Fellow Foodies and Travellers,
Sabrina and I hope you enjoy this second instalment of ‘revisited’.
Every so often we’re mining our memories of a beloved travel destination for more material. This time it’s New Zealand, catnip if you love a road trip as much as we do!
Marco & Sabrina
From our very first travels together in Australia and Europe, Sabrina and I have always loved the spontaneity and serendipity of what to us is the very best kind of road trip, where other than a general idea of where we might end up, there’d be no advance planning beyond a return deadline and certainly no accommodation whatsoever booked in advance.
This laissez faire approach finally cratered spectacularly on a drive through Tuscany. We’d been dreaming of a room with a view of Brunelleschi’s dome, but the only bed available for our first night in Florence was in a spectacularly overpriced fleapit of a hotel in the hills one hour outside of the city. After this reality check, all bets were off and we spent the following day booking up the rest of the journey and mentally consigning this much loved mode of travel to the dustbin of history.
Yet here we are with our daughter a decade and a half later, exploring both the main islands of New Zealand old school, overnighting in one of this country’s unsung gems, (its marvellous motels), wherever the mood takes us. It helps of course that we’re here in the Southern Hemisphere winter, but somehow it still seems like a minor miracle to be exploring these preternaturally beautiful islands at will, with a little bit of guidance and inspiration from old friends who live in Wellington, the most southern capital city on the planet.
Heading out from there a couple of weeks ago, we hugged the black sand beaches up the west coast before turning inland towards Tongariro National Park and its three active volcanoes; Ruapehu the country’s largest, Tongariro and Nguarohoe, (the last famously familiar as Mordor’s ‘Mount Doom’ from the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy. My own memories of this region are somewhat less starry and as the three of us passed by these massive snow cones on the desolate Desert Road, I related the story of the spartan ski holiday I spent years back on Mt Ruapehu in the scout-camp-like ‘Alpine Lodge’, where a compulsory cleaning and cooking roster, bunk-bedded dorms and perpetual whiteouts on black lava flecked sheet ice, combined to confect a uniquely Kiwi brand of toughness, completely alien to this habitué of sunny, powdery slopes and open fire warmed après ski.
In the distance the huge expanse of Lake Taupo, itself a volcanic crater opened up and we rapidly found a place to stay right on the water’s edge. Time enough before sunset for us to fossick for pumice stones from Mt Ruapehu’s last ‘big bang’, in the company of three black swans and their signets.
North of Lake Taupo, this land of natural wonders crooks an unfeasibly lush ‘little finger’ at the world with its Coromandel Peninsular, home to wild kiwi birds, some of the last remaining stretches of ancient Kauri rain forest and hot spring beaches where you can dig yourself a thermal bath in the sands. Coromandel town, our base for the night may look across the Hauraki gulf to Auckland’s high rises, but it still feels gloriously remote and unspoiled. As we approached, a string of impossibly verdant islands stretched out beyond its harbour as far as the eye can see, to complete the illusion.
Great road trips are a bit like the best kind of tasting menus, always one tiny bite too few of something heavenly, but any poignancy quickly gives way to the anticipation of the next surprise and Lake Rotoiti announced itself to our nostrils way before we saw it, with a whiff of sulphur. Our destination that evening, the Waiora Spa at Hell’s Gate where we walked through the Thermal Reserve at dusk before taking our mud baths and massages. Several hot showers later, the scent of this experience still lingered, but we have never slept better.
New Zealand’s North and South islands are different in many ways but enjoying extraordinary wines in extraordinarily lovely settings comes as standard. Hawkes Bay in the North is the country’s oldest and produces its finest reds and stopping for a couple of tastings at Esk Valley and Craggy Range in the late afternoon did not disappoint. Craggy Range’s riverside setting in the shadow of Te Mata peak is especially dramatic and the winery’s Californian owners have created an extremely impressive venue, reminiscent of Napa Valley’s finest.
The South Island’s Sauvignon Blancs which are centred on the Marlborough region need no introduction, but we especially enjoyed tasting Pinot Noirs and Pinot Gris accompanied by the locally made cheeses of the Central Otago with a moody, storm clouded vista of The Remarkables mountain range for company.
Both islands are impossibly verdant, but after a sunny week in the North the almost incessant rain threatened to spike our Southern explorations, (you won’t find the green of a South Island pasture on any colour chart and its west coast is one of the wettest locations on the planet, especially in wintertime). Not that this deterred us one little bit, as somehow it almost always cleared to sunshine when we needed it most.
We watched the crazies bungee jumping off the Kawarau suspension bridge outside Queenstown but did not partake, instead seeking thrills by renting boots, crampons and steel tipped mountain poles to hike Fox Glacier with Steve our Welsh born mountain guide, who helped us skirt the lethal crevasses and moulins (deep holes in the ice) to explore shimmering blue ice caves and walk under soaring arches pushed up by the advancing ice (the glacier is moving about a metre a day currently).
A sunny, cloudless boat trip on the fjord at Milford Sound was an especial miracle as it is one of the wettest places on the planet, with an average annual rainfall of 365 inches. We took the last boat of the afternoon and as the winter light turned golden saw seals, dolphins and spectacular waterfall rainbows.
We’d planned to have lunch at Akaroa on our way back to the airport in Christchurch, to take a look at the blue Marbay pearls which are unique to that peninsular, but instead even Sabrina was persuaded by our motel owner’s recommendation to stop at Kaikoura instead, having first detoured to taste citrusy Sauvignon Blancs and pet the baby lambs (granting our daughter’s main wish), at Waipara Hills in the Marlborough region.
Over the past decade or so New Zealand has quietly (how very Kiwi), become a bit of a foodie mecca with its superb local ingredients and its own interesting brand of fusion cooking. Easily the most evocative meal of the entire trip was the simplest- at a little roadside seafood spot on the beach at Kaikoura. The chef had literally set up a grill and a couple of tables and chairs on the side of the road. There were chalkboard directional and menu signs not only for passing motorists, but also on the sand facing the surf, in case someone happened to swim up for lunch.
The green-lipped mussels and scallops we enjoyed had been caught only a few minutes earlier, so were indescribably fresh.
Green lipped mussels and scallops with a whitebait omelette on the side: Serves Three
The Kiwis love these omelettes and use tiny juvenile fish to make them in the short few weeks of the season which runs from late August or early September until the end of October. These juvenile fish can be hard to find outside of New Zealand and parts of Asia, where they are also popular, so a specialist Asian food store will be your best bet.
For the Whitebait omelette:
300 gms juvenile whitebait
3 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
2-3 spring onions, finely sliced
Extra virgin olive oil and tsp butter for frying
Beat the eggs until foamy then add the rest of the ingredients, mix to combine.
Heat an oven safe fry pan with the oil and butter on medium heat, pour the mixture into the pan, cook until the bottom of the omelette is golden, transfer the pan to a preheated grill/ broiler in the oven. Grill/broil until golden and the omelette is fully cooked.
For the green lipped mussels and scallops:
1 lb large scallops on the shell
2 lbs green lipped mussels, still in the half shell
6 cloves garlic, minced
¼ cup chopped parsley
½ cup olive oil
½ tsp salt
1 lemon
Mix the garlic, parsley, salt and oil together. Mix 2 tbsp of the oil mixture into the scallops, plus a squeeze of lemon juice.
Put a dollop of the oil mixture onto each of the mussels plus a squeeze of lemon juice.
Grill them until done.
We have covered vast distances on this trip (four thousand kilometres is an awful lot of driving in two weeks, but we don’t regret a single one of them). This country of just four million people, fourty million sheep and seventy million possums is a whole lot bigger than it looks and has served up some unforgettable encounters with nature, none more so than meeting a pair of Kea parrots who came to say hello as we were enjoying the view of the Franz Josef glacier from a scenic look out. Known locally as the ‘clown of the alps’ these highly resourceful, mischievous alpine parrots are one of several flightless bird species unique to these islands including the Kiwi, the nation’s symbol.
I like to think they represent a side of the Kiwi character that’s often under-appreciated.
You have a gift with your vivid descriptions of your many travels that transports the reader there with you- It always inspires me to see these marvels for myself. I guess that’s the point! Thoroughly enjoyed the read, thank you ☺️
Once again a great read. Such evocative painting with words combined with a seemingly endless array of wonderful images. All very inspiring!