Birds and Beer!!!!!!!!!
New Zealand is home to this little furry thing called a Tui. It makes the most beautiful sound and it has these two little feathers just below the neck. To me, they look just like two..., hmmm, well, let me leave it up to your imagination; it's on the males only anyway, so go figure!! :-) We have some of them on the farm here, but I have not been able to get a nice picture of them taken.

http://www.google.co.nz/imgres?imgurl=http://whiteherontours.co.nz/images/tui.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.whiteherontours.co.nz/tui.html&h=478&w=383&sz=34&tbnid=lxkoQ6ldDaQJ::&tbnh=129&tbnw=103&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dtui%2Bbird&hl=en&usg=__3E6VGXyZnRha0qYdBqG5EKma6TU=&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=3&ct=image&cd=1

This extremely long link should take you to a site where you can hear the Tui's call.



TUI, is also a local beer!!! Now that's better!!! Let's talk about the better stuff. So we decided to drive out to the TUI brewery up country to go look at how they make what we've been tasting!!!

Observe closely the opening and closing times - have I mentioned that the TUI guys are extremely witty?

In the Curios shop we tried on some very orange merchandise...

The sambrero was a bit over the top, really. So I ended up walking out with my beer mug and a scarf. Seeing that sunshine is not available off the shelf everyday, I thought the scarf to be more useful - and it has been!!!!

Maybe in some strange language TUI means orange? See, it even infected the blog's text editing tools!!!!

Best to fill up for the long road home, or wherever you are heading...

No no, relax, Niel was the designated driver!!!

Even the Pool Table was Tuisized

...and Tuisized bathrooms

Not even the garden gnomes escaped the wrath of the TUI invasion! But, they looked happy, so we left them to their business.

No, really, it's actually a real brewery, not some bar owner's obsession with orange and birds

They say it is very important to understand where the beer comes from, as nicely explained in the Tui museum. Now, sometimes Sonja has the camera and I actually appear in some shoots, but a heads up would be nice to muster a smile. But, by this time lesson-time was over and I really just wanted to get back inside to the bar. :-)

Yep. This bar!

OK. No coment on the next two pictures.

Did I mention the wit thing yet?

Just above the bar you get this lounge. The bed in the far corner, well, it seems some may get past the point of just relaxing and a more intense form of recreation is called for. Who knows, I didn't want to ask.
We only caught this on camera on the way out. But, yeah, we did feel welcome, thanks!!!