South Island activities

So while our main goal was to hike 2 of the great walks in New Zealand we did have a second week in New Zealand that was quite a bit more low key.  Our activities included:

1. Glow worm tour, Te Anau

I don't have any photos of the glow worms but it was pretty cool looking up at what you almost mistake as a starry night sky.  Also the boat ride from Te Anau was beautiful to the entrance of the cave.  This was really easy to set up since the dock is in Te Anau.

View from the boat on our way back from the glow worm tour

2. Doubtful Sound tour, Manapouri

We knew we were going to be in the Milford Sound at the end of the track so we decided to do the Doubtful Sound tour instead.  There were very few waterfalls when we did this tour since it hadn't rained in 3 days.  The seas were uncharacteristically calm and we were able to go out into the sea a bit.  We saw dolphins and seal from the boat.  At one point they shut off the boats engines and told us to be quiet and we listened to the sounds of the birds for several minutes.  I would recommend booking this tour in advance.  We went with Real Journeys and were quite happy with them.  We would have loved to do an overnight trip but everyone was sold out.  

Watching the sunset in Manapouri.  Where the Doubtful sound trip departs from.

Early morning sailing towards the Doubtful Sound

Brilliant sun which is quite rare in the Doubtful sound

Doubtful Sound

3. Wine tasting

We did a bit of wine tasting around the South Island of New Zealand.  The odd thing we found was that even though the place was a winery and they had a sign listing their hours, didn't mean they were open.  So we ended up going to the major touristy places.  My favorite pinot was wild earth.  Quite pricey but my husband said we should get it and wait to open it until I started a new job.  Which I'm happy to report was this week.  One winery we went felt more like we were taking an exam.  If you are going to do wine tasting, I would recommend maybe doing a tour so that way you know where to go.  

Wine sampler at Red Cliff restaurant in Te Anau.  I didn't take any photo from the few wineries we stopped at.

4. Driving around

If you are renting a car in New Zealand, I would also recommend just driving around.  We stopped at one view point, walked down to the lake, and went swimming.  

Stop along on of our drives

5. Hooker Valley, Mount Cook

On our last full day in NZ, we took the Hooker valley trail to get the views of Mount Cook.  I tripped on a rock and skinned my knee and shin on the trail but the views at the end were beautiful.  

Sunset on Mount Cook

Routeburn Track

Picking up where the Milford track ended:

The bus picked us up and we got the luxury of a horse powered engine driving us for ~approximately 30 minutes.  Where a melt down happen.  I will save that funny story for later.

Day 4 - 18 kilometers/11 miles completed from the Milford with minimal elevation gain or loss & 3.4 kilometers/2 miles and 150 meters/500 feet of elevation gain from the Routeburn.

After convincing ourselves that we wanted to start another hike, we sintched up our laces and slowly made our way up to Lake Howden hut.  The view of the lake was quite nice but we were rushed into the hut talk, where we learned about the early settlers of Martin's Bay.  Although I was still trying to control the melt down so it was not the most enjoyable hut talk.  I crashed that night and I am pretty sure even though I am not a loud snorer that I was probably in the loud category that night.  

Start of the Routeburn hike from Divide Point - Clouds were moving in quickly

View from Lake Howden hut

Day 5 -  12.4 miles/20 kilometers with 2100 feet/700 meters elevation gain and 1150 feet/350 elevation loss.

This was the last long day.  We struggled out of our bunks, put on our packs, and started out.  The section from Howden to Lake MacKenzie huts was my least favorite.  The trail was extremely rocky, kept going up and down (a pet peeze of mine), and without views.  The rocks were making our already achy feet ache worse.  We made it to Lake MacKenzie where we made lunch, massaged our feet and set off over the pass.  The hike out of the pass was steep but again I didn't mind the uphill sections.  Clouds had rolled in and we had light rain but could still see the mountains across the way from us.  We slowly made our way across the mountains.  Our goal this day was not time.  We were just focused on making it to the hut at a pace we could maintain.  We laughed because while we hiked along the ridge it felt like a scene from Lord of the Ring.  We made our way through the final up hill to the shelter where we met a guy who worked on the reducing the stouts numbers.  We were waiting out the rain but it was more persistent than us so after eating some dinner, we headed out again to hike our final miles to the hut.  We made it after the ranger talk which neither of us were sad about since we didn't have any desire to sit still through an entire talk while waiting to eat again.  Sleep again was not great that night.

Looking down on Lake MacKenzie Hut

Cloudy Routeburn views

Panorama View point from the Routeburn track

Slowly making our way along the ridge

Looking back at where we came from

Watching the views come and go with the quick moving fog

Day 6 - 5.5 miles/8.8 kilometers with 1640 feet/500 meters of elevation loss.

We were both excited that today was going to be our last day.  Our feet were sore, the boots and pack were really uncomfortable, and we wanted some warm non freeze dried food.  We did make it back down to the valley although the last 30 minutes dragged on for what seemed like an eternity.  We ate the last of our rations, as we sat and waited for the bus to come get us.  All in all it was amazing but I would never recommend doing the tracks one right after the other.  

Looking down on MacKenzie flat hut

Quick break at the river for some dried fruit

Making our way along the river

We made it!  Over 50 miles in 5.5 days!

Milford Sound Track

Top of MacKinnon Pass from the Milford Track

So out of the three tracks I looked into (Milford, Routeburn, and Kepler tracks), the Milford was definitely the most popular of the three.  The cool thing about this track was that most everyone starts from Te Anau Downs and hikes through to the Milford track so it was kind of like hiking in a cohort.  You spent 4 days and 3 nights hiking with everyone.  Most of the guests were from New Zealand and Australia but we also had a group from South Korea, United States, Czech Republic, Spain, and Israel.  I will say the Koreans know how to cook camp food.  While the rest of us were eating our rehydrated food, they pulled out potatoes, meat, and beer and cooked up a storm every night.  

As I stated the Milford track, starts at Te Anau Downs where you take a boat across the lake to start the hike.  Our captain, turned to me at one point and said he hated kayakers.  We briefly stopped to look at the cross on the shore where McKinnon was thought to have been killed in an sailing accident on Lake Te Anau.  There is also a conspiracy theory that he faked his own death to flee to Madagascar to avoid dealing with a woman he supposedly got pregnant in town.  He was rumored to have left Scotland for New Zealand for the same reason, according to our captain. 

We disembarked the boat, and began our hike.  

Day 1 - 5 kilometers/3 miles and very little elevation gain.  

Following along the peaceful river

Yeah, this was an easy day to say the least.  It barely even counted as a hiking day compared to the following days.  There was brilliant sun and I was having fun spotting all the different types of ferns.  (Stay tuned for a blog posts of just fern photos).  We took the last boat out so we were definitely some of the last to arrive at Clinton hut, so we ended up with top bunks.  At dinner we were treated to a talk from ranger Ross, who was wearing his fabulous shorts.  He explained that he drank the water from the streams and that he was 5'4 when he arrived and now was 6'5''.  The mood was light hearted and excitement could be felt around the mess hall.  Falling asleep was a different story.  I think that first night alone there were 10 snorers in our area so sleep did not come easy.

Day 2 - 16.5 kilometers/10.25 miles and ~350 meters/950 feet of elevation gain.

Day two started out well.  The sun was out and we were on our way.  I was getting over my disappointment after misidentifying a weka for a kiwi.  We slowly made our way up the valley and did the side turn offs to hidden lake.  Even though it was 10 miles, the day went by fast and so did the miles.  When we reached the turn off for guided hikers, and we saw that we had another 1.5 hours left to reach Mintaro hut, I will admit the ease of the day was starting to wear off.  The last half an hour was pretty brutal.  The legs were tired and we were both ready to get the packs off our backs.  We did finally reach Mintaro hut.  We learned we had to tie our boots together and hang them from the pegs to keep the keas from stealing them and pulling out the leather.  Sand flies were starting to get to us at this point as well.  We were in a smaller room with 9 other hikers and sleep did not come easy with 3 snorers in the room.  My alter-cranky self emerged the next morning with only a few hours of sleep.

Slowly making our way up the meadow - enjoying all the bird songs

Day 3 - 14 kilometers/8.7 miles and ~400 meters/1300 feet of elevation gain and ~750 meters/2400 feet of elevation loss.

This day was brutal but probably not for the reason you think.  Actually the elevation gain was the easy part.  We had trained for this and we were hiking on fresh legs.  We were also really fortunate because again we had brilliant sunshine and we could see in all directions.  The view from the top was beautiful and we celebrated with a square of chocolate.  

Flowers that required their photo taken.  It was also a really good excuse for a few second break while climbing up to the top of the p

Panorama from the pass

Taken from the bathroom at the top of the pass.  That is the valley we had come up the previous day

After we had taken all of our photos, we began the hard part.  The brutal decent down the other side.  To make things worse the sand flies were especially bad.  They bit my face, neck, hands, ears, and any other amount of skin left open for attack.  The annoying thing about them, is that sometimes just smacking them wouldn't kill them.  It seemed to stun them for a second or two and then they were back on the offensive again.  We finally did make it to the Quintin shelter attached to the guided walkers hut and massaged life back into our feet.  We skipped going out to Sutherland falls, since we were told we would get a view of it from the trail and we were continuing straight to the Routeburn track the next day without a break.  We did make it to Dumpling hut and about fell (well climbed into our top bunks).  I was so tired this night that I didn't even care if I snored.  Unfortunately since many people were nervous about making the boat in the morning, many in our room got up at 5:00am.  

We followed the river back down to the valley.  It was this steep on the way down.

Sutherland falls

Day 4 - 18 kilometers/11 miles to complete the Milford and 5 kilometers/3 miles to start the Routeburn - minimal elevation gain or loss from the Milford track.

This was our last day on the Milford track.  We had been blessed with amazing weather the entire time on the Milford track.  Clouds were slowly moving in so the sun was a little less intense.  We began our hike out at 8:00am.  The miles did not click by as they had before and seemed to drag on.  I'm not sure if it was because we had to make it to the dock by a certain time to catch our boat, we wanted off the trail, or we were just tired, but the miles did drag on.  Top it all off, I got a blister but second skin saved the day.  We did get to see several waterfalls.  We also were able to catch the 3:00 o'clock boat instead of our scheduled 4:00 o'clock boat.  We did sit at the dock and enjoy our last square of chocolate dipping our feet into the Milford Sound, until the sand flies forced us to retreat to the shelter.  We were happy about our accomplishment but a little apprehensive because we still had to complete the Routeburn in the next 2 days.  Also what saved us, was the fact we got some hot food while waiting for our bus at the Milford Sound boat terminal.  I'm not even entirely sure what we ate, except I remember a sandwich and juice.  The only thing I cared about was that it was not freeze dried food.  All two quickly we were whisked off to start the Routeburn track.  A little less excited than the start of the Milford track.

Hiking out of the valley

Waterfall along the way

We made it to Milford Sound!

We did it.  We hiked 33.5 miles!  Onto the Routeburn

Planning, preparing, and packing for backpacking in New Zealand

First off one of the things I was a little daunted over was how to even begin planning for a trip to New Zealand so I thought I would give my suggestions.  Warning this is a long post about logistics but contains some helpful information.  

Everything we did to make this photo a reality

Planning

If you are planning to do the great walks such as Milford, Kepler, or Routeburn, this post is for you.  While I did not do the Kepler track, I did look into it.  You will need to book your huts in advance if you are an independent hiker, which we were.  New Zealand's Department of Conservation will put an alert on their website about 1 month prior to when the huts will become available.  I had a reoccuring meeting on my calendar to check every Friday morning.  Once I found out the real date, then I put another meeting on my calendar so I could be sure to get the dates, I wanted.  It was a little strange to pick dates out for a trip 9 months out but luckily you can get a refund if you can't make it.  You will want to book immediate especially for the more popular tracks such as the Milford Sound.  

We choose March.  We figured December, January, and February would be the height to tourist season and we read that March tends to be drier.  That is how we arbitrary choose our dates in March.  Choosing those dates felt like choosing a date for the dentist 6 months out.  Sure I know if I'm going to be free 6 months out from when I book the appointment.  When making your reservation you can also book other transportation as well (ie buses and boats).  I did it at the time of booking and I would recommend this since these spaces can fill up.  Also this piece of information was really helpful for us Tracknet (one of the buses) will deliver a parcel to you if you do tracks back to back!  It is only 15 New Zealand dollars.  This saved us from hauling 6 days worth of food.  Best 15 dollars we spent.

One nice thing about this is that you can also get a refund if life throws you a curveball and you can't make your original plan.  Also for those lucky travelers that are not set on dates and times, the DOC does get cancelations so some people on the trail only booked a couple weeks out.  The majority of us though had booked nine months prior.  Also if you are willing to spend extra money, you can do the guided walks.  They had nicer quarters, meals cooked for them, alcohol, hot showers, and guides that accompanied them while walking.  

Preparing

Alright now that you have made your online reservations, now I recommend to start training yourself physically for these great walks.  They are not the easiest of walks/hikes and a little training beforehand will come in handy while on the trail.  We did our tried and true method of training and that is carrying a 10-15 pound heavier pack than you will carry on the trail up the steep hills around Seattle during the week.  

Do you look pretty stupid doing this exercise? Yes!  Also I'm pretty sure some people at first glance thought we were homeless too.  

Does this exercise get monotonous and boring? You bet yeah!

But this exercise will get you prepared for carrying a pack going uphill.  We also try and carry 10-15 pound more than we would on the trail so that way our packs do not feel as bad.  We tried to do this 2-3 times a week, although some weeks it was only once.  Anything helps!  On the weekends we would go out to Tiger Mountain area and hike with heavy packs again trying to get at least 8-10 miles in and 1,000 feet of elevation gain.  What we did on the great walks in New Zealand was more difficult but we were getting used to it.  I also started running 4-5 days a week. This was for New Zealand but also to help cope with the stress of my looming unemployment as well.  I was glad I did it because it helped with endurance.

Packing

Packing for a long backpacking trip can be a little daunting as well.  First let me saw, New Zealand is set up for this type of tourism.  So if you forgot it, they will sell it at multiple stores, in multiple towns.  I wouldn't recommend this method though since everything will be more expensive than prices we paid in the United States.  My chest strap on my backpack broke the day we took off for the Milford track and I was able to buy a temporary one in Te Anau.  

That said, the DOC gives you a comprehensive list of what to expect and bring.  Here's my two cents from someone who has done it.  

Weather: Preparing for the elements: the weather is fickle in New Zealand and changes constantly.  Prepare for rain.  Most people used water proof jackets, pants, and bag covers.  I recommend the bag cover.  I do not think that waterproof jackets work that well so I opted for a poncho.  You look stupid but they work.  I also did not bring waterproof pants.  I hiked Kilimanjaro during the rainy season without waterproof pants.  You just got used to hiking in wet clothes during the day and changing into dry clothes at night.  Besides I didn't want the extra weight.  I also recommend using waterproof bags or at the very least wrap everything in your bag in a trash bag.  The last thing you want is wet "dry" sleeping clothes or a soggy sleeping bag.  

Clothes: You don't need as many clothes as you would think.  I had my hiking shirt and pants for the day that I wore everyday rain or shine no matter how much they began to smell.  I had sleeping clothes at night which was fleece tights and a dry hiking shirt.  I also had a hat, gloves, down jacket, fleece, a long sleeve smart wool, and 3 pairs of socks.  That's all the clothes I had for 6 days/5 nights of straight hiking.  That's all I needed.  I didn't even use some of the warm gear but I am grateful to have brought it because if I needed and didn't have it, I would have been miserable.  

Cooking: The huts on the Milford and Routeburn tracks had cookers at the huts so we didn't have to bring as much fuel.  Since we were hiking for 6 days straight we had to bring fuel to heat up our lunch.  Most people did not bring freeze dried food but we couldn't get around it since we couldn't think of anything that would be guaranteed to keep by day 6.  If you don't do back to back tracks then you don't even need to bring a stove.  You will need to bring matches or a lighter to light the cooker at the hut though.  Make sure to put the matches in the dry bag with your clothes.  Remember, you will need to carry out all your trash.  

Food: Bring a variety of food.  We were rationing out our food on the Milford because we knew that our day 3, 4, and 5 were our longest hiking days with over 10 plus miles.  So we were eating more just 3 meals a day at first.  This became hard on me especially to keep up my energy when I was struggling to keep my blood sugar levels up.  By day 4, I began to change the way I was eating and started to include snacks, especially once I knew we were going to have a parcel of food delivered to us.  I allowed myself to start snacking on dried bananas, apples, or other fruit and this really helped me.  I know people suggest nuts but they are hard on my stomach to digest sometimes so I stayed away.  Getting food items into New Zealand can be tricky, so we bought everything when we got there.  Another group, decided to bring there food and gave the customs agent a carefully typed out list.  Not everything made it but most of it did.  Most of the grocery stores sell freeze dried food especially in Te Anau, so it is incredible easy to get when you arrive.  One thing I am a firm believer on is to bring rewards with you.  We had a chocolate bar with us, Whittier New Zealand chocolate, and so at the end of the evening we got a square of chocolate.  You will have hiked 10 miles that day so you've earned it.  We also had a square when we reached the top of the pass and one when we reached the end of the trail.  We try and stay away from sugar but that was a well earned square.  

1st aid: We always hope nothing will go wrong but something will.  Best to try and prepare for anything.  Luckily the hut rangers are prepared for emergencies but a few extra things in your pack can make a world of difference.  Bring second skin/mole skin.  My boots are broken in but I got a blister on day 4 of 6 of hiking.  Having second skin saved me a lot of pain since I still had 26 miles to hike.  Duct tape, this stuff is incredible handy to repair anything.  I mentioned early my chest strap broke. If my strap had broken while on the trail, I would have used duct tape to fashion a new one.  I did have a shoe lace start splitting on day 3 of 6 so I used duct tape to repair it and keep it from completely breaking apart on me.  We also carried other items such as pain killers, anti-bacterial gel, Imodium, Benadryl, bandaids, and other such odds and ends.  I would also recommend little packets of burn cream.  Deal with matches, lights, cookers, and boiling water can bring about small burns.  Bug repellent with deet.  The sand flies are persistent and the sandfly off stuff we bought there didn't do a thing for me.  They still bite me no matter how much I put on.  I still look like I'm recovering from chicken pox.  

Extras: Earplugs!!  You are sleeping in a buck house with up to 30 people and someone(s) will snore.  People are getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom.  Just bring them and you'll thank me latter.  Head lamp to find your way to the bathroom at night.  Trekking poles - they will make your life easier especially if you are an independent hiker.  Camera because you will want to take a ton of photos.  We had our SLR and a our phones.  For the phone, I switched it into flight mode and it lasted me the entire Milford sound.  I had a battery delivered to me in our parcel so I could charge it for the Routeburn track.  Camp shoes because you and your feet will not want to see your boots again until the next morning of hiking starts.  Most importantly be ready for adventure!

Wrapping up this long post, that's all I can think of at the moment.  Email if you have any questions and I'll be happy to answers frizzy.hair.foreigner@gmail.com.  

Absence - well I was off the grid in New Zealand

Sorry for my absence from writing but I have a pretty good reason.  I was off the grid hiking in New Zealand.  I highly recommend getting off the grid every now and then.  Whether it be for a run or for a long backpacking trip.  There's something very freeing about being unavailable.  

To start we wanted to go to New Zealand last year but I didn't know you had to book the huts a year in advance.  So we post pone our trip for a year and I checked every Friday for several months to see when the bookings would become available.  Once the date was posted that they would become available, I put a meeting on my calendar and quickly planned out when we were aiming to take the hikes.  The day came and I successfully booked huts for hikes 9 months into the future and cashed in airline miles for two tickets to New Zealand.  Life has a funny way of taking your plans and flipping them upside down.  I found out a few months later that my position was ending with the grant I was working on just a few weeks before we were slatted to head out.  I went into a bit of a panic mode of should we still go even though I was going to be out of work.  We decided that yes we were still going because well we had already paid for everything and couldn't get refunds for everything.  I can honestly say that I am glad we went.  Taking the time away is something that I do not regret.  I also found out that if organizations want you, they will understand and work with you on interview times and schedules.  While I still do not have a job, I am hopeful.

So here is a little photo teaser about some up coming blog posts about New Zealand:

Hiking through a set of Lord of the Rings?

Also here are some planned blog posts for the up coming weeks.

- Review of the Milford Track

- Review of the Routeburn Track

- Planning, packing, and preparing for trekking in New Zealand

- South Island activities

- Restaurants and food to try in New Zealand

- Blog just with photos of the many ferns I spotted

- Souvenirs

- Maybe a couple of recipe reviews from my new dessert cookbook on New Zealand desserts

- And a funny story involving hiking, meltdown, and early pioneers.

Moroccan lamb from my Namibian cookbook

I can't say that I really enjoyed picking this cookbook up at the beginning of my trip in Namibia and then had to lug it Namibia, South Africa, and then gave it to my husband to take home with him while I continued on my way.  

I am glad though that I got it because I didn't see it anywhere else.  Anyways I started with making the Moroccan lamb.  An interesting choice from a Namibian cookbook but I needed to use the lamb meat up we had and I already had all the spices and ingredients.  

I have this recipe 4 stars - my husband gave it 3 stars. This is the closest recipe I have found to make Lamb Tangine that comes remotely close to what the Moroccan restaurant serves.  Of course I made several changes to the recipe.  First off I doubled all of the spices and honey.  The reason my husband gave it three was because I doubled the cinnamon which was not necessary.

The other change I made was adding in the dates during the initial simmer process.  I then doubled the amount of dates and added them in at the correct time.  I added the same amount of dried apricots as dates (the recipe doesn't call for them at all).  

I forgot to take a photo of it, so here's a photo from the cookbook.  Mine turned out more yellowish but that was probably due to the increase in spices.  

Plants and Flowers of Namibia

I love plants and flowers so here is a bunch of photos . . .

Souvenirs from Namibia

While some of my readers will not find this kind of post interesting, I always appreciate posts like this when I can find them. I try to buy souvenirs that are made in country and if possible by non-profits, cooperatives, or specifically by women or disadvantaged populations.

Since we were quite rushed in Windhoek and not much was open on Sunday, I had very little time to actually get souvenirs.  I only went to the Windhoek Craft Market.  I highly recommend this place!  They have lots of souvenirs that are unique and are not just your cookie cutter souvenirs from Africa.  Here were my purchases (minus the ones I have already given away as gifts).

Namibian cookbook - highly recommend

A few bracelets

Basket

Small elephant

I call them my quad-stuffed Oreo earrings

Namibian Food

The food in Namibia was down right delicious.  Although if you are a vegetarian, I'm not sure you would be singing the same tune, since everything was pretty much meat based.  We only went to three restaurants (not connected with our hotel) while in Namibia.  All three of them were fantastic but here's they're ranking.

1. Anchors at the Jetty - Walvis Bay, Namibia

Make a reservation is my first recommendation.  We didn't have one so we ended up eating outside for dinner.  While normally not an issue, there was a pretty good wind coming off the water so we were a little cold.  Here we ordered the grilled calamari and oysters.  It was hands down the best calamari I have ever eaten.  It was so flavorful without being covered in a fried breaded outer layer.  The oysters were also great.  Interestingly they were covered in cheese and grilled.

2. Craft Cafe - Windhoek, Namibia

We did not have a reservation and it was fine.  Although it was Sunday morning and the town didn't seem like it had woken up yet.  We had a cured meat platter and a goat cheese and cucumber salad.  Both hit the spot after an early morning flight.  Also the bread here was tasty as well.  Somehow it was perfectly circular.  After looking on the internet and a few cookbooks of mine I have a sneaking suspicion that it may have been baked in a can.  After you are finished eating, you can browse through the stalls of the craft market.  More on that tomorrow.  

Meat platter

Cucumber salad and perfectly round bread

3. The raft - Walvis Bay, Namibia

Please do not think that there was anything wrong with this place.  It was just as delicious as the other places it's just, we liked the calamari, salad, and bread just a little more at the first two places.  Here we had the trio of whitefish and the seafood platter.  Both were good a more fried food then either of us had the previous six months before.  This was where I tried my first Namibian oyster and I liked it!  I also washed my lunch down with a Hunters Cider and Jeremy had a beer (can't remember which one though).

View from the restaurant

Seafood platter

4. Namib Naukluft Lodge 

This place had the best food hands down but it is not really in place where you drop in for a meal.  All meals came with our tented room.  The first night the chefs were working the grill and we had pounded steak, venison, butter squash.  The second night dinner was cooked in a pootje.  I asked apparently we had onyx, zebra, cow, and vegetables.  All of them were equally as good from the previous day.  We never had a bad meal here.

Cooking in the Potjie

Feast

Walvis Bay

After climbing up some dunes and subsequently trying to remove as much sand from between our toes it was time to make our way to the coast (Walvis Bay).  First let me say the drive north was beautiful.  It was several hours but it didn't feel that way.  We were able to stop at several viewpoints.  Also one of the things I loved about Namibia was the rock picnic tables on the side of the road.  

On the road heading north to Walvis Bay

Initially we were not going to go to Walvis Bay but this was a compromise since we decided not to go to the east coast of South Africa and we found out there is a direct flight from Walvis Bay to Cape Town.  All we can say is that we wished me had more time here.  We ended up only having 2 half days which didn't give us the chance to go out on the water.  The weather wasn't great for that anyway so it was fine.  

Walk along the water

We wandered around the waterfront and saw hundreds of flamingos in the bay, but no pelicans.  I was really hoping to see them.  The town seemed very quiet so we had a late dinner and went to bed.  The next morning the ocean was almost calm and looked almost like glass.  Although about 30 minutes later a heavy fog rolled in and you couldn't see more than 15 feet in front of you.  To my relief, I ran back to a store and got to watch two pelicans make their way along the waters edge.  

Almost eerily calm water in the early morning

Pelicans along the shoreline

We stayed at the Oyster box guesthouse which was nice and convinently located.  The water was literally right across the street.  We walked up and down the seaboard.  Also it was located next to two great restaurants, which I will write about in tomorrow's blog post.  The whole town had a very laid back vibe to it.  Now I'm not sure if this was due to the fact it was winter and there wasn't as many people but we certainly enjoyed it.  

Right across the street from Oyster Box Guest house

As we flew southward, we had views of the skeleton coast and were taken back by the sheer size of it.

Skeleton Coast

Kale and Bacon Pie

I'm back!  I had a cooking blog several years ago but I decided to merge it with my photography site (which also needed a major overhaul) and bring both together in one place.  

Today's recipe comes from "On the Flavour Trail."  I got this one on coming back from a road trip on Vancouver Island.  We stopped at a place that makes cider and I saw it in the corner.  I quickly looked through and knew it was coming home.  I paid for it before my husband even realized what was going on and would have been able to sneak it home without his knowledge except I pulled it out while waiting in the US customs line.  He smiled and rolled his eyes when he saw it.

Since the weather has been chilly (for the PNW standards), I had decided to make this filling recipe.  It won 5 stars from both of us.  

Of course my lactose intolerance required a few changes.  First off for the dough itself I used a vegan butter instead of normal butter.  Still comes out quite good.  I had a little problem getting the dough to the top of the tin and was stretching in places.

The second change of course was the filling itself.  Again I cannot have heavy cream so I swapped out 1 cup of heavy cream with 3/4 cup of lactose free milk and 1/4 cup of vegan butter.  This actually made it quite light and didn't sit heavy.  

The recipe also calls for Natural Pastures aged farmhouse cheddar.  I've never had this cheese and image it would be difficult to find in the states so I went with Beecher's flagship aged cheese.  It did not give it as much flavor as I would have hoped for.  I would suggested either adding in more or using a cheese with more flavor to it such as Beecher's smoked flagship cheese.

Overall we gave it 5 stars and we will be making it again.