Welcome to the Land of Sav Blonk

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A morning of picking up the van (much better than previous ones we think), getting some shopping in (only left a little in the supermarket for the locals) and trying to navigate out of Auckland with lousy maps (not too long and we did manage to avoid the toll road!).

So we took the road north towards the Bay of Islands, stopping en route for a needed coffee in McDonalds to see if they have free WiFi here too ... unfortunately they don’t, so I’m not quite sure when we’re going to be able to upload our blogs - John is certain we’ll find somewhere, so fingers crossed! The upside is that we don’t have to seek out McDonalds while we’re in NZ!!

First impressions of NZ: its very green and quite lush compared to Oz - although not as green as I’d imagined - probably because we’re in autumn here and the grass is probably a little worn out and the trees are already turning. We were climbing yet another hill with spectacular views to both left and right when John said ‘Hmm - I think NZ has promise’!

So our first stop for the night was at Mangawhai Heads - in the carpark overlooking the sea - we spent a long time acclimatising to the new van, which is slightly different in layout to the Aussie vans, eg here we have 2 burners and a grill, whereas in Oz we had 3 burners and an electric toaster (for when we had electric!). The rules for camping are different here - the basic rule being you can stay anywhere that doesn’t explicitly say ‘no camping’. Must admit first night out, I’m slightly nervous, but there were a couple of other vans doing similar!

One of my great disappointments in Australia was that, however hard they try (and I’m sure they’re trying very hard), they cannot produce a decent Sauvignon Blanc (compared to those produce by NZ). We had one winery owner in WA tell us that ‘NZ Sav Blonk had had its day and people are now drinking Pinot Grigio’. The proprietor of LiquorLand in Cairns told us that most reps try telling him the same thing, ie ‘that people don’t want to drink wine tasting like passion fruit’ - and we all agreed that actually, yes they do. Basically it boils down to the fact that the Kiwis definitely have one over the Aussies here, and the Aussies don’t like it one bit! Having said all that, I moved swiftly on to the Viognier, which was superlative, and believe it or not the unoaked Chardonnays which were light and delicious, so I didn’t suffer to badly. But walking round the supermarket this morning was a joy as John selected several brands of Sav Blonk to be trialled. It is living up to its promise!

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Comments

[Eric and Heather]

I enjoyed your post. I have always wanted to travel around the world. My blog is looking for travel photos. If you have the time, email us some at [e-mail] or check us out at dirty-hippies.blogspot.com Continued fun on your travels, Eric and Heather