Aylstone Boutique Retreat Martinborough

... yellow monsters.<br><br>What I listened to: Applying the rule of &#8216;my car, my music&#8217; even though I was in a hired Toyota Corolla I chose the tunes. Talking of the Corolla &#8211; it most certainly is not the Ford Flex fun bus from California &#8211; but it certainly does the job for NZ where the top speed is 62 mph and this can be achieved in 3rd in most cars! On the subject of cars I reckon that if I am to buy a place in ...

... impossibly green fields, and broke up herds of sheep, and barreled through rivers, you name it! We stopped a few times along the way and got to know Glenn better. He grew up in the area, although like many Kiwi's he spent a few years abroad. He told us stories about riding sheep as a small boy and riding cows!?!? That is a new one - and I grew up in a small town with lots of cow pastures. He gave us a new ...

... was designed by a British man in the shape of a union jack, with all roads leading away from the village green in the centre. Our hosts Helen and Warwick live in a beautiful 1920's farmstead tucked neatly amongst the rolling hills. Being located along a long track from the road it is a real heaven of peace and tranquillity. At night the stars in the black night sky were just amazing, they seem to sparkle and there seems to be so many more than we have in the UK night skies. On ...

While the equinox is still some weeks away, the first signs of spring are starting to become apparent here in New Zealand: the odd blossom, some warmer days, later evenings. All this, plus, importantly, fine weather, led us out into the countryside this weekend. Making our usual leisurely departure for our Saturday, we first headed up to the suburb of Petone, at the top of the harbour, for some lunch. While part of the much-derided-by-trendy ...

... and "the spit". It was only about an hour before dark and we piled into my car because is has 4wd and I don't give a damn about it and drove untill it became unreasonable to carry on. After about a 40 min hike accross a dessert and past a waterfall we could see some of the breaks. There was a lot more swell showing because of the angle, but not worth the seals and then waking home in the dark so we headed back and camped at Ngawi - or Pinnacles or some point that not ...

... for a backpacker), and then one more personal: Young Centaur. Considering the symbol for Sagittarius is a centaur, and I have one tattooed onto my back that is indeed young, I thought that this was a surefire thing and an excellent way to bet. I put $10 on both horses, 5 each way. (Which I learned means two bets: on the win, and on placing.) Anyways. Lo and behold, Young Centaur won the race! And the fave didn't even place. I was chuffed (that's right, chuffed!) when I handed in ...

... South Pacific. Send cookies. We checked out of the hotel and hit the highway to Martinborough. Along the way, we decided to totally "dork out" and visit one of the filming sites of "Lord of the Rings." One of our road maps lists all of the filming sites and what they were in the films. We visited the location of the Elf city of Rivendell and it was pretty awesome. It's located in a regional park that has lots of really cool camp ...

... playground, train, mini golf, skate park, rose garden, lake walk, and even a flying fox which Aron and I thoroughly enjoyed. We had dinner at the cafe in the park calle Cicille Cafe. The ambiance, food and service were excellent. We had a Paua fritter for starters and shared Tarnaki fish for the main course. Masterton seems to have alot to offer for its size. Tomorrow we go north to Morere hot springs and plan on stopping at the Tui Brewery and a native bird breeding park.

... drive. While waiting in the queue for the ferry, we received a phone call from the plumbing supplies informing us that, while they did say 11 - 11:30, they were a bit early. How early, I ask? You see, I don't have a watch on me (and I'm in New Zealand without a watch, which makes it doubly hard to know the time in Sydney). 10:35am came the reply. Well, I will just call my representative, who has ...

12-Mar-07 We headed out of Taupo for the Tongariro national park planning to go for a pleasant walk. Unfortunately we had heard on the weather that it was due to rain that pm so we only had a short window to complete our walk in we thought about 2-3hrs plenty of time!! Sadly the weather people were mistaken, we headed off (it was a little overcast) on our 6km walk to a waterfall. We arrived at ...