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In March, we headed off on a 2-week holiday of NZ’s South Island. We used a 'hop on hop off' bus service called Stray Backpacker Bus NZ to get around, and our big highlights were swimming with dolphins, catching our own fish for dinner and climbing a glacier.
Stop 2: Blenheim
Wineland. Hic. (N) We left Kaikoura the following morning, stopping at
Ohau Stream to take a short walk to a small waterfall, and from the roadside we saw seal pups at colony on the rocks below.
The premier wine-producing region of NZ is Marlborough, and Blenheim is its heart. A couple of hours later, we arrived there. Sauvignon Blanc (or “Sav” in local lingo) is the area’s speciality, and there are around 110 wineries to try it (and others) in.
We stayed in the nearby village of
Renwick where we arrived in the early afternoon and, aware that we were leaving the next day, headed straight out into the vineyard area on bikes - after a quick cheese sandwich. I must admit that I was expecting a much more rural experience, but a main road runs both north to south and east to west, so instead of cycling along
lanes around the countryside it was mostly tarmac roads, and the traffic included lorries. The scenery was interesting however, for example seeing some of the mechanical harvesting: imagine a tractor moving between rows of vines, with large 'Mr Tickle' arms that drop down each side of the vines to cut the grapes, in a big ‘M’ shape; and smelling the strong scent of rose petals from the bushes at the end of each vine, as we peddled past; the rose bushes are there not just to look pretty but to also be an early-warning system: if there are pests in the area, they will generally attack the roses before the vines. There were nets over
some of the vines, such as chardonnay and pinot noir, because their grapes ripen early, and they would be a target for birds and other animals to munch on.
Our first stop was at
Cloudy Bay winery, a wine label of some repute both in NZ and overseas. The weather was overcast so the cloud picture on their sign outside looked just like the surroundings. Inside we enjoyed their Sauvignon Blanc, plus something called ‘Te Koko’ (the Maori word for ‘Cloudy Bay’), which was
the same as the SB but aged in wood and not stainless steel. Paula liked that their Riesling dessert wine was described as having 'flavours of orange marmalade'!
Our second stop was at
Herzog, a company whose name I knew but whose wines we had never drunk. The UK wine writer Malcolm Gluck described wines originating here as 'the best wines in all of NZ', which is obviously quite a compliment. Their grapes are all hand-picked, so their vines are fairly closely planted together, as there is no need to get tractors in between. We tried 3 wines here including their flagship 2001 Merlot Cabernet which did what it said on the label - velvet rich, spicy, chocolatey...
We scraped into a 3rd winery,
Huia, just before they closed for the day and sampled several other varieties, I especially liked the fact that they recommended their Gewurtztraminer should be drunk with curry (albeit mild…), and we liked the Sav so much that Paula bought me (us) a bottle as a present.
On our second morning, there were blue skies as far as the eye could see. We weren’t about to lose that time just hanging around for
our bus, so we jumped on bikes again and cycled to the
Highfield Estate winery, with its unusual pink viewing tower. It is supposed to be Tuscan-style, so it didn’t really fit in with the style of the other wineries but we met a friendly girl behind the counter, who let us try their sparkling wine up the aforementioned tower, and we enjoyed supping it with fine views over the vines towards the mountains. Predictably, we then pedalled back like mad in order to catch the bus to NZ's most popular national park, Abel Tasman, a journey which was to take most of the day.
Stop 3: Abel Tasman National Park -
Brochure: Sun and Kayaks; Reality: Rain and a bus trip (P) Our bus to Abel Tasman NP went via
Picton, the pretty port town from where boats depart for the North Island across the Cook Strait, and also through the attractive town of
Nelson where we would have spent a day if we could. Our
Stray bus driver and guide organised a BBQ for us on arrival, not only with the usual meat suspects but which also incorporated
Green Shelled Havelock Mussels from Havelock town
itself, where we stopped en-route. These mussels, whose anti-inflammatory properties have seemingly evolved from folklore to fact, are a real Kiwi icon and most big supermarkets have a serve-yourself tank of them.
Abel Tasman National Park is NZ's smallest national park, predominantly coastal (SO not like a “park” in the sense of a green expanse with trees) and admired for its golden-sand beaches, rocky outcrops and beautiful estuaries with accessibility ruled by the tide - how very laid back. Its coastal tracks meander through the forest and along the edge of the sea. It has the most sunshine hours in the whole country and so it was more than a little ironic that a storm started on our first full day and continued for most of the time we were there!
We would not be defeated, however, and so we took a Golden Bay Adventure bus tour which took in the arty town of
Takaka, and drove among plenty of other-worldly landscape which was used in the Lord of the Rings films. Possibly not so interestingly, the marble from here was used in the building of Wellington’s Parliament Building.
What else? A peek at the sea-facing Abel
Tasman memorial site, which unsurprisingly commemorates the Dutch explorer
Abel Tasman. After discovering Tasmania, he continued sailing east and spotted land here (Golden Bay) back in 1642, but was driven away by local Maoris who spotted his ship from the shore and prevented him from
setting foot in New Zealand. James Cook had more success, credited as the first European landing here, around 150 years later. If things had been different, NZ could have ended up being a Dutch colony and then everyone would be wearing orange. Maybe.
Another stop on the bus led us to a
Grove Walk, which meandered through forest with moss covered rocks of unusual shapes making the place look like a set from
Jurassic Park. We also visited the
Te Waikoro Pupu Springs, where the water is filtered extremely gradually through marble rock, and is thus purported to be the clearest in the world.
The second half of the tour was
by boat down the park’s east coast, past Separation Point (where Golden and Marahau bays meet), alongside beautiful tropical paradise-like
Awaroa Bay,
Torrent Bay (with its cluster of houses only easily accessible by boat at high tide) and
Split Apple Rock.
Along the coast we encountered (more!) seals, cormorant birds and George the Dolphin, who is often spotted around the same area and loves to play at chasing the boats, leaping along in the backspray.
The next day it was still raining in the morning but had pretty much cleared up by the afternoon (hurray!), so we ventured out on a coastal walk (passing in a few hours as many beaches as there are days in the week) along to
Appletree Bay and swam in its calm water. An absolutely beautiful place that would be stunning in great weather.
More to follow...
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