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Vineyards
The sheep help to cut the grass! After our skydiving birthday adventures we thought we should tame things down a bit, so we travelled to the east coast to an area densely populated with wineries! Similar to a Niagara-on-the-lake, the Hawkes Bay area has over 65 wineries, of which most only sell their product within the country. The Kiwi’s must really enjoy drinking their wine! We spent a couple of days here going from winery to winery and sampling all of the free tastings. Fantastic! This area is also known to be the fruit production capital of the country and we enjoyed driving past apple orchards, seeing mandarin orange trees overflowing with fruit, and of course, eating all of the seasonal goods! One of the most interesting points about the Hawkes Bay wine region is that it contains a rather famous area known as the Gimblett Gravel which arguably produces some of the world’s best Chardonnay’s and Bordeaux-style reds yet it was at one time a drag racing strip and was planned to become a garbage dump before it was sampled as a winery region. Luckily its fate ended as it does as it has even given some of the French and Italian wines a run for their
money in recent blind tastings!
We started off our wine tastings tour with one of the original wineries, Church Road, where we were taken on an actual tour of the winery and learned the ins and outs of wine making. Some of the more notable wines we enjoyed came from Trinity Hill and Church Road, but we were also particularly impressed with the small Boutique winery called Salvare which also had us taste some of their homemade olive oils and mustards as well as a amazing all purpose Indian inspired spice called Dukkah. Mmm mmm! Too cap off one of our days of wine tastings we drove up to Te Mata Peak for a great view overlooking the entire wine region and a beautiful sunset.
Hiking and Hot Pools Eager to explore some more of NZ by foot and with talk of natural hot pools along the way, we set off on a two day hike into the Kaweka Forest. The route we chose to hike sold us on the fact that it had two areas with actual thermal pools set up for public use. After hiking for a few hours up and down small mountains the
Rows of grape vines
Most of the grapes have been harvested at this time of the year hot pools were much appreciated and they kept us warm for a bit as the cold night temperatures approached. Like the Taupo and Rotorua area, these hot pools are naturally occurring as hot rock from the earth’s mantle gets closer to the surface here - the crust is only 16km thick. This allows for the water to be naturally heated from the extremely hot temperatures that are escaping from deep below. The hiking was great and just what we needed to stretch our legs from all the driving that we had been doing. Most of the hike followed along a river, and we saw several large blue herons, different bird species and ducks along the way. We stayed in a large hut for the night which is serviced by the Department of Conservation (DOC) and although the hut had gas stoves for cooking, we still had to carry pots/pans, etc in with us so we could eat. The hiking amazes us here as the foliage is so lush and rich, combining ferns, pines and palms in the same forest.
Getting Blown Away in the Country’s Capital Travelling down south we took two detours on our way to
Wellington, the nation’s capital city. The first detour was to find the mountain with the longest name in the world. Apparently there is a sign that advertises this famous place; however, we did not succeed in finding it. So, we’ll just have settle and imagine what the sign for Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu would have looked like! That's 88 letters to save you the time if you started counting!
Our second detour off the road was to visit the iconic Tui Brewery. Named after a native bird, the Tui Beer is famous all over the country and we just happened to pull up to the brewery 10 minutes before a tour was starting - it was 11am! You can’t pass up unplanned timing like that so we joined a group of people and cheers’ed over a few of the local brew. One of the guys in our tour had been biking throughout the country, and as he was headed to Wellington as well, we decided to give him and his bike a ride the rest of the way and save his legs from the pending hills and his sanity from the rain that was falling. Not really having room to spare, we
disassembled our bed to store his bike, and he enjoyed the ride in a horizontal position from the back.
Arriving in Wellington, it lived up to its name as one of the windiest cities in the world. Walking around the Victorian styled streets was made that much more interesting by the whipping wind threatening to knock you off of your feet. The city is known for its arts scene and it has a really cool vibe from this and the university nearby. We enjoyed walking around (despite the wind) admiring all of the unique shops, and stopping for a cup of coffee to warm up. Apparently there are more coffee shops per capita than in New York City.
We also visited the Te Papa museum, or the museum of New Zealand. The museum explains everything from how the country was formed (and continues to form), to local species, to the Maori and Polynesian people and the effect they have had in shaping the countries culture. Another popular exhibit is the Colossal Squid which was caught by Kiwis in Antarctic waters and is the largest of its kind to have ever been caught and studied. It was then preserved
to be put on display at this museum. At almost 5 metres in length and half a ton it was impressive! The museum was very well done and for a donation admission it is well worth the visit on any trip to Wellington.
Having travelled throughout the north island we are ready to put Daisy and ourselves on the ferry heading south across the Cook’s Straight to see what adventures are in store for us down there!
Love to all,
MandL
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