Monday, February 29, 2016

North Island Here We Come

Sunday we turned in our rental car at the Picton ferry terminal and boarded the ferry after an hour delay for our 3 hour cruise to the North Island. We headed to the top deck to get the best view.


The weather was great but a bit windy and the crossing the Cook Strait was a pretty calm sail.


Beautiful scenery of all the mountainous shoreline.


Once we hit the open waters,we headed inside to enjoy a bit of refreshments and warmth.


Approaching the North Island, Wellington (New Zealand's capital) comes into sight.


After debarking and picking up a new rental car, we immediately headed north out of town for a 2 hour drive to Masterton to find a motel room. Finally found one with a/c (they are difficult to find) and proceeded to walk to the Lone Star for a Texas style dinner.


I had the lamb shoulder and it was great.


Monday morning we headed for Napier which is in Hawks Bay known for red wines that Jim likes. It took us about 45 minutes to find a motel, but once settled we took off for the wineries. Tasted at 5 places and only found a couple of wines we liked, but they were better than the South Island.


Didn't get pictures of the area because it was nasty weather, cold and raining. Woke up to rain this morning, so headed towards Auckland (which natives pronounce it like we would say Oakland) raining most of the way and found a room in Hamilton, about 1 1/2 hours south of Auckland. Went for a 5 mile walk around this lake that is close to our motel. It was a real pleasant walk except for the humidity about 70%. Now sitting  back watching Kansas Texas BB game while doing laundry. 




Friday, February 26, 2016

Marlborough Sounds

Took a scenic drive this morning up through part of the Marlborough Sounds. Starting at Picton where the inter island ferry terminal is located, it's a small town north of where we are staying.


This is the ferry we will be taking tomorrow morning heading to the North Island.


Here are some views of the sound.




We passed through Havelock, best known as the greenshell mussel capital of the world, so a must stop was The Mussel Pot for a pot of mussels and a brew.




After lunch we headed back to Blenheim, stopping at a couple of wineries for a bit of a taste.



Spent the rest of the afternoon doing a load of laundry after checking into the motel, then going for a walk. We have limited amount of clothes since we only have our carry on luggage, that means laundry, but it's worked out quite nicely most of the motels have laundry facilities. Also everything is so casual that we've only been wearing shorts.

Like I mentioned, tomorrow we head for the North Island. The 3 hour ferry ride should be quite scenic. We go through the Cook Strait to land in Wellington.


Thursday, February 25, 2016

Kiwi Land

Need to do a bit of catching up here. Wednesday we left the hotel at 5am to miss all the traffic getting to the Melbourne airport. We only missed the turn to the rental cars once but got checked through security then customs with not too much of a problem, then waited for a our 9am flight. Arrived in Christchurch, New Zealand at 1pm ( they are 2 hours ahead of Melbourne and 20 hours ahead of Tucson). Picked up our rental car and made it to our motel. We needed exercise so took off for a nice long walk through a park to city center (which isn't much).


For dinner we went to Trevinos about 2 blocks from the motel for a pleasant outdoor dining experience. We met a couple from Liverpool and traded wine stories.


Thursday morning we drove North to the Waipara Valley wine area and went to about 6 wineries to taste their wines. Enjoyable but did not get blown away with any of the wines. We proceeded up the coast for a pleasant drive to Kaikoura to find a motel for the night. There was nothing in the area that we were willing to stay at, so had to continue on for another 2 hours to Blenheim, where we did find a room. But after we got to the room, we found out that it didn't have air conditioning, so it was quite warm sleeping. Here are some pictures of heading up the coast and the wineries we stopped at.





New Zealand is much less populated and much easier to get around. Every place we go the people are very friendly and quite helpful. The countryside is beautiful, the coast pretty in places with more of a rocky shoreline.

This morning we drove around for another motel with air conditioning for tonight and Sat. We ended up with a different motel each night, but will be cool, it's been quite warm, in the mid to upper 80s, with higher humidity than we are used to. After taking care of business, we headed for the wine trail.


We tasted at 6 wineries and nothing really to our liking. This area is known for Sauvignon Blanc which we are not a fan of, but also Riesling which we like. But it seems that all the winemakers like dry wines. Here are some beautiful views we saw, which made up for the wines.


The area reminds me of Napa or Sonoma wine regions with the plentiful vineyards.


This afternoon we took a drive over to the coast and found a nice view of the coast.


When we got back to the motel we decided to get some exercise, so took off on a nice path along this small river. At close to 90 degrees needless to say, we only walked for an hour.


Well I better finish so we can go find dinner.



Monday, February 22, 2016

Wildlife sanctuary

Monday we took another tour, basically the same route but instead of wine tasting we went to the animal sanctuary to see all the native birds and animals. Stopped at the same winery as before, had another good wine lunch with tasting the wines afterwords. But the best was another stop at the chocolaterier again. Jim is digging into the free samples.


Next stop was the wildlife where we were guided around for 2 hours. The bird show was fascinating on how they trained the birds to fly to certain spots, mainly over our heads.


Plus saw some of the many birds from the area.


Then onto the Tasmanian Devil.


Jim got to feed an Emu, they are aggressive creatures.


The kangaroos were all resting so didn't get to see them hop around.



Only saw 2 Koalas and they were not moving and refused to show their faces.


Was a little disappointed in our experience, but guess can't complain, we got to see the animals.

Didn't have anything planned for today and since the forecast was for 104 degrees, we went for a walk in the park first thing. Their parks are just beautiful here.




Here is a beautiful old church by our hotel.


Then we went to the Immigration Museum and spent about 2 hours learning all about Australia.  It was so hot after we left the museum that we just walked back to the hotel and have stayed inside the rest of the day. We are heading out for the airport at 5am tomorrow for New Zealand. Will post when I can, but don't know how well WiFi will work where we stay. We've enjoyed our time in Australia but will be glad to get out of these big cities with horrendous traffic into some countryside of New Zealand.


Sunday, February 21, 2016

Yarra Valley

Hopped on our day tour bus at 9:45 Sunday morning for a 2 hour ride East of Melbourne to the Yarra Valley for a bit of wine tasting. Our first stop was at Fergusson Winery for a spit roast wine lunch that was quite good then tasted some more of their wines after lunch. Pleasant wines.


Our bus was a bit bigger than the one we took in Sydney.


Then on to the chocolaterier for our dessert. We sampled their chocolates twice then proceeded enjoying two scoops of the delicious ice cream. 



Our next winery was Rochford, which we did not care for their wines at all.



Then on to Dominique Portet for another tasting. These wines were not to our liking also.


We arrived back in Melbourne around 6 and found that housekeeping didn't make up our room, so called for service, so that meant we needed to go out for dinner. After walking around for awhile,we found an English pub, ordered a nice bottle of wine and had a very delicious dinner.


Here are a couple of views of Yarra Valley.



It's not all vineyards like Napa in CA, but much of a farming and ranch area. Beautiful weather, great scenery, good food and wine makes for a good day.