A portion of the North Island of New Zealand (67FR53844)

Wellington
Waiheke, at the north end of New Zealand's North Island, is for wine fans. We had to head all the way to the south end of North Island to get to the beer. Wellington is the capital of the country, the Capital of Cool, and, most importantly, the Craft Beer Capital. In case you are in doubt, our lodging, the Shepherds Arms Hotel, was above a Speight's purveyor; we drank a lot of the popular beer other places, but at the source, I toasted our arrival in Wellington with the Amber Wheat.

Little did we know how deep the city's craft-beer devotion ran. We stumbled on Fork & Brewer mainly because we were trying to escape the damp weather. But there, we were given New Zealand Craft Beer Passports, which I earned by drinking a F&B and Yeastie Boys Brews Brothers Spring Ale collaboration and a Renaissance Elemental porter. With the skies still stormy, we set off on a brew-sampling journey. The passport led us to Hashigo Zake Cult Beer Bar, which was holiding a "high tea" event with beers inspired by or made from tea; I got a Beef Rendang pie to go with my chamomile-brewed, hand-pumped (and tepid) Yeastie Boys White Noise. Later, we landed at the Hop Garden when I refused to hike up Mount Victoria in the rain and instead drank a ParrotDog Dead Canary Pale Ale.

The next day, after we finally made it to Mount Victoria, we rewarded ourselves with cheap but not good Mac's Hop Rocker Pilsener pints at The Establishment in Courtenay Place, then we passed up the vast craft-beer selection at The Malthouse, home of Tuatara Brewery, so we could find a place with food. We landed at the Tap Haus, where we got a pizza and a flight of four Boundary Road beers (pilsner, porter, pale ale, and lime-infused lager) for $20 (left). As I drank a Captain Cooker Manuka beer from the Mussel Inn, we started playing music trivia, but we bailed when I got frustrated that I could remember the lyrics to the songs "It Must've Been Love" and "King of Anything" but not the band or singer (Roxette and Sara Bareilles, for the record). We fled to Little Beer Quarter, just a block away, where I drowned my sorrows with a Mata Wai-iti Waka IPA (right).

Here, we discovered the New Zealand tradition is not chips, but potato wedges, served with sweet chili sauce and sour cream (top left). The day before, we had hoped to get pizza at Golding's Free Dive Bar, near Cuba Street, but the oven was closed for an afternoon break, so we got a reuben sandwich and a Townshend's Three Piece Wheat instead (top right). We ate a lot of bar snacks, but we did manage to have one proper meal: the BOGO special at Leuven Belgian Beer Cafe, where we ordered 2 kilograms of mussels (steamed in saffron, garlic aioli and tomato as well as in Hoegaarden, curried cream, apple, and coriander) with frites and a pork belly and beetroot salad (bottom).

The skies were overcast for our entire time in Wellington, but that didn't mean we stayed in pubs the whole time -- just most of the time, by accident really. For example, we rode the Wellington Cable Car (left), but then we walked through Kelburn, where we just had to visit another passport entry, the Kelburn Village Pub. We didn't miss out on the $10 burger special, and I got to try a Panhead Port Road Pilsner, but we were too late to join in a much more traditional trivia night. We got lost walking back to our hotel, so when we finally found it, I rewarded myself with a beer, a "love it or hate it" Ginger Lager, at the nearby Sprig and Fern Tavern (right).

Among other beers we saw or tried while in Wellington were: Croucher Brewing, Emerson's Brewing, Tui Beer, Kereru Brewing, Invercargill Brewery, Three Boys Brewery (particularly its seasonally popular Oyster Stout), Gisborne Gold, Harrington's Breweries Harry's Light, 8 Wired Brewing, and Mike's Organic Brewery. You'd think we'd have had little time to explore, but we even braved the waves (left) to take the ferry to Days Bay (right). Then we walked to Eastbourne, where we bought a steak-bacon pie for breakfast and a roast-beef sandwich for lunch later.

From there, we rode a bus back to Wellington, where we immediately caught a train to the end of the line, Waikanae (left). The city's beautiful beach was worth the half-hour walk from the train station (right), but our picnic wasn't as nice as we had hoped because the wind and rain kicked up as soon as we pulled out our sandwich. We found shelter in the Long Beach Pub, me with a North End Hoppy Wheat, until we boarded a bus back to the train station.

By the time we got back to Wellington, the clouds were lifting. But the sun was coming down, so we opted for efficiency and rode the bus up to Mount Victoria. This gave us enough time to take in the views from its two lookouts (left). From one, we could look down on downtown, including the Wellington Museum of City & Sea, a unique collection of items that we visited the the day before (right).

At the more popular lookout, there is a prism-shaped memorial to Admiral Richard E. Byrd whose point indicates which way one must fly to reach Antarctica, which is about 2,000 miles away. From the summit, we walked down part of the Southern Walkway to Newtown. In Newtown, we stopped at Bebemos for a snack, Portuguese sausage skewers, and a sip, Garage Project Angry Peaches.

On the way, we passed a marker indicating where the "Get off the Road" scene from The Fellowship of the Rings was filmed (left); during this part of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, so I've read, the hobbits hide from the Black Rider in the outskirts of the Shire. This patch of trees was perhaps one of the smallest tributes to the movies in the country, which has spawned a specialized tourist industry, including many tours to Hobbiton and a huge Gollum in the Wellington airport (right). I don't know about you, but to me, nothing screams Christmas spirit like a greedy Middle Earth creature.

Auckland
When we arrived toward sundown in Auckland, it seemed we might be in for the same wetness as in Wellington. So we stayed near our hotel in Parnell, "Auckland's oldest suburb," and spent a dark but not stormy night at Windsor Castle, where we watched a good American-song cover band, The Two Strokes (left). The next morning, we started the day with breakfast at the La Cigale market (right) before we took off to explore other neighborhoods by bus. Birkenhead turned out to be little more than a pretty walk along Little Shoal Bay. Later, we saw K (Karangahape)-Road by bus on our way from Ponsonby, which was described as "hip" but was not really happening. For example, Ponsonby Pies had apparently moved out of town, so we settled for beers at Cafe Cezanne, which weren't even happy-hour prices as advertised.

On our way back from Birkenhead, we got off at the downtown Viaduct Harbor, which seemed a lot "hipper" to me. For one, it has a library right by the water -- and people were actually using it (left). Plus, it's on the path of the Coast to Coast Walkway (right), which we almost contemplated walking until I suffered some leg pain (see below). In the background of both photos is the Sky Tower, from which you can bungee jump.

Across the viaduct lies Wynward Quarter, which includes North Wharf, a row of waterfront restaurants (left), and the Fish Market. The market wasn't nearly as good as Sydney's, but at least we got to try some local favorites: whitebait fritters with fries and L&P -- which stands for Lemon & Paeroa, a city on the Coromandel Peninsula -- soda (right).

As in Wellington, we ate in a lot of pubs, but in Auckland, the food was elevated. At Parnell Bar & Grill, TJ even had beef bourguignon, while I had a jerk pork burger (left). We had hoped to find a similar cozy tavern in Mount Eden Village, but nothing struck us, so we walked to Galbraith's Alehouse. I was starving by the time we got there, so my St. Benedict's steak pie (with a Liberum Ursum collaboration with Liberty Brewing) was particularly satisfying, as was TJ's entree, lamb rump (right).

Auckland pubs appear to be focusing on food, but the city has a burgeoning beer scene, too. Brothers Beer, a microbrewery in a hipster warehouse building, seemed to be straight out of Southern California (top); I had their own Orange Coriander Wheat and the Jokers Wild IPA from Laughing Bones Brewing. Other places -- like The Lumsden in Newmarket, where I had a Sawmill Crystal Wheat -- seemed to be milking the high prices of craft beer a bit much (bottom left). Other places, including Shakespeare Hotel downtown, offered great deals on its in-house offerings; I had a Munich Lager (bottom right). Elsewhere in the city, we were able to try Epic Brewing and Ben Middlemiss Nota Bene.

On our last full day in New Zealand, we ventured out on another day trip, to the northern oceanside resort of Waiwera, part of the Hibiscus Coast (top). While waiting for the bus, we got pies at Ronnie's Cafe & Bakery, which were so good that we picked up sandwiches from there for the plane the next day. We took a 1-1/2 hour trip to stay 4 hours at Waiwera Thermal Resort, which boasts pools of various temperatures, waterslides, and kid-friendly attractions, like a movie pool. My favorite spot was the more adult-oriented Sapphire Pool, which included a 118-degree Lava Pool that I could barely put my hand in for a second (bottom left). Of course, that didn't keep me from acting like a kid myself and buying an ice-cream cone to cool off (bottom right).

After relaxing, we committed ourselves to hiking up Mount Eden, which was a feat for me because of some shin pain that had been lingering since Waiheke Island (probably because I did some tramping in flip-flops, which is probably also the reason that those flip-flops ripped apart). My injury, and my psyche, was further aggravated by not being able to find a direct path, but we eventually made it to the top of the former volcano, the crater of which is disguised only by grass (left). We were joined by crowds of people, including some really motivated runners, who came to enjoy the sunset from the lookout (right).

Like many others, we lingered as the sun went down (top). We stayed so long that we were too late for the $15 1/2-kilogram Angus steak deal at The Paddington, down the street from our hotel. A good steak was one meal TJ and I had both longed for since we set foot on the island. Our stomachs might have returned to Pakistan unrewarded, but my soul was certainly sated by the sunset as we descended the mountain and headed back to our hotel (bottom).