East Coast, South Island, NZ - study in contrasts

---

Another pleasant ferry ride between Wellington on the North Island and Picton on the South Island - about 3 hours across the Cook Strait, calm seas, flying dolphins trailing the ship...and even wifi on board. Watching the ship load was fascinating - the train tracks run right into the hold of the ship and the boxcars go right into the ship...and then out the other side when we arrive - pretty neat to watch.



Another day, another automotive adventure but the South Island is very rural so it's easy going. We are headed for the Marlborough wine country, renown for their Sauvignon Blanc. As we drive into the valley, its gorgeous with the late afternoon sun slanting through the vineyards. We arrive at Straw Lodge, a B&B at World's End Vineyard, and are greeted enthusiastically by Nettie and Jane, my email correspondents over the past months, and by Texas, a wonderful huge black Labrador retriever. Soon we have a glass of their crisp and delicious 2011 Sauvignon Blanc in hand - single vineyard, hand picked, organic - and are enjoying Jane's yummy snacks and laughing and chatting like old friends. Their friend Marty joins us - he's visiting from Christchurch - and Jane's husband Bill, as well as the lovely, quiet, young Japanese couple who are celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary and the two Aussie girls from Hong Kong here for a week's holiday over Chinese New Years. The party just gets better and better - one of the fun parts of staying in a B&B.



Our cottage in the vineyard is heavenly - snuggled into rows of Pinot Noir grapes, with a comfortable sitting area outside, and a view from the bedroom through the vineyards to the Richmond range in the distance. The cottage itself is made with straw bale construction, and is luxuriously simple, and has everything you could want, including the most wonderful lavender body wash from a local lavender farm. Knowing we would be tired after the day I had asked for a vineyard platter for dinner and Jane outdoes herself - it is a riot of cheeses, local sausage, green lip mussels, sweet local strawberries, wonderful bread - better than anything a local restaurant could have done and perfect for this evening. We feel like we've found heaven...with a black lab to boot! The perfect ending to the evening in the hot tub under the stars.



We're finding the Marlborough region somewhat like Napa in the 1980's - just coming into its own, a little quieter, just beginning to develop the fine restaurants and gourmet providers. It is interesting to see how the vines are trimmed here, much flatter with the fruit peaking through the leaves. Starlings are real pests here and some of the vines have light white nets thrown over them (Bill calls them "bridesmaids"), and in the distance you can hear the bird guns going off.



The next morning at 8 Tex promptly appears at our door to make sure we're up and getting ready for the day - so nice to have a wagging tail to greet you in the morning. Our expectations were set high from dinner last night for breakfast and Jane does not disappoint. Homemade muesli, whole grain toast, stewed plums, apricots and rhubarb in addition to cut fresh fruits, homemade muffins, homemade lemon curd and jams, local honey...and that's all before the eggs Benedict. I apologize for only eating a smidgen of the eggs, explaining that when you're traveling for 7 weeks, if you eat everything set before you you won't fit into the airplane seat going home.



After breakfast Jane and I sit down to plan a day of wine tasting, with a nice long walk in the morning so we deserve our Valentine's Day dinner that evening. She offers to do laundry for us also - bless her for getting us clean - and we get sweet smelling line dried laundry happily returned later that day.



Well, the best laid plans and all that.... Jane points us in the direction of the river - just down the road, through the vineyard roads, turn left to get to the river (Marty teased Steve with a photo of the fish he had caught and released just that morning from the river) - you can't get lost (little does she know.... ). We have a lovely hour long walk through vineyard roads and across levees, finally stumbling across the rocky runs of the river, having carefully noted all the right and left turns as we took them. We head back and carefully count all the right and left turns but all of a sudden nothing looks familiar...and frankly, one row of grapes looks just like any other. We trudge on, trying the GPS in my phone (Note to Google Maps - you need to include all those vineyard tracks), but keep getting turned around and the sun is so high in the sky it's difficult to tell which direction you're going in. After about an hour and a half of stumbling around in the blazing sun with no water, hats or sunscreen, we admit we're good and lost and try to figure out what to do next - of course no cell signal and it wouldn't do any good to call Nettie anyway since I couldn't tell her where we were. Then we hear the high pitched whine of a truck in the distance and Steve runs and flags down a big dirt hauler. Out hops a pony-tailed, tattooed bloke who takes one look at us lost Americans and tries mightily not to laugh. He leads us on a trail through high grass, with both of us tripping over hidden vines and Steve taking a major header (no major damage done), and puts us on top of a levee road from which we can see miles and miles of vineyards stretching as far as the eye can see. He points out a red roof in the far distance and says that's where we're headed. We tell him he can have a good laugh at our expense with his mates tonight. We head down to the vineyard road and hoof it for about half an hour but frankly it doesn't look like we're getting any closer. Then we hear the purr of an off road vehicle and our savior appears. When we explain where we're trying to get to he looks incredulous and tells it its probably 4-5 km away. At our look of dismay, he quickly says, "Wait right here, I'll go get the vineyard truck, and run you home in a minute." We bounce through vineyard roads, past spraying trucks and vineyard crews and happily find Straw Lodge about 3 hours after we left it - with a heartfelt thank you to our savior. Without him it's distinctly possible someone would have found our bleached and whitened bones in the distant future.... I guess I have to admit that my vaunted navigating skills sometimes just aren't up to the task...maybe it's more confusing in the Southern Hemisphere????



Now we really need to do some wine tasting! Nettie had told us about the small Marlborough Natural Winegrowers group, of which World's End is a member - all small, organic vineyards and so we set out to visit some of them. We are greeted at Te Whare Ra (www.twrwines.co.nz) by the winemaker Anna Flowerday and she pours us some samples of their Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling, and an interesting blended wine Toru, an aromatic combination of Riesling, Gewurtztraminer and Pinot Gris. I'm including the websites for the wineries for my wine friends since I know if I didn't you'd pester me mercilessly. World's End's winemaker uses Te Whare Ra's facilities to make their wines. On to one of the big guys, Cloudy Bay, which I know and enjoy at home. Steve fades out at this point so I take him back to relax and bravely soldier on by myself - someone has to do the tough work! On to Fromm Vineyards (www.frommwinery.co.nz) and a fabulous Fromm Brancott Valley Pinot Noir 2009 - powerful, spicy and silky. Final stop is at Clos Henri (www.closhenri.com), a French owned vineyard that does an interesting tasting of three Sauvignon Blancs highlighting the different soils in their vineyard. The good news is that all the wines were interesting and different; the frustration is that with few exceptions I'll never enjoy them again as they are not imported. KL Wines in San Francisco imports some Te Whare Ra and Fromm but of course not the small single vineyard wines as they are produced in such small quantities. Ah well, it was still a great day.



This being Valentine's Day, I had asked Nettie for a restaurant recommendation and she told us that the Hans Herzog Winery (www.Herzog.co.nz) had the most romantic restaurant in the valley. What a gorgeous winery and restaurant - set in stunning gardens with the vines surrounding the small, charming white framed building - it reminds me of the French Laundry in the halcyon Schmidt family, pre Thomas Keller, days. It's an award winning restaurant but it is an off night there. The food and wine is exciting and interesting but unfortunately the service staff was well and truly off that evening. After three hours, when we just about begged for coffee and dessert, we fall upon the what we assumed is the dessert plate - it appears to be an assortment of petit fours on a base of some type of crumbs - not what I thought we ordered but this meal had to finish sometime. After inhaling the putative dessert, we are surprised to see another plate of some type of fancy sorbet, mousse and spun sugar topping appear. Inquiring of the server as to what the earlier dish had been, he tells us it always came with coffee, and then after glancing at the depredations we had made on the dish, walked away with an amused look on his face. Somehow I think those "crumbs" were supposed to be decorative and the restaurant staff had a good laugh about the ignorant Americans....



We hate to say goodbye to Straw Lodge the next morning, but replete with another stunning Jane breakfast (loved her Keep Calm and Carry On apron), and a final lick from Texas (I wore my Black Dog T-shirt in his honor this morning) we start the drive down the East Coast of the island to Christchurch. The stunning black sand beaches with rocky spits and crashing waves are on our left as we negotiate the twisting, turning roads - both of us remarking that we think this is a more gorgeous drive than the Great Ocean Road out of Melbourne. It's road repair season so there's lots of stop and go traffic, and gravelly roads to negotiate. Rt. 1, which runs north and south on the coast, is a major thoroughfare for commerce with lots of trucks barreling down it, but still only a two lane highway, with a couple of one lane bridges thrown in just to keep it interesting. Near Kaikoura, when we get out for a stretch break near a beach, we're greeted by a big lazy seal, enjoying his morning snooze on a rock and happily scratching his back. Steve loves the fact that you can pump your gas and pay for it afterwards - a remnant of an earlier and easier time. Getting closer to Christchurch we find ourselves enmeshed in the god-awful roundabouts once more. For those of you who know about Steve's battles with low blood pressure, we think we've found the solution that seems to have escaped modern medicine - just drive roundabouts on the other side of the road in traffic - guaranteed to keep your blood pressure roaring.



Christchurch is a ghostly remnant of the city it used to be, with the CBD nearly totally demolished from the earthquakes of 2010 and 2011, as well as the 11,000 aftershocks, and deconstruction continuing on the remaining structures. We check into The George, a pleasant boutique hotel near the CBD and the only decent one left standing. We ask the concierge for a restaurant for dinner and he tells us that only a very few restaurants are open these days. Wandering a few blocks to the restaurant he recommends, we are struck by how quiet and empty the city feels. Fiddlesticks, where we eat, is excellent with a delicious artichoke risotto, but has only been open a few months and looks like the only signs of life around. It truly feels eerie - think of what San Francisco would be like if all the buildings from the Bay through Nob Hill were wiped out. On our walk we pass the architecturally stunning art museum - it is a trapezoidal glass structure built recently and came through the quakes so well that the emergency operations folks commandeered it as their headquarters. Today it stands empty and shuttered, unable to get insurance for its valuable art collection.



Saturday morning we hop on a double decker bus for a quick one hour tour around the devastation and it is almost too difficult to comprehend. Much of the city center is still a cordoned off red zone, patrolled by the army, and the sound of bulldozers pulling down the shells and remnants of buildings is constant, even on a weekend day. Some of the historic buildings have their remaining walls held up with shipping containers to protect against falling masonry and you can see sky through many buildings, including the sad remains of the once glorious cathedral. Christchurch has long been known as New Zealand's most English city and it breaks your heart to see the devastation today. It has been two years since the major February 2011 quake, in which 186 people died, and there is a sense of suspended animation about this area of the city. Our guide, who lived and worked in the city for decades, has an upbeat tone and talks about Christchurch coming back and the resilience of the residents - I only hope he's right. He talks about all the new buildings planned - sports stadium, library, convention center - and then quietly says he hopes to live long enough to see it all happen. After the tour we have fun exploring the Restart Mall, a section of the CBD that has been reanimated with gaudily painted metal shipping containers masquerading as stores and cafes - it's a tourist and local favorite and is a busy locale on weekends. Christchurch is known as the city of flowers and it still glows brightly in the Botanical Garden in Hegley Park. It's the opening day of the two week long annual flower show and the park is alive with sound and excitement. The herbaceous border would bring out envy in any gardener and the central rose garden is delicious with scent and color. The Avon River flows through the park and we enjoy a lazy half hour being rowed on a punt, relaxing in the warm, pleasant afternoon weather. The Canterbury Museum abuts the park and we spend an hour at an exhibit on Scott's tragic last expedition to Antarctica - he sailed from here and lost his life on his search for the South Pole. Dinner is at a casual outdoor cafe, The Coffee House, with great steaks - seemingly one of the only other restaurants around - and we are joined by a scrappy but well fed tabby, the only pet we've seen today. The waitress tells us he is an earthquake stray, and makes the rounds of the few restaurants open and is well loved and fed by all of them. Makes you think about all the other lost and missing pets from the earthquakes.



Sunday morning we're up bright and early to take the TranzAlpine train over Arthur's Pass to the West Coast. The train, with its two powerful locomotives, pulls quietly out of the station shortly after 8 a..m, and starts its journey across the Canterbury plains, the highlight of which is the stop at Springdale to take on freshly baked muffins. It then starts the climb into the Southern Alps but it is a grey, cloudy, drizzly morning so much of the view is obscured. After climbing to Arthur's Pass at 3,000 feet, we pass into into one of the 17 tunnels on the route - this one is 8 km long - and exit into the blinding sunshine. Now I see what all the excitement is about! We are surrounded by towering green mountains, some with snowy remnants, and rocky river beds flash by. The four hour trip goes quickly and soon we pull into Greymouth, the western terminus of the railway, and get set to explore the West Coast with lots more adventure in store.

---

Photos

Vineyard platter extraordinaire
Jane outdid herself

Tex taking us to breakfast
Doesn't get much better than this.

The start of a nice "long" walk
Don't ever tell us "You can't get lost..."

Nettle and Jane
Straw Lodge - just fabulous

Seal taking it easy
Near Kaikoura on our drive down the East Coast

Christchurch in ruins
The ruins of the cathedral...what a struggle for this city.

Christchurch Botanical Gardens
Amazing flowers and displays.

TranzAlpine train
Coming through Lake Brunner

Comments

[sarah ross]

earthquake?
heard on Morning Joe this morning that there was a pretty big quake on some islands in southern NZ--near you?

[Marilyn Edling]

Christchurch
It was so sad to read about the devastation in Christchurch. Although we read about the earthquake I didn't really understand the extent of it until your posting. Christchurch was where I wanted to move to after our trip in 2001 but those damn kids have kept us stateside.