home on the craggy range

so i've made it to new zealand!!!

it is an absolutely amazing winery!! it appears exactly as it looks on the website. and i must say, my accomodations are delightfully lovely and un-hostel-like. i'm staying at the woodlands cottage (pictured below, along with a view from the cottage...don't be jealous ;). it's great place, just a bit of a sandfly and little ant problem, but nothing too major. i'm there alone now but there will be a french girl moving in next week. everyone is super nice here and i even got a car (sadly, or not too sadly, not a stickshift). there's not too much to report now as i haven't really started working yet. i met up with the crew at the SH50 winery (the winery seen on the website and above is the Giants winery) and i did some berry sampling today. as they say, it's the calm before the storm. i'll try to update you again before the storm really starts brewing, otherwise you may not hear from me for a bit! if anyone wants to send me any kind of mail, please send it to...

MJ Tsay

Craggy Range Winery

Woodlands Cottage

253 Waimarama Road

P.O. Box 8749

Havelock North 4230

Hawkes Bay, New Zealand

are you my mommy, mr. human beatbox machine?

sorry, it's been awhile since i've updated this blog, but reliable and fast internet connection is hard to come by when you're traveling on the fly in hostels.

our grand campervan roadtrip ended up in cairns without a cyclone in sight. it was bloody humid up there though...upper 30 degree celsius weather with 90% humidity will do you good. jenn and i just took a nap in the shade of a banyan tree for a few hours in cairns before we tried to see any part of the city...which there wasn't much to see or at least much interesting to see when you feel like you're swimming through the sizzling heat.

so we bid adieu to our campervan beethoven and flew down to melbourne. melbourne is a pretty wicked city with all the great food and kickin' music scene. i daresay that if you had to choose one city to go to in australia, i would recommend melbourne over sydney. we continued on our wild australia tour by seeing more wildlife in the form of the littlest penguins in the world. i even had a close encounter with a baby fairy penguin down on st. kilda pier that chased me and nibbled at my ankles. this happened while we were waiting for the one concert we got to see in australia for a decent price...a concert given by the one and only Rahzel! i don't know if you've heard of him or not, but i managed to unknowingly catch him in a concert during armadillo day at northwestern university back in '98. he is amazing now as he was then. i took some video (sadly my battery ran out), but it doesn't matter because video does not do justice to how deep he can get his voice to go and just how awesome he is. if you ever get a chance to see him live, DO IT!!!

we then headed to the hallowed melbourne cricket ground to get up close and personal with this baffling sport. we even caught a friendly match between the politicians of victoria. i'm glad they are hard at work. it's an intriguing sport. i hear even the aussies and kiwis don't even know all the rules. i'm going to try to find this new book called "How to Catch a Cricket Match" by Harry Ricketts (sounds like a cricket athlete name too, huh?) which is supposed to be filled with "interesting" anecdotes and some explanations on the game. world cup cricket is around the corner and i've got to be able to follow the conversations of the day!

we then headed to adelaide for a quick trip. pretty much all aussies say that adelaide is filled with religion and churches, which is true, but there's actually a lot more. for starters, the art gallery is free, air conditioned, and has a bag check so you can spend hours soaking up the art and the cool air. (no, i'm not a wimp, it got to 40 degrees C in melbourne and high 30s in adelaide.) besides that, there's also (for all you davis people) james erskine and, surprise, christian antony in adelaide! christian is here for harvest and has a sweet set-up with very nice argentinian roommates. it was great to have some beers with him again. sadly, i didn't see much of james except for 5 minutes, i'll make sure he never forgets that...hahah just kidding.

i did finally do some wine sight-seeing in barossa valley...no winery tours, just tasting rooms. driving to barossa is a bit like driving on the back roads to napa from davis and barossa was great. we managed to stop in at torbreck, penfolds (of course but the tasting man was really nice), rockford (they've got a great alicante bouschet), and two hands (my favorite of the day). i wasn't much of a syrah drinker before, but i softened up to it after tasting australian syrah. it's not as peppery, smokey, in-your-face as it can be in california.

this is a sand island...there are no rocks, mate!

first off, i must pat myself on the back for learning to drive a stickshift in australia...thank you very much for all those doubters out there. and on the other side of the road! i can't wait to practice stickshifting when i get back to america :) i still have to master hills and traffic jams though. second of all, i also tried surfing for the first time ever and managed to stand up and ride out some small waves!

in any case, jenn and i took a day-tour to Fraser Island, australia's largest sand island. it was a great tour, especially the beach highways and crystal-clear Lake Mackenzie. but best of all, we got to share the day with a ditzy family, one of whom we dubbed George of the Jungle. a crack-up bunch these people were. at one point, George was throwing some pinecones onto the roof of the bathroom and stated that he wanted to do the same with some rocks if he could find some. our very patient tour guide promptly answered, "this is a sand island...there are no rocks, mate!" and that was just one of many hilarities on this trip, including the photo below where George volunteered to enter the dingo cage, similar to the bear chest when you go camping in america.














we then continued north, despite the above ditzy family trying to scare us with news of
monsoon/cylcone-like weather further north, stopping in Rockhampton (known for its beef and how so since we got 2 sirloin steaks for $5AUD) and Mackay (after watching a platypus in Eungella) before we made it to Airlie Beach (the take-off point for the Whitsunday Islands). well, jenn and i decided to splurge on some real vacation time by booking 3 nights at a hotel on Hamilton Island and a day-trip to snorkel at the Great Barrier Reef. it's been totally worth it now that the humidity has set in which has made for some hot nights in our campervan. and what do you know, we've enjoyed sunny skies pretty much everyday!

finally, in continuing with the idea of free campervan parking...

7. Rockhampton carpark by the Esplanade - just be careful of the mysterious crapping trees
8. Mackay Town Beach - but can be quite buggy.

p.s. these may not be satisfying photos so i'll promise to post more when i get jenn's photos.

no worries...just give it a go, mate!

yeah! i’ve made it Down Under where i met up with Jenn (“partner in crime” from my BBRI days) for our roadtrip extragavanza. we spent a few days in sydney, which is a wonderful city and very similar to san francisco. we even climbed up the harbor bridge to get a great view of the city and the “in”famous opera house. of course, we ventured to bondi beach which was a nice way to start our tour of australia’s eastern beaches. i’m waiting to get “beached” out as i got “templed” out in asia.

we then picked up our campervan or our new home for the next couple of weeks and set off on the road. i give all the driving props to jenn for quickly mastering a stickshift on the other side and parallel parking our big sucker, "jeeves". i did manage a few kilometers on the stick so keep your fingers crossed that i can learn (finally) how to drive the real way.

australia’s awesome and the aussies are great...even the redneck ones. driving along the eastern coast, you wouldn’t even think you were in australia what with the plethora of Targets, KMarts, Woolworths, and McDonalds. one minute you’re in hawaii, the next you’re in suburban USA. so far, we’re having a blast and getting pretty resourceful at finding free campervan overnight parking. in fact, i think that should be the next type of travel book to be published. i don’t know if i can do it, but i can offer these hints if you ever find yourself campervanning in australia...

1. Nelson Bay – go to the Inner Light road off of Shoal Bay Road
2. Emerald Beach (Coffs Harbour) – go to the end of Fiddaman Road where there’s a cul-de-sac by the ocean
3. Nudgee Beach (Brisbane) – go to the Nudgee Beach boat harbor
4. Glasshouse Mountain lookout so you can wake up to see the sunrise then head off to Steve Irwin’s Australia Zoo
5. Moore Park (19km north of Bundaberg) after watching loggerhead turtle hatchlings
6. Noosa Yacht and Rowing Club - HOWEVER, there is technically no free overnight camping in Noosa...we just got wicked lucky.

we’ve made it past brisbane and are now in noosa where we’ll try some surf lessons and kayaking before heading to Fraser Island and the Whitsundays. let's hope we don't get cycloned out of the Whitsundays!