portugal and Spain. And now we are scrambling to see if New Zealand will extend our visa another six months. We will cancel flights (try to get money back); see if we can extend our car rental and find a place to stay. Not our first rodeo; we have had these frantic no-knowing-where-we-will-be-sleeping-in-a-week times before.
We have mixed feelings: we were excited to get back to our traveling lifestyle and really excited to spend time with our favorite adopted dogs Indy and Inka and meet the new ones in Portugal. But we feel pretty safe and lucky to be in New Zealand; and love having the country basically to ourselves. This is really a once in a lifetime opportunity.
It may be meant to be. Today we got an alert from our house sitting website of a house sit about 3 hours from here for a couple dogs: 4 yr old black lab (Karma’s 4th Bday is today BTW) and a German Shorthaired Pointer. We applied, we got picked. We are so excited to meet these two dogs: Ritchie and Gem named after the captain of the All Blacks the year they won the world cup and his partner. I barely know what that means and know you won’t, here’s a translation: Here no one refers to their wife or husband; rather everyone is a partner. The “All Blacks” is the New Zealand national rugby union team. Soccer here is called “Soccer;” rugby is football or “Footie”. Anyway, the dogs are a black lab and a GSP and we cannot wait to meet them. And shoutout to Karma who is now a mature 4 year old enjoying life in Poway; we miss you chica!
Since we last checked in, we arrived in Queenstown. If you went to New Zealand, you would come to Queenstown; it is the most tourist driven place in New Zealand. And it rocks. We love QTown. Beautiful little town on a large gorgeous lake bounded by mountain ranges; Currently topped with snow. Beautiful scenery. This is a mecca for adrenalin sports; or any sport. We can see ski fields from our house; as well as helicopters zipping people to heli ski or land on glaciers. And hang gliders, paragliders and parasailing on the lake. And along the river: jet boats. Canyoning, mountain biking, and hiking are pretty mainstream. And of course, fantastic vineyards are 20 minutes away. Now we are on the other side of the mountains from the wine tasting we were doing a couple weeks ago; less than an hour away through a mountain pass (we took the 2 week, long way around). Still the Otago region. We like this place quite a lot. So does everyone else, it is expensive to live or lodge here!
Our first B&B was in town. Fantastic location, but tiny place. Now we are outside of town in a proper house equipped with mountain bikes that we are making use of. Funny, we were renting a motorhome for $30/day, but would be paying $40 or more for a half day mountain bike rental. So air B&B’s with bikes are a big plus. Mountain biking here is groomed, gravel trails, or over-the-top rugged expert (you make a mistake, you die) trails; nothing in between. Only commonality – the picture perfect scenery. As is typical for New Zealand, 4 seasons per day is the norm. I was talking with friends in shorts on Sunday and Sunday night 20 cm of snow fell. And then shorts at mid day again. The snow level is about 50 feet higher than our house; easy to measure as the Remarkable Range is right outside the window. The Remarkables are a mountain range that are “remarkable” for being exactly north/south orientated. What is remarkable to me is how craggy and thorny these mountains are and how steeply they rise right in front of us. The mountains here are not that high (Remarkables height is 2319 metres); it is hard to believe there is snow on them, let alone glaciers. It is like geography is compressed here in New Zealand. The ocean (either direction), is about 2 hours away (if there was a freeway).
We’ve been raving about the wine here, and people have been asking for wine labels to look for. I will list some, but good luck. Most NZ wine is not exported. Otago Pinot Noir is exceptional. Any you can find…buy. Some of our favorites are Valli; Mondillo; Mount Difficulty; Felton Road; Misha’s; and really exclusive: Wild Irishan, Chard Farm, Brennan, Coal Pit, or Wet Jacket. They all have club memberships and ship to the states, but finding them in a store would be unlikely, a restaurant possibly. You all know I love(d) Marlborough sauvignon Blanc. You’ve heard of Kim Crawford? Well no one has heard of that here. Nor Babich or any of the others I liked when in the States. Those are exported by foreign liquor distributors and not even available here. I still like Sauv Blanc, but not exclusively the Marlboroughs. But here in Otago, Pinot Noir is king.
That is it for now. Tomorrow we start moving up the West coast and in 5 days start our across the wilderness bike trek. We will be off the grid for a few days. Tally ho!
Cheers!
Stranded nomads
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