Monthly Archives: November 2012

The Hobbit Artisan Market

entrance

Entrance to the Hobbit artisan market

As preparation for the Hobbit premiere (today! YAY!) there is an Hobbit Artisan Market in Waitangi park. It’s been on since last Sunday and will close today. Flo and I managed to go there twice which is enough as it is really quite small. =)

The entrance is a wooden Hobbit hole. On Sunday, there was a lot going on there with many people taking their pictures with that sign. When we were back on Monday, it was less busy and we also took a picture. The cute thing about this photo opportunity is that the city council of Wellington has hired some people to stand around the entrance to take picture of people/couples who always have the problem that they need to ask strangers to get a picture of both. So cute! =) Continue reading →

Pictures by Yasmin

Just a picture post basically.

 

The breakdown of a foodie

bread aisle

bread aisle (by-nc-sa – capl@washjeff.edu)

New Zealand is an awesome country, plain and simple. We love it here, we love the people and we love the land. But oh boy, it is soooo hard to be a foodie in New Zealand. Today our desperate quest for good food reached critical mass. We HAD to do something. And we did.

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Middle of Middle Earth

Yasmin went back to Melbourne today and we decided to bring her to the airport so that we could see the giant Gollum statue that Weta Workshop has installed. Tina and Brendan were okay with us borrowing the car once more so we picked Yasmin up at Nomads with all her luggage.

It was enough time to go and grab some lunch before driving to the airport. The original plan was to show her the Burger place at Lyall Bay that has all the vegetarian burgers but when we arrived, the trailer was gone. A quick check on the internet confirmed that the place was closed (and thus gone) and will re-open on November 11th. *sigh* Continue reading →

Happy Guy Fawkes Day!

Flo and I had a great day. We met up with Yasmin, my German/Persian seat neighbour on the plane to Sydney who is visiting NZ at the moment.

First, we had coffee at Floriditas and then took the bus to the top of Mt Vic to get a good view on Wellington. Walking up there is quite…..a pain in the butt so I was happy to take the bus. The view on Wellington was great as it was sunny, only the horizon was too misty to see the South Island.  We decided to walk back down. Had the most yummy passionfruit ice cream afterwards and made it a date to watch the fireworks together at 9 pm.

Wellington from above

Wellington from above

View to the other side

View to the other side to the airport and Miramar

View into the harbour

View into the harbour

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Crating the bike, Part 1: Planning

Intime Logo

Intime Logo

As promised, there will be a couple of dedicated post on Rocinante and how to ship her and all our gear to Wellington. The first step was to figure out how to ship the bike and find a forwarding agent.

A couple of Internet searches and inquiries later, one company stood out: InTime Motorradtransporte Hamburg. Behind this impressive name  Continue reading →

My nemesis!

Red Rocks walkway

Red Rocks walkway

Today I had to learn the hard way that I am a looooong way from being a good off-road rider. Since our first short ventures on unsealed roads, I was keen to try to tackle the red rocks. On our first time there, we had full paniers and were 2 up, and it was a huge pain. This time, I was eager to do it, all alone and with no luggage. The track there has everything you might encounter and hate on an off-road path: Continue reading →