Wellington to Buller Gorge, New Zealand

At the beginning of October Garrett had a road safety conference in Wellington, New Zealand.  Once the conference was over we decided to make a holiday out of it and explore the beautiful south island.

If you're not familiar with New Zealand geography, Wellington is at the south end of the north island.  In order to get to the south island we decided to take a 3 hour ferry from Wellington to Picton through Cook Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound. 

Lucky for us, neither of us got sea sick.  Many other passengers weren't so lucky.

The main point of taking the ferry was to get us from Point A to Point B.  But the scenery between those two points was incredible, crossing open ocean and making our way through the fiords of Queen Charlotte Sound.



Once we arrived in Picton our rental car was waiting for us....our little gold Nissan Sunny...

This was our first driving adventure on the wrong side of the road.  Blinkers and wipers are swapped.  And we decided to throw the stick shift in there, too.

 

One thing that I looked forward to most on our drive was seeing green grassy fields full of grazing sheep.  And oh, did my wish come true.  There was no shortage of my "sheepies" along our drive along green hills, across bridges, and over countless streams and rivers.  

On our first day of driving we stopped at the Buller Gorge Swing Bridge, the longest swing bridge in New Zealand.  I'm not terrified of heights, but I'm not a huge fan either.  But this thing was so narrow and looked kind of sketchy.  But we're alive.

 So, that was Day 1 in New Zealand.  There's so much more to come.

Wildlife spotting - did you see him?

For those of you who couldn't make out the little guy in the picture on my last post, as he was very well camouflaged, here are highlighted and magnified views. This is the scene we were looking at when the guy next to us says, "I see one!" and then he tried to explain to us where the penguin was. "Just to the right of that rock..." It took us a little while to find him, but we finally did.

We were lucky enough to see 6 of these Fiordland Crested Penguins. They thought that this little guy was lost because they had never seen them on this part of the island before. The skipper drove the boat up as close as he could and we watched him waddle around for a few minutes.

Here is a closer look at some other penguins we saw the next morning.

Wildlife Spotting

Jacquie and I had such a great time in New Zealand that we wanted you to be able to experience some of our favourite moments too. So, in order to feel like you are there with us, imagine the sounds of crashing waves, the boat rocking back and forth, and the smell of the ocean and keep an eye out for rare animals.

The "Where's Waldo" of the wild.  Can you find it?

If you really want to feel like you were there, put on your rain coat and have someone spray you with the hose. 

Tickets Just Came in the Mail

Living in Sydney, going to a performance at the opera house is kind of a must.  So a couple of weeks ago Garrett and I bought tickets to "Planet Earth in Concert" at the Sydney Opera House in October.  And guess what came in the mail today.....

We love Planet Earth and can't wait to hear the beautiful music in concert....at the Sydney Opera House!

We plan on making this quite an evening, so before the show starts we'll be eating here; a restaurant at the opera house. 

This is going to be such a great experience!  October 27th can't come soon enough!

My Personal Sewing Machine Mechanic

When Garrett and I moved to Sydney we left everything we owned behind....everything that wouldn't fit into our 2 checked bags and our carry-ons, that is.  Everything is in storage.  We were starting from scratch.

While we were packing our bags the night before our long voyage across the Pacific, I had a meltdown.  What do I take?  Clothes...done.  Family photos...done.  But what about my all of my crafty things?  If you know me, you know that all things craft or "home-ec" are what make me, me.  Stand mixer...too big, too heavy.  Fabric and notions...we don't own enough luggage.  Recipe books...alone they would go over the weight limit.  ALL of my cake decorating and baking tools...need  a lot more luggage (although Garrett generously donated some of his luggage space for some of my cake decorating tools in attempt to calm his fragile wife.  And because he dearly loves her.).  Sewing machine...too big, too heavy, and is dying on me anyway.

I was crushed.  Soon after we finally found an apartment and I found a job, we bought me a stand mixer.  I was, and still am, one happy girl.  Just look here.  But I was still in search of one more important item.  The sewing machine.

So, I searched everyday on Gumtree (Australian equivalent to American Craigslist).  There wasn't much out there.  I then came across an ad for an old Bernina sewing machine for $60.  The owner admitted to not being a sewer, but she was pretty sure it was broken.  The fabric wouldn't feed through on its own, but I was more than welcome to come take a look and see if I could find the problem.  So, Garrett and I went to look at the machine.  I thought I knew what was wrong.  I was certain I knew.  But it turned out that I was wrong.  Still broken, I turned it down, being very disappointed.

Later that day the Bernina owner emailed me to say, "I'm never going to be able to sell a broken sewing machine, so if you'd like to take it for free and pay for the repairs yourself, you're more than welcome to it."  Free sewing machine?  I accept.  I picked it up, called the repair man and scheduled for him to pick it up the following day for a tune up and repair.  And then steps in my husband.

Lucky for me, my husband is a mechanical engineer.  Garrett has always been the type to take something apart, see how it works and fix it if needed or remove unneeded parts, and put it back together again, return it to perfect working order.  The night before the repair man was scheduled to come, Garrett sat down to "look" at my machine.  But before he even had a chance to take it apart, he found the problem.  And boy did I feel stupid.  Do you know why the fabric wasn't feeding through the machine?  The stitch length was set to zero.  Zero!  *sigh*  Well, I got a free sewing machine, right?

When I sat down for a real sewing project I started having problems.  The thread was winding and getting jammed around the bobbin every time I back-stitched.  I soon gave up on sewing.  But Garrett decided to take things apart.  And what can I say?  The man is a genius.  My sewing machine is working again.  I pulled it out last night to complete a little project that's been sitting on the table, all cut and ready to be sewn.  The pillow project turned out better than imagined, and my machine is now perfect!

How lucky am I to have my own hunky personal live-in sewing machine mechanic?

Quick Trip to Melbourne

A while back (actually about 7 months back...I know, it's been too long), Garrett and I had the opportunity to take a quick trip to Melbourne (pronounced mell-bin; they don't always say their "R's" down here).

I call it an opportunity because I was asked to go with the family that I work for to care for the baby while they attended the Melbourne Cup (a big horse race), dinners, and parties.  As a form of payment for my time on the trip, they offered to pay for Garrett to come along on the trip as well, which was great because 1.) neither of us had been to Melbourne, and 2.)  Melbourne was on our list of places to visit in Australia. Two for two!  We accept.

Here is me and the little reason we got to go on the trip...

At this point, the little one was only 4 weeks old.  Because she was so little we couldn't stray too far away from the hotel and to the outskirts of town like we would have liked to, but just because she was with us (or I guess we were with her) didn't mean we weren't going to get out and explore the city.  I strapped her into the Baby Bjorn, packed the bottles and nappies, and we were off!



On our walk we came across St. Paul's Cathedral.  I love the tile work and high ceilings or cathedrals, and the same applied  here.  Beautiful.



Melbourne is a beautiful city with a funky vibe, which I love!  You've got to keep an eye out as you're walking around because there are a lot of cool little shops and cafes that are hidden in the alleys.  One of the alley-hidden treasures that we found was an alley where the buildings were covered in graffiti.  But this alley hadn't simply been tagged.  It had been covered in works of art.  It was amazing and I loved it.



As much as Garrett and I would have loved to go to the Melbourne Cup, we enjoyed ourselves none the less.  We plan to head back to again soon and discover the rest of Melbourne...and maybe go to Melbourne Cup.

Vanilla, Vanilla, Vanilla Cupcakes

Vanilla Cake, Vanilla Custard Filling, Vanilla Swiss Meringue Icing....delicious. 

 

(I know, you can't see her entire face, but this photo still shows that she is oh-so cute!)

I was asked to make "white" cupcakes for the party following the christening of the beautiful little 8-month-old girl I care for, Charlize (but I call her Charley).  Since her "Mum" doesn't like white chocolate I decided to stick the basics...vanilla.  A lot of the time I feel like vanilla can be, well, "vanilla".  But when it's done right it can be amazing!

So, what is my idea of a perfect vanilla combo?  Sweet vanilla cake, light fluffy vanilla frosting, and creamy custard vanilla filling.

Sewing Machine Mechanic

Is your sewing maching not feeding the fabric through?  Does the bobbin get wound up with thread when you sew in reverse?  Are you just sick and tired of your sewing maching not working properly?

Just send it over to Garrett and he will fix it in a jiffy. 

Jacquie's machine was having these problems, so I decided to take a look.  I started taking things apart, which is my typical response for when things aren't working properly, not knowing if I would be able to put it all back together.  And with my very keen sense of intellect and expansive knowledge of machinery I was able to clean out the ounce of lint that had balled up under the feeder-mechanism and remove the old thread that had wound itself permanently around the bobbin assembly. 

Pictures from Carrington to Fitzroy Falls Trip

Due, to popular demand, here are some pics of my trip from Carrington Falls to Fitzroy Falls.  Thanks to Evan who took these and shared them with everyone. 

 Dave crossing the river. 

 

 Me, after crossing.

 

Two smaller waterfalls we passed along the way.  There had been plenty of rain this summer and over the past few days so there was no lack of water.

 A view of the top half of Fitzroy falls.

 View from the top of fitzroy falls.  This give you an idea of the steepness of the valleys we hiked through.

Carrington to Fitzroy Trip Report

This past weekend I went down to Budderoo National Park for a two-night backpacking trip with the bushwalker's rescue squad.   I didn't take my camera but am hoping to get some pics from a buddy who had his.

We drove down from Sydney on Friday night and camped at Nelles Glen.  Before heading to bed we walked out to the Warris Chair lookout and watched the Kangaroo Valley fill with fog in the moonlight.  We rose early on Saturday to meet the group at Carrington Falls and shuttle some cars over to Fitzroy Falls. 

We hiked south-west along a faint trail towards Stevos Pass at the top of the cliff face.  When then followed an old cedar-getters road about a quarter of the way down the steep side of the valley at which point the 'bush bashing' began.  We zig-zagged down the side of the valley and headed for the Kangaroo River.  The river was quite flooded due to the recent downpours in the area and it took some time to find a suitable spot to cross.  The day was beginning to warm up at this point which made the river crossing very refreshing.  The river was about 10 metres wide with a maximum depth of about 1.5 metres.

After crossing, and ringing out our socks, we headed up the opposite side of the valley and aimed for the paddocks to the south-west.  The terrain on this side of the river was very steep and dense with trees and scrub.  We slowly worked our way up to 300 m elevation and worked to maintain that elevation as we travelled toward the paddocks.  Sometime along the way Keith accidentally hit a stinging tree with the back of his hand and was in some pretty good pain for the rest of the day.  We crossed several gullies on this side of the river including one with a beautiful waterfall pouring over a steep rock formation (reminded me of the 'Grotto' on the way to little caliente hot spring in Santa Barbara).  Not too long after crossing this stream a full grown wombat passed by as we were waiting for the rest of the group to catch up.  We eventually made it to the paddocks which were a welcome relief from the dense scrub we had been fighting through.  They were totally cleared of trees and scrub and only contained wild grass and some blackberry bushes.  At the north end we connected to an old fire road and hiked along that until we reached out camping spot for the night near the top of Belmore Falls.

In the morning we continued along the fire road for about 500 metres towards and then went off track and headed back down into the valley.  We had to work our way through about 20 metres of nasty nettle plants which was pretty uncomfortable for the next while.  We eventually made our way down and headed back up the opposite side of the neck of the valley.  We climbed  the eastern slope and were confronted with a cliff face.  We worked along the face to the north, and walked under a small waterfall, until we found a suitable spot to climb through to the top. 

At this point, and throughout the remainder of the trip the terrain was undulating with little significant elevation change.  We trekked through more scrub and alongside a few farming fields and even saw a wallaby.  We made it to Mannings lookout and enjoyed the view for bit before heading down the road toward Fitzroy Falls.  We took the road for about 1.5 k's until we could get back to a trail.  The trail meandered along the cliff face to the south-west of the Fitzroy Reservoir and provided amazing views of the Yarrunga Creek and valley below.  When we got to the falls they were absolutely pumping and you could hear the roar of the water for quite a distance.  It was a great end to an amazing trip.  We were even lucky enough to have beautfiul weather the entire time with nary a sprinkle.

The Blue Mountains

Seeing as Garrett and I don't have a car, we took an early morning train to Katoomba where we went hiking in the Blue Mountains (we can still get around).  Katoomba is west of Sydney.  "They" call them the Blue Mountains because the forest is nearly completely made up of eucalyptus trees.  The trees give off oil into the atmosphere and when those oil droplets combine with the water vapor and dust particles in the air, it creates a blue horizon...it has something to do with wave lengths of the rays of light or something.  I don't know...I'm not a scientist.

First stop, bus stop.  Our first hike of the day was to the bus stop so that we could get to the train station.

You can see Garrett's sleepy eyes.

After a couple of hours on the train we finally arrived in Katoomba.  The next hike of the day was from the train station to the Blue Mountains.  As we were searching for the head of the trail we came across a great view of the park.

At the trail head at Echo Point we were able to see rock formations called The Three Sisters.  The Aboriginal legend of the sisters goes like this....there were three sisters of the Katoomba tribe.  They fell in love with three brothers of a neighboring tribe, but tribal law forbade them to marry.  The brothers didn't agree with the law and chose to capture the sisters instead which caused battle between the tribes.  Because the lives of the sisters were in danger, a witchdoctor decided to turn the sisters to stone to keep them from harm until the battle was over.  But before the witchdoctor could change the sisters back, he was killed.  Because he was the only one able to reverse the spell, the sisters still stand as beautiful rock formations as a reminder of the battle for generations to come.  

Echo point was extremely crowded, mainly because you didn't really have to hike to get there and enjoy the view.  Most of the people were Asian, as are a lot of people in Sydney.  While we were there we decided to play a little game of "Where's Garrett?"  Can you find him?

The trail led down The Giant Staircase.  And they weren't kidding.  It really was giant....and steep.  And it took us straight to one of the sisters.  By the time we reached the bottom of the staircase our legs were weak and shaky.

And unfortunately my allergy to nickel flared up as I was gripping the hand rail down the staircase.  I ended up with red, itchy, swollen, painful hands  Lucky for me, Garrett brought his gloves with him, so I was able to wear them for the rest of the hike.

  I know, this picture is blown out all weird...tried to fix it...can't explain it.

The remainder of the hike took us through the rain forest to Katoomba Falls and Bridal Veil Lookout.  Throughout the hike Garrett and I would turn to one another and say, "We're hiking.....in AUSTRALIA!"  It's awesome.   

The greenery along the way was beautiful...

At the end of the day we were tired, hungry, and sorry to leave.  We plan to make another trip soon.

Aussie Ads

Since arriving in Australia, Garrett and I have seen lots of TV commercials...some funny, some annoying, or even flat out boring.  There's an insane number of life insurance ads (boring).  And through song we've been told many times to purchase their 100% Aussie beef (annoying). 

Here we share our favourites...the funny ones.  I hope you laugh as much as we did.  Enjoy.

Cookies, Christmas, and New Years

Every year in the Haeberle home we (Mom) make lots and lots of cookies...nine different kinds to be exact.  This is the second year that I've made them on my own.  Last year we made some for friends and sold some cookie trays to others.  This year it was a necessity.  This was my first Christmas away from Mom and Dad....and we were without our Santa Barbara friends, and it's summer (still really weird).

So I made heaps of cookies (with help from Garrett, that is when he wasn't "all out" of help) and took them on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to our new friends.  At a Christmas Eve feast, one of these new friends said to Garrett, "I thought you bought these cookies.  That is the most beautiful cookie I have ever seen."  Garrett asked, "Which one?"  Our friend said, "That.  All of them!"

But we didn't share all of them.  We kept plenty for ourselves.



We spent Christmas Day with the Rochester's.  They made a huge, traditional, amazing English feast!  It was more familiar to us than all of this Aussie-BBQ-on-Christmas stuff.

We weren't allowed to eat our food unless we were wearing our hats.

We recently moved to Bondi Beach, the most popular beach in Sydney.  On New Years Eve there was a concert on Bondi Beach, but the tickets cost $125.  No thank you.  Instead, Garrett and I went to the top of our building, on my bosses' deck, and watched the concert and fireworks from there.  I say we got the best seats.  We got to see and hear everything, but we didn't have to be in the ginormous crowd. 

2011 was a wonderful and wild year, and we're ready for 2012, the joys to come, and more adventures in Australia!