Wine tasting Day!

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I took a day off from research (because two days of working is so rough) today to go wine tasting. Leah (the other suitemate) and I came up with this great idea last night when she decided that she didn’t want to go to class. And I, not having any classes ever, am a willing companion on any adventure around Auckland.
We took a bus about 45 minutes out of the city center to a suburb called Hendersen. After getting off the bus a few stops too early, we walked a mile or so up a hill with a beautiful view of Auckland and the bay. On the way we passed some gardens with wonderful-smelling spring flowers, as well as a couple of cows. At the top of the hill was Babich Vineyard, where I’d heard there were free wine tastings. We were the only ones there. Apparently most people don’t take a bus and wander into vineyards unannounced on Wednesday mornings. It would have been awkward, except that the guy who came to the counter and gave us wine samples was young and very friendly. He gave us samples of about 7 different wines (3 whites, 3 reds, and a Riesling) and chatted with us for a while about his marketing schemes (he is advertising the wines as "the bich” to bars). We each bought a bottle of white to take back for dinner. After getting some bad directions, we walked for about half an hour to a little café in the town of Swanson. Chicken salad and Oreo cake turned out to be the perfect thing to follow the wine.
To get back to Auckland we took a train from the little Swanson station. Our only companion at the station was a duck. Definitely a small town kinda place. It rained on us for a bit while we waited, but then the sun came out and there was a nice rainbow. The ride back home was interesting. Leah and I were joined by a (crazy?) man who wanted to know if we sang or wrote poetry. He then began singing “House of the Rising Sun” to me, except changing to words to be about the flood in New Orleans. It got a little scary when he followed us out of the train, but we hid in the bathroom for a long time and he was gone when we came out. I'm glad I wasn’t traveling alone today!
That was pretty much my day. Had dinner at the fancy McDonalds (it has a flat screen and a McCafe) in “little America” with Betsy and Blair and am going to watch STC now with Leah.
Goal for the week: meet more Kiwis. Hopefully they will be more like the wine guy and less like the train dude.

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Photos

Cows
Some friendly cows we passed on the way to Babich Vineyards.

Babich Vineyards
Nice marketing guy, good wine.

The Duck
Our only companion on the Swanson train platform for a while.

Rainbow
After a few minutes of rain and hail.