I am finally in Blenheim where I have the best deal of internet service that I have found since I've been gone (6.00 usd for 24hrs). For the past two weeks I have been traveling with my parents, our close family friends (Dugan & Cheryl McIntosh) and Monica Lewis (who I will be living with and working with at Indevin). I arrived yesterday to Blenheim and I am getting situated in my dorm style room and lifestyle. Work starts tomorrow (March 1st). I wanted to share some pictures from the past two weeks of adventures.
We started off flying into Auckland located on the North Island of NZ, where we all caught another plan and traveled back across the dateline to Rarotonga, Cook Islands.
This is a view from the room I was staying in, quite a wonderful setting. The island is small, and it is expensive but the people are all very nice. The typical meal was at least $20.00 usd per plate, and $4.00 for bottled water. A bottle of Heiniken would cost $8.00 and a fruity drink pina colada around $18.00. But the beauty of the island and what the island has to offer is priceless. Rartonga is surrounded by a reef which allows for great kayaking, easy swimming, and some of the most amazing snorkeling in some of the most clear ocean water I have ever seen! Most people get around by scooters, and traveling at 40 km (aka 25mph) you can travel the whole island in about 45minutes.
Tropical landscape surround the middle of the island and offers great hiking opportunities. The weather was great for us, a little humid with the occasional shower in the evening that would last for 10 minutes.
I checked out the local winery on the island; Banana Wine!
The guy who owned this winery, him and his family have been making banana wine for years, and here are some pictures of his winery operation:
He keeps his wine in these containers until ready for bottling.
Here is the banana wine that he filters to get rid of all of he sediment until he gets clear wine. (notice the bottle is jeam beam). We wee able to taste his finished product, and the white wine was quite sweet and had a strong taste of banana. The red wine he makes in banana based, but he ads local berries from he island (for color) as well as whatever local fruit is abundant (ie papaya, passion fruit, mango). He said each bottle differs in the flavor, just depending upon which fruit he can find. 
We also visited a local brewery (1 of 2) on the island, this was a great place and had affordable beer. ($4.00 per bottle). The owner also said if we had empty water bottles or empty wine bottles he could also fill up his beer into those instead of buying bottles from him.
The food on the island was great! Very fresh fish:
After spending 5 days in this tropical paradise, we continued our adventure to New Zealand. Monica and I traveled to Waiheke Island. This island is a 40minuie ferry ride from Auckland to an island dedicated to wine! They grow mainly red varietals there, syrah, bordeaux varietals including malbec. The island was very busy on Saturday when we went, many tatsing rooms were closed for private parties, mainly for weddings, and bacherlorette parties. The island reminded me of Napa or Paso Robles, several tasting rooms located in a close proximity and very popular with the younger crowd and large parties.
One winery in particular stood out, it had wine tasting as well as beer tasting. It also had archery and shooting.
After the wine island, we took the ferry from the North Island to the South Island. We rented a car and traveled all over the South Island.
Very cleaver marketing and design went into this label...After traveling from Kiakora we made our way down the coast to Dunedin, the to Queenstown. Queenstown is known for their adventure sports, like sky-diving and bungy jumping. Surrounding Queenstown is an area known as Central Otago, which specializes in Pinot Noirs. Some very amazing wines come out of this region. This is a picture of one of the wineries as well as several pinot noirs available in a local tatsing room in Queenstown:
View from the top of Queenstown:
The Ice Bar in Queenstown Minus 5 with the group.
After Queenstown Monica and I drove through rainforests (think Road To Hana- Hawaii) to Franz-Joseph Glacier. We were fortunate enough to take a helicopter ride to the top of the blue-ice glacier. 
Franz-Joseph Glacier:
After Franz-Joseph we drove about 3 hours North, and came across these natural forming rocks called Pancake Rocks. Just outside of the town of Westport.
After Westport we did an Underworld Adventure which consisted of hiking in caves, and floating underground to look at glow-worms. After the caves we rive rafted down the small river. Please go to this link http://caverafting.com/
scroll down and click on "Online Photos", "Underground Rafting- Feb 27th-Morning" for photos from this amazing experience.
After our complete tour around the South Island I am finally settling in at my future home and I am ready to begin working tomorrow! I'll keep everyone posted on the future adventures in New Zealand!!
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