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.