New Zealand (Week #6 + #7)

Greetings from Khandallah, which is a suburb of Wellington where we’ve been housesitting for the past two weeks. Khandallah is in the hills so we’ve been enjoying the great views and easy access to Wellington’s amazing trail network. We’ve been taking care of two cavoodles named Jasper and Nova who are real snuggle bugs. They’ve been fun to spend time with and we’ll miss them when we’re gone.

Happy Year of the Rabbit!

Nova may be smaller but she’s definitely the alpha

Jasper’s pooped from saving leaves from “drowning” in the creek - serious business!

Nature exhibit at Te Papa Museum

I ❤ albatross

Last week we found out that the US Women’s National Team was going to be playing the New Zealand Women’s soccer team at Sky Stadium in Wellington so we quickly got tickets and headed to the game. The Women’s World Cup will be in New Zealand and Australia this July so the USWNT were here to play a couple of ‘friendlies’ with the Kiwis, who are officially known as the Ford Football Ferns. The game started out rather slow which may have been due to the midafternoon heat and some lingering jet lag for the USWNT. The score was 0-0 at halftime and the game felt like a real dud despite the USWNT controlling the ball most of the first half. I don’t know what the coach told the team at halftime but they came out on fire and scored four goals in the span of about twenty minutes. The final was 4-0 and by the end of the game it was pretty clear why they’re the best team in the world.  


One of Wellington’s many titles is Craft Beer Capital of NZ and they even have a craft beer trail that you can walk to tour all of the city’s brewpubs. Garage Project makes some of the best beer around so we’ve paid them a couple visits while we’ve been in town. I’m not much for describing beer but I must say that their Pernicious Weed is a mighty tasty IPA!



I’ve got two ultramarathons coming up next month (Tarawera 102 and Old Ghost Ultra) which I’m super excited about. It’ll be my first time running the 102 km distance at Tarawera and my third time running Old Ghost Ultra, which is my favorite ultra of all time! So I was looking to get a solid two week training block in with Tarawera only two weeks away. It’s been a great spot to run as we’re just a mile away from Wellington’s incredible trail network which includes Skyline Walkway which is a beautiful ridge trail with stunning views of the city, coastline and surrounding hills. 



Ever since we sold our house in LA a year and a half ago, we’ve been looking at property wherever we’ve been traveling. So far we just hadn’t seen anything that caught our eye despite being in some truly amazing places. But that’s no longer the case as we’re now under contract for a sweet little property in Featherston, which just had a really great feel to it as soon as we stepped inside. And the view doesn’t suck. It ticked almost all the boxes including native timber floors and weatherboard, rural feel, privacy, lots of natural sunlight and plenty of land to grow veggies. It also has 13 different fruit trees. It’s about an hour north of Wellington (via car or train) in the Wairarapa. The Wairarapa is a valley known for its vineyards (mostly Pinot noirs), beautiful coastline and small town charm. We’re not in the clear yet but we’re optimistic that all will go well and that we’ll close on the property in early March. 



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