...see rustic Labour dight, and cut you up wi' ready sleight... The bar continues to be pushed higher and higher and higher. Ooh! UPBEAT MUSIC Captions by Catherine de Chalain. Edited by Pippa Jefferies. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016 CHEERFUL MUSIC Where are we off to? Let's see. The moment of truth. Dunedin! Yes! (CHUCKLES) Hmm, not sure how I feel about that. Dunedin's mega ` amazing restaurants, the beaches, the scenery, bars that are there as well. (LAUGHS) They've got a castle. Yeah. I just wanna go and see a castle. A castle? Yeah, not really sure how castles in NZ stand up, but it'll be fun. I'm sure it'll be great. We've got a castle. You'll change my mind. It's been a wee while since Anna and I have escaped from our identical twin sons. Although we do love them dearly, it is very nice to get away from them. It makes us appreciate them a whole lot more. My relationship with Jay ` we have a lot of fun together. We definitely are best friends. I think being parents to twins really solidified the fact that we work together really well. I think if there was a crack that was gonna show, it would definitely be through that first year, cos that was tough. I'm pretty pumped on the fact that it is Dunedin that we're heading to because I've always been a fan of the place, yet never really explored it past being a bit of a scarfie scumbag, and I know that there's a lot to offer, so the world and Dunedin will be my oyster. I don't know much about Dunedin. The uni side of Dunedin is all that I know of it, so I guess I just` I need to be educated, but I'm pretty sure that my mind is gonna be changed about Dunedin. Being a Northland person, I love getting down to the South Island. Every single person that I've ever encountered is just such a legend. All right, let's go. Where are we going? Where are we going? Let's read` Ooh, yeah. READS: 'Take a drive to Larnach Castle...' Yes. You guessed it. '...to embrace Dunedin's unique Celtic heritage and have an "offal-y" good time.' It's written 'offal-y'. As in, we'll be eating haggis at Larnach Castle. Yeah. I've never had haggis and I've never been to Larnach Castle, so this is a good start. I'm excited about the castle. Not excited about the 'offal-y' good time. I'm a bit scared of that. Very stately. WHISPERS: Very stately. Wow. Oh! Wow! Hi there. I'm Jay. Hello. How do you do? My name is Robert. Nice to meet you, Robert. And I have the pleasure today of showing you around the castle. Excellent. Fabulous. Beautiful place you've got here. It's fantastic, isn't it? Is it yours? Sadly, no. LAUGHTER I wasn't insinuating you look old enough to have built it or anything. LAUGHTER You just look really rich. Jay! Arriving here, it is so, so beautiful. It is picturesque. Larnach Castle is very impressive in the flesh. The grounds are very lush. It's much bigger. It's much more grand than you'd expect. I just didn't think that we had this sort of opulence in NZ. I'd like to start by telling you a little bit about William Larnach, the gentleman that built this house. So I think the story about him and his family is actually as interesting as the house. Robert is so sweet. He is obviously really passionate about the history of the castle. I think he knows every nook and cranny of that place. The Larnach Castle story should be 100% turned into a movie. The brief synopsis of super-super-rich guy had three wives, two of which died. One of them was his original wife's sister. Then he married a younger chick who ended up getting tupped by his own son, and then when he found out about it supposedly blew his brains out in Parliament. It had me hooked. It was like watching a TV show. I didn't know anything about the family and let alone that that kind of drama was going on in that day and age. It's just unbelievable. Wow. Whoa. He did pick a good spot, didn't he? Did he ever, yes. The view at the top of the castle is absolutely stunning. It can't actually get any better than this. 'SCOTLAND THE BRAVE' PLAYS ON BAGPIPES I hear the dreaded bagpipes. I had completely forgotten about the clue card that had said 'offal-y', and then when I heard that, I was like, 'Oh, something "offal-y" not good is coming towards me.' And in they come, carrying the haggis. I'm a completely fussy eater and things that don't really sit well with me start making me really sick, and I was getting watery-eyed, freaking out just thinking about it. Yeeeees! Oh God. Good afternoon! Good afternoon! (YELLS) That's more like it. Now, welcome, welcome, welcome. We have the piper. We have the kilts. BOTH LAUGH The haggis, and we have the whisky. This I like. (LAUGHS) Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face, great chieftain o' the pudding-race! ...see rustic Labour dight, an' cut ye up wi' ready sleight. When Ian pulled out the knife and was wiping it with the tea towel, I did think that he was possibly going to kill us. And when he ripped in with such ferocity into the haggis, it burst open, and then he said I think something along the lines of, 'Smell the reek,' or, 'The reek of haggis,' and that's exactly what you can smell. It is so intense, and it's a` I mean, the entire performance is intense, but then to see him just viciously stab a sheep stomach filled with its own lungs and heart and stuff is` it's pretty heavy. So if ye wish her gratefu' prayer, a haggis. That's impressive. That is very impressive. Well done. Well done, sir. To the haggis. ALL: To the haggis. Slainte mhath! ALL: Slainte mhath! You go first. Just try the` No, you go first. You need to go first. I could never eat that much. If I'm eating, it's like, a pinch. It's like a spicy pate. That's exactly what it is. I don't even like pate. I'm the worst` It's ex` It's like a` It's like a gourmet sausage roll filling without the pastry. I will have the tiniest bit. Will that satisfy you? There's a wee bit on the knife. If you just` That's not` That's` This is good in my books. You can't even see it, though. You can. It's not that bad, honestly. No. It's not nice, but it's OK. It's not nice, but it's lovely. Thank you. Thank you so much. Leave that with us. I'll, uh` I'll take that with us. Doggie bag. I'll cook it for you. Give me a kiss. No. No. (LAUGHS) Be in to win your own NZ Escape, including flights, car hire, accommodation and activities. Head to ournzescape.tv to enter. POP! Whoo! (CHUCKLES) BANG! The bar continues to be pushed higher and higher and higher. BANG! Ooh! 1 On to...? On to... READS: Check into the Distinction Hotel before heading to the locals' favourite restaurant, Plato. This is good living. Pulling up at Distinction Hotel, it is huge. I was quite surprised. I thought we'd be staying in some sort of motel traveller lodge scenario, and this is such a beautiful hotel. These rooms are vast, and they are plush. This is exactly the sort of place that you would have to stay in having come to Dunedin. RELAXED MUSIC When you walk in the door here, all you can smell is this delicious sea freshness, and that's getting me excited because I'm a seafood man through and through. This is my kind of joint. Oh, thanks, honey. Does look like they've managed to buy about 17 antique stores and then jam them all in one room and turn it into a restaurant. I love it. It's so cool. What a way to end a massive day. I know. Dunedin's actually turning out` I was, you know, a little bit hesitant. Would you c`? Would you consider coming back here as, like, a proper, like, 'get away from the kids' destination? Even after one day, turned my opinion around. I'm telling you, man, I'm impressed. I always loved the place, but I'm very impressed. Oh my gosh. Wow. Oh. There we are. Sorry, I'm just gonna clear some space here. Oh, do, please. So you have some Bluff oysters on the side of there. Boom. Um, in the middle here we have a pork belly and some mussels and clams in the middle there. This is a dream creation for me. 100% hungry. Thank you so much. First day in Dunners under the belt. Having the time of my life. This place is incredible, and it's far exceeded the high expectations that I set it. Getting away with Jay, when we do things like this together, it reminds me of us when we first started dating. Everything is new and exciting, and the whole day has been really fun. An amazing end to an amazing first day. Thank you, darling. Yeah, cheers. UPBEAT MUSIC I don't know how Anna and I work so well. We just do. She just knows what she's got herself in for ` a fairly rough-around-the-edges human ` and she seems to be cool with it, and until she's not, I'll just keep rolling with it. Jay is so incredibly kind. He's the type of guy that makes anyone who's around him feel warm and fuzzy on the inside. OK, where to? Where are we going? (LAUGHS) I love all the clues. READS: Head 'tuatua' local beach to blow out the cobwebs and collect some local specialty. Head 'tuatua'? Yeah. BOTH LAUGH Come on over here. Hi. How's it going? Hey, I'm Jay. Nice to meet you. Kia ora, Jay. Hoani. Anna. Hi. Kia ora, Anna. So why don't we head down there now? This is our kaimoana. So this is what we're known for throughout NZ is having the largest and juiciest tuaki in the country. Hoani, I'm from the Mount. What's the difference between tuatua and tuaki? We call these locally here tuaki. They were wrongly named cockles. Yes. And, um, they're exported as clams. Ooh, that's` that's lively. It's refreshing. It's invigorating. So we probably won't go much further than here, but if you just use your foot to get down` Oh, you can feel them straight away, eh? You can feel them around. Ooh, they're cracking. You kind of feel like they're cracking under your feet. Just a handful, easy. Yeah. That's a goodie. Yeah, no, it's not difficult. Not difficult to find them here at all. I think we're looking pretty good. We've got enough there to feed the three of us. OK. Yep. I was given the dubious honour of turning our catch into a meal. So, I'm sure my kitchen staff won't mind if you come and take over this end of the kitchen. Ooh, we got a stitch-up. I'm very nervous cooking the clams for Hoani because he's had them how they should be eaten a multitude of times, and if I do them an injustice, I feel like I'm just ruining them, that I should never have taken them out of the water in the first place. Hey, you've done a good job of these. You've done this before, haven't you? Eaten quite a bit of seafood, yeah. (LAUGHS) From inside the kitchen, you can see the albatross on occasion circling the head of the peninsula. It is so windy up here. You can see why the albatross live here, cos they're big things and they need that wind to take off, and I've never seen one in the flesh. So when you get up there and you get to look out the windows and you get to see these big fluffy babies... These things are massive. These are the closest things to pterodactyls that we will ever see. They are such magnificent creatures. They are absolutely huge. This is the only place that you can see them in mainland NZ. It's something incredibly special. It's so impressive. CHEERFUL MUSIC So where to next? Where are we off to? READS: Escape from your escape. Confused? You will be. 'Escape from your escape'? 'Escape from your escape. Confused? You will be.' This is the most cryptic clue we've had yet. You head downstairs into this incredible little bunkery set-up. It feels like you're 100m underground in a secret James Bond sort of lab. It's kind of almost led me to believe that my worst fears are about to be confirmed ` that we are going to be doing some form of a challenge. Uh, the gist of today ` I'm gonna put you guys in a room and it's your job to work together as a team to solve a series of logic-based clues and puzzles,... (LAUGHS) Oh my God. ...uh, to unlock locks and safes and, of course, escape the room again. They're telling us we're gonna be scientists and we've gotta figure out these clues and save the world from this virus. I'm very very nervous about how we're gonna go. It's kind of thrown me a little bit. They're all seven days apart, so it's always the same day. Yeah. So it's always on a what? Incredibly impressive. I've never seen anything like it. Mind you, I've never done anything like this. I was really hesitant to start with, but once I started on that first clue and we got that one, I hit my stride and I was off. Well, this is obviously a pattern, so you've got one... First week, second week, third week, fourth week. I don't think I went into this thinking that Anna would be as good as what she was. And she says, 'Oh, I'm so bad at this stuff. I'm so bad at this stuff,' but she just drove that thing like a truck. These are two codes here, so we have two codes ` an A and a B ` so I assume we're putting a code into here and into here. Yeah. I realised that this is a step-by-step game, so I take the lead. Jay calls me the boss, and it's something I do a lot in our relationship, and he's happy to take a back seat. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I didn't think that I would enjoy this as much as I did. Hey. (GRUNTS) Congratulations, guys. You've escaped containment. We made it. You guys did quite well, um, throughout the room. Uh, as` Being a couple, it's really hard to kinda wrap your head around the clues. You in particular, you were fantastic. Oh, thank you. (LAUGHS) Oh, well done. Personally, I think you carried the team, so... Oh yeah! You did. You did good. Uh, you are one of the quickest couples I've seen come out of it, so... Yes. ...congratulations. We are competitors, so we like to hear that. Very competitive. I think we did work well as a team, though. Yeah. Probably a lot more` Probably surprisingly well. It was very impressive to watch Anna say how terrible she was at it, uh, yet to be told and see first-hand how good she actually was. It is nice after all of this time to find out something new about her. I've always said that I'm a lucky guy, but I do consider myself even more lucky today. It is quite an interesting gas to burn, and when I burn it ` Whoo! > Ooh! (GIGGLES) If Arthritis makes life a pain, the Aircycle is for you! Easy exercise to boost circulation, relieve aches and stiffness. UPBEAT MUSIC Museums are places I don't often spend a lot of time, but this one is` This is impressive. It is something that I'd love to bring the boys to because there's just so much cool stuff. (LAUGHS) Boom. Welcome to Discovery World. Thank you. My name is Amadeo. The ingredient that I'm going to be using for our first demonstration is a chemical that's` most of the universe is made out of it ` the sun, the stars ` hydrogen. Ah. So I've got a whole lot of hydrogen here. It's quite an interesting gas to burn, and when I burn it... Whoo! > (CHUCKLES) It makes a really nice cloud. Your turn. Yeah. Really? OK. Do it. Do it. Do it. Amadeo is` He is what I think a scientist is ` a person that you can tell is intrinsically passionate about what he does, incredibly smart, incredibly articulate... Are you ready? Our kids love bubbles. They'd die over this. ...two, one, go! (SCREAMS) ...and just funny. He talks like a cartoon scientist, and what's not to enjoy about a cartoon scientist? JAUNTY MUSIC (LAUGHS) I am looking forward to this. That is incredibly cold. I'm gonna put 100 degrees of water. 200` Almost 200 degrees liquid nitrogen. I'm going to mix them. This is gonna be chaos. Are you ready? BOTH CHUCKLE Go. BANG! (LAUGHS) Amadeo is a very special character, and he's trying to show other kids and people that science is fun. It's not all being strict and boring. It was really magical. BANG! Ooh! That's cool stuff. That's my kind of science. Being at the museum was an incredible way to finish up a day that has really stretched me to the limits of my mental capacity. The bar continues to be pushed higher and higher and higher with every hour that we're spending here in Dunedin. CHEERFUL GUITAR MUSIC I wonder what we've got in store for us today. There is a little green card just hovering away on the table in front of us and it's` You can do the honours, cos I've been doing all the reading cos you've been doing all the driving. READS: 'Fuse your yin and yang into a single ultimate. 'Head to the Chinese Gardens and end your Dunedin escape on a relaxing note.' That could be a massage. It's not a massage. What is it called? I've forgotten. Tai chi? Is that what it's called? Possibly. I think we're doing tai chi. Lots of this. Relaxing. Shall we finish our cuppa and get a move on? Yes. CHINESE MUSIC Hello. Hi. Welcome. Thank you. Jay. Nice to meet you. Oh, cold hands. Let's bring it in. (LAUGHS) Lead the way. OK. Wow. I did not expect to walk in and see this. This place is insanely massive. Whereabouts are the rocks from? They are all from China ` from one of the biggest freshwater lakes over there. And you import them specially for this? Yeah. Um, from` For the garden, we have about 970,000 tons of rocks that we got from China. Wow. How long did it take to build? From the time they had the conception of the idea to the time it's completed building, it took 12 years. Oh wow. (WHISTLES) Everything was done without nails. There's no nails in the building, so even in China this is kind of a dying art, so only the artisans know how to build this. So they had to come and spend about 20 months doing it? Yes. Wow. Yeah. How does it not blow away with no nails? (LAUGHS) Hi. Hi. Glad to meet you. I'm Anna. Lovely to meet you. I will teach you Wu-style tai chi. OK. I think this is very nice for human beings' health. OK. I have limited to no knowledge of tai chi. I don't know why it's a thing, and then I meet the tai chi master, and it all makes sense. This guy is just in such good nick. It's all down to tai chi, and it's the slow movement and it's the engaging of the brain and it's the stretching of the limbs and ligaments. Tai chi is something that I've seen a lot of people do at home, but I never have understood the process behind it or that there's so many different types of it. But it was so calming, and so it really` Your mind was free of all the bothers in day-to-day life you're thinking about. Really a good workout as well. Your thighs start to burn holding all those positions. I felt really long and lean afterwards. I felt very stretched and calm and floaty. It's just really nice to spend the moment with Anna and have the opportunity to reflect on everything that we've done over the last couple of days, and it's been amazing. It was the perfect full stop to an amazing weekend. UPBEAT MUSIC I think that we've managed to see and do a lot of things that a) we wouldn't have normally done, but b) we probably wouldn't have thought to have done, and this is what has made this trip so magical. It's so good for us to reconnect. We're busy in Auckland. We have busy lives. We've got the two kids. We don't get a lot of downtime just with each other. It's just really good to just have fun together and not think about our day-to-day life and de-stress. I think it was really really great for us. The coolest way to experience new things is with the coolest people in your life, and she is the coolest person in my life. Explore more of the country with Air NZ, with over 400 daily flights across 21 destinations. Book now at Air NZ. Captions by Catherine de Chalain. Edited by Pippa Jefferies. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016