Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

On Friday 6th July, as soon as Term 2 finished, Will and I flew out to Rio de Janeiro. Will had a conference there (WCCI, or World Congress on Computational Intelligence for the uninitiated!). The timing couldn't have worked out better with my holidays, with the added bonus of this one being a 3-week holiday for me. My plan was to spend a few days in Rio with him, then head out and explore more of Brazil by myself.

The trip didn't get off to the best of starts with a delay out of Auckland due to engineering problems. This meant that our direct flight from Auckland to Buenos Aires was several hours late getting in, which subsequently meant that we missed our connection from BA to Rio. Air New Zealand put us up in a hotel for the night (which ended up being right in the city centre of BA, about 45 minutes drive from the airport!) and then booked us onto a flight to Rio leaving early the following morning. It meant we only ended up getting about 4 hours sleep. This wasn't exactly ideal coming off a busy term followed by a 13 hour flight, but there wasn't anything that could be done about it. It was worse for Will because he was actually working, so had to be fairly with it. We were staying in the conference hotel, the Windsor Oceânico Hotel in Barra da Tijuca, about a half hour drive from central Rio. It was a lovely quiet spot on an amazing stretch of beach. Below is the view from the rooftop pool terrace. 

Once we arrived at the hotel we went for a walk to a local shopping centre to get Brazilian sim cards. It's usually the first thing I do when travelling, once I have data I can do most of my planning and organising from my phone. The shopping centre had a very cool food truck area, so we grabbed a bite. Breakfast, lunch, dinner -who knows what meal our bodies thought they were meant to be having!

We were in the country during the football world cup, but unfortunately Brazil had just been eliminated. It was a shame, because it would have been amazing to have been there if they had managed to win the thing! The country is football-mad and there were flags and bunting all over the place.

Will could afford to give me one morning to do the tourist thing together, so we decided to head up Sugarloaf mountain. 

It takes two cable-cars to get to the top, and once there, the views are absolutely stunning. Rio is a spectacularly gorgeous city, and looks amazing viewed from above.

 

 

Will the engineer was most interested in the cable-car mechanism...

I had to make the most of getting some holiday pics together while I could!

 

 

 

We then took an Uber back to the hotel, and Will headed off to his conference while I had a chilled afternoon hanging out at the hotel and exploring the surrounds. When I travel I usually do so super cheaply, mostly choosing to stay at backpackers. It was a real treat being in a 'proper' hotel for a few nights. The supplied breakfast was amazing! It ended up being my main meal of the day... I did develop a weakness for the Brazilian 'cheese bread' which is a breakfast staple. The breakfast buffet had bread/pastry stations, loads of cooked options, cereals, as well as incredible fresh fruit. I made sure I made the most of it!

Every conference Will attends he comes back with a 'gift' and this one was very appropriate to Brazil! I bought the first (of what would turn out to be several!) pairs of Havaianas in Rio as well.

On Monday I had a big day of doing the tourist thing. After Ubering into the city centre I took the train up Corcovado Mountain to visit Christ the Redeemer.

 This was, quite simply, AWESOME! It is over 30m high, on top of an 8m or so plinth. You don't really get an idea of the scale until you see it with people at the bottom of the statue.

It was the most perfect day, and I'm so glad that it lived up to expectation. There is always the worry when you visit some of these super-iconic places that they won't deliver.

The views from the top were pretty special as well. It was cool to look back to Sugarloaf mountain where we had been the previous day.

 

Heading back to the train, there was a group of people looking up into a tree. It turns out there was a sloth up there. I LOVE sloths, but unfortunately didn't have my proper SLR camera on me, as I didn't think it would be sensible to wander around central Rio with it by myself. I had to make do with a couple of pics on my phone... You can just about see it below!

 

Once I was back at the train station at the bottom, I decided to walk to the nearest metro station. The route was along busy main roads, plus it was lunchtime with lots of people out and about, so I felt perfectly safe. From there I took a metro train to Copacabana Beach and had a nice wander, before taking another metro train back to Barra da Tijuca where there was a station about 20 minutes walk from the hotel.  

 

On Tuesday I had a leisurely get-up, before an even more leisurely breakfast. I then spent a very chilled morning in the local area. Will came back up to our room during lunchtime so I got to say goodbye to him, before taking an Uber to the airport, ready for my flight to Salvador and the start of my adventures by myself. Will had a couple more nights in Rio before he then headed to Kyoto, Japan for a week for yet another conference.

Term 2 2018

This term mostly seemed to revolve around playing badminton! My Wellington Masters team had a practice match against the Hutt Valley on the 6th May, before heading to Rotorua for our first ties of the season the following weekend. We had a great weekend with comfortable wins against the Eastland and Waitakere teams. My wonderful parents continued their amazing support of me and my sport by coming to watch the games all day on Saturday. Dad does proudly wear his Waikato rugby cap every time he comes to watch me play, maybe I need to buy him one in Wellington colours to wear just while he's at badminton... This year we tried a change of motel from the one we usually stay in during trips to Rotorua. We stayed at the Sport of Kings and it was absolutely fabulous. It is definitely going to be our new 'regular'. The owners were brilliant and couldn't do enough for us, but best of all is a huge outdoor heated pool. It is (slightly) cooler than a normal spa pool, making it the perfect temperature to stay in for a long period of time. After our matches we were in there for about 2 and a half hours, listening to some sounds (my waterproof phone and speaker was very handy poolside), soothing our tired bodies, and having a few drinks to toast the start of a successful rep badminton season. We could probably have stayed in the pool longer if we didn't have to head into town to meet up with all the other teams for dinner. Every team in our division was in Rotorua that weekend, so it was lovely catching up with some familiar faces. I think Ged, Jason and Stephen need to stick to their day jobs, I don't see much in the way of modelling contracts in their futures...

Will and I try to do fairly regular date nights on Wednesday nights, and the one on the 23rd May was a cracker! We started off with dinner at Dockside, on the waterfront. They often have 5-course tasting menus with wine matching which come up half-price on the voucher sites. We've done several of them now, and they are always fantastic.

 

Once we had wined and dined, we headed out to explore the LUX light festival. This is an annual event in Wellington, and a highlight of our year.

  

 

 

The Cube exhibition below was our favourite. It blasted out 80s music and put on a disco light show. We stayed and watched it for ages. Unfortunately blogger seems to be having bit of a problem with its video extensions at the moment, so if you are viewing this using Chrome there will probably be a blank space where the videos are...

 

There was lots happening at the kid's playground as well. The video clip of Will coming down the slide in a rather ungainly manner brings a smile to myself every time!

 

Queen's Birthday weekend ended up being far more exciting than expected! A couple of weeks beforehand I had a message from the manager of the Southland badminton team, asking if there was any chance I would be able to play for Southland in the South Island Division 1 competition in Timaru over the long weekend. They were short of a women able to play at that level, and had put an SOS call out to all of the South Island associations. A friend of mine who plays for Otago knows that I'm usually up for (pretty much!) anything, and put him on to me. That saw me flying down to Christchurch on Friday 1st June, where I was met at the airport by another Southland player who now lives in Christchurch. When I asked how I would recognise this guy, I was told to look out for a 6 foot 5 red-headed guy who answers to the name of 'Stretch'. Needless to say, James (to give him his proper name) had no problem recognising me with my huge big badminton bag, and we had a nice chat on the drive to Timaru. 

 

The badminton was awesome, and the Southland lot were a great bunch. The goal was for the team to stay up in Division 1, and we won enough matches for that to happen which was good. Southland kindly paid for my motel accommodation for the three nights, as well as the big final dinner which teams from all three divisions of the competition attend. Due to the distances involved with travel, the South Island do all their representative matches over the one long weekend, whereas in the North Island we have 4 weekends of matches throughout the season. The final dinner was a laugh, Southland are very much a party team, and they bought along a whole stack of table tennis balls, resulting in one giant game of beer pong. It was very much a case of old people behaving badly!

I arrived home on Monday night, and luckily had a teacher-only day on the Tuesday, so got an extra bit of recovery time. Playing 5 ties in 3 days was tough on the body! The following weekend I was back playing for my Wellington team where we accounted for Counties and Waikato in Waikanae, which was a venue I had never played in before. I can't say I'm a fan of multi-purpose halls and all their lines... We get a bit spoilt playing at a dedicated badminton facility in Wellington. Spot my 'baddy husband' below! Ged is new to the team this year and didn't have any Wellington shirts, so borrowed my spare one throughout the season.

 

Still on the badminton theme, on the 23rd June we attended my mixed doubles partner Stephen's 50th birthday party at his house in Eastbourne. The theme was classic rock, so I fully embraced an 80's look!

Here is my rock star hubby...

It was a great night with lots of fun and hilarity. The advantage of Stephen not actually owning much furniture meant that his lounge doubled as an excellent dance floor!

 

 

Yes, we are a close team...

 

We all chipped in and bought Stephen a brewing experience where he can brew his own batch of craft beer at a professional brewery. Mac used her design skills to take care of the label, which will go on his beer once it is bottled.

So, another term of school done and dusted. I am very much enjoying being part-time this year. I still have to go in every day, but on some days there are later starts or earlier finishes which helps. Having one less class also helps a bit with the whole work/life balance thing, which, considering this whole post is about life, and not work, I must be doing OK at!

Rarotonga April 2018

During the April holidays Will and I celebrated our 10-year wedding anniversary with a one week holiday in Rarotonga. We had booked a bungalow at Sunhaven, and it was absolutely perfect. I would highly recommend staying at a child-free resort during school holiday time! There was only one other couple staying at Sunhaven while we were there, so it felt like we had the run of the place. No competition at all for things like the hammocks, kayaks, pool loungers etc. 

Our bungalow was right on the beach, and every morning we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast on the deck.

We were staying on the west (sunset) coast, and it was a lovely quiet spot with beach and palm trees all you could see in both directions. 

We managed to pass our days swimming in the pool, kayaking, and snorkelling in the ocean. Usually during my holidays it is all about going on adventures and exploring new places, but it was very nice just having the chance to relax and unwind. I think I read about 4 books during our week away!

Will did a bit of work during the week, but the fact that he was doing most of it in a hammock on a beautiful beach on a pacific island meant that he didn't mind too much...

About a two minute walk from our resort was the Pacific Fish and Chip Shop which is pretty legendary on the island. With good reason too... We had a couple (OK, it might have been three!) meals from there, and it was amazing every time. The fish was huge big chunks of super fresh tuna that was just awesome. Every single night this place was humming.

Another night we walked 10 minutes along the beach to another resort that had a restaurant and beach bar. The food was actually pretty average, but the place had a great vibe with a very good woman singer providing live entertainment. She did brilliant covers of some Fat Freddy's Drop numbers.

Rarotonga is only 32 km in circumference, and essentially has one main road circumnavigating the island. To get around we would either walk, or take the local bus which was great fun. There is a clockwise bus and an anti-clockwise bus! There are designated bus-stops, but if you hail it anywhere from the road it will stop for you. On market day we took the bus into the main 'town' Avarua for a look around. 'Sleepy' is probably the most apt description!

One morning at low tide Will waded out to the breakwater. The whole of Rarotonga is surrounded by a reef, making for very safe snorkelling and swimming. It is so clear that you can stand on the beach and do some fish spotting.

The tropical fruit was awesome, and super cheap to buy at roadside stalls. We gorged ourselves on papaya and mango every day.

We decided to hire a car for one day, and made the most of it to explore the island. One of the first stops was at a waterfall where Will took the opportunity to cool off.

We then spent time at the 'Fruits of Rarotonga' snorkelling spot which is meant to be one of the best places for it on the island. We saw loads of fish, plus I also saw a stonefish lurking on the seafloor near some coral which was pretty freaky. Stonefish are one of the most venomous fish in existence, and can kill you if you accidentally step on one. Most people who enter the water in Raro wear either reef shoes or fins.

Later that evening we headed to the Muri night market which opens four times a week. This was a great place for dinner with loads of stalls offering a wide choice of local delights.

My favourite was a stall selling slices of the most AMAZING cakes. The banana cream pie was out of this world...

On our last day we decided to walk off all the cake with a hike up Raemaru mountain.

Mostly this is just a nice straight-forward walk up a hill on a pretty well-maintained track. However, the last little bit involves hauling yourself up a series of fixed ropes and ladders. The sign saying 'experienced rock climbers only' is a bit over the top though, it wasn't that bad!

The 'gnarly' section to get to the top...

As you can see from the pics, the sky looked pretty ominous... Luckily the rain held off until we were back down off the summit. However, there is nothing quite like a tropical downpour! We got absolutely drenched for the last part of our walk, with the hugest raindrops ever. While we got wet though, it was still very warm so we didn't get cold. It was actually quite nice and refreshing after the exertion of our walk.

So, that was our wonderful week in Rarotonga. It is definitely a place I'll go back to in the future. It is my type of place in that it is very chilled and low-key, plus it helps that they use the NZ dollar as their currency, so that also makes it very easy. It was the perfect place to celebrate 10 years of marriage.