We woke up late, took showers, cleaned up the
camper, and drove into downtown Blenheim to see what the town had to offer.
Jeff and I walked around the shops that were downtown and bought some sweaters
and shirts at a few different stores. I finally bought a merino sweater in my
time over here, it only took 4 months, but I love it. Merino is a special type
of wool produced from rare sheep in New Zealand. We stopped at grocery store
after our shopping spree to load up on food for the rest of our trip, and had
some lunch before our 1 o’clock wine tour with Highlight Wine Tours.
typical NZ terrain
Our tour guide, Colleen, was awesome. We
expected to be on a group tour, but because it is winter here, it’s not busy in
wine country, so we were the only people on the tour and had her expertise all
to ourselves. The Marlborough region is known for its sauvignon blancs (my
favorite wine), but it also produces other great wines as well.
Jeff waiting for the tour!
We started our
tour at Drylands winery. They produce a lot of wine that is exported to the US
like Nobilo and Monkey Bay. Next, we went to Hunter’s vineyard, which had 6
wines for us to taste including their own “bubbles” which is champagne, but
because it’s not made in the Champagne regions in France, they can’t call it
that. Their oak-aged sauvignon blanc was really different and interesting. I
enjoyed it, but Jeff was not a fan.
After Hunter’s we got to go to a special
winery that only does bubbles, called No. 1 Family Estate. We got to taste 3
different varieties of their bubbles, which were all fun to try in the middle
of a Wednesday! Framingham’s winery was next. They make 14 different wines, 5
of which we got to try. Their sauvignon blanc is exported to the states and is
delicious. The cool thing about this winery, was that it opened our eyes to
reisling. Aparrently, the reisling that we get in the states is “sweet
reisling” from German wineries, so we weren’t expecting to like the Framingham
variety. However, their classic reisling was delicious and we are bringing a
bottle home, but no, I won’t share.
We ended our tour at Baldevines Winery,
which was kinda of a let down, but wine always makes me happy. After finishing
our vineyards portion of the tour, we went to Makana Convections, a chocolate
factory that had the most delicious toffee that we bought and proceded to eat
that night. To keep Jeff happy, Colleen took us to a microbrewery on our way
back to town, which he really enjoyed. We really enjoyed the day and were so
happy we did the tour. Afterwards, we were tired (and kinda tipsy) from the
tour, so we went to bed early at the holiday park again.
what we are taking home with us (minus the chocolate)
post wine tour :)
June 20 – Westport/Pancake Rocks/Hokitika
This was our travel day. We left Blenheim
early around 8:30 and I drove. We headed towards the west coast, right through
the heart of the country, which is beautiful.
bye wine!
watch for kiwis!!
hi!
bye wine country!
one lane bridges are common around here - this one had train tracks going through it!
me drivin!
It took us 4 hours to get to
Westport, which is on the northwest corner of the south island.
west coast!
Cape Foulwind
Other than a
pretty peninsula called Cape Fowlwind, there is nothing to do in Westport, so
we kept driving south down the coast towards the Pancake Rocks. The rocks are
split into layers by the ocean water pounding against them, so it looks like a
ton of pancakes stacked on top of one another.
After another 2 hours of driving, we stopped
in Greymouth, another coastal town with hardworking people, but not many
tourist attractions. However, they had a bar, and that was good enough for us.
We stopped for a drink. I opted for Hot Chocolate, which I remembered being
awesome from my previous trip with Stray, and Jeff had a beer.
We weighed our
options about the day, whether we wanted to stay there for the night, or keep
driving south. We chose the second option and drove to Hokitika, along the
coastal highway which is rated as one of the top 5 most beautiful drives in the
world.
jeff threw the keys so he had to get them with the broom!
The town itself is a coastal town whose claim to fame is the numerous
outlets for Pounamu, the green stone that is found in the area and made into
every form of jewelry imaginable. We didn’t want to plug in, so we drove south
of town about 5 minutes to Lake Manipuha, I came here with Stray, so you can
check out that post here.
where we camped
mountians and tasman sea!
We free camped at the lake, made dinner, and watched some TV on my computer before settling in for the night.
morning!
June 21 – Franz Josef
We woke up to gorgeous south island winter
weather. Blue skies and cold crispy air. Over the past week there have been
horrible storms with heaps of rain, snow, and ice to the south of us. We have
actually been running away from it ever since Lake Tekapo, so it was nice to
see that the skies were finally clearing up.
The lake we stayed on was beautiful. It had the southern alps in the
distance and the sunrise came right over the top of the them. Jeff and I headed
out to explore downtown Hokitika. We went to a jade factory, that carves and
produces the green stone jewelry, and had some breakie at the local café. Then
we headed to Franz Josef.
The ride to Franz Josef was really pretty
with us driving into the Southern Alps, but their was a lot of road
construction from the downed trees due to the storms that came through the
region. We finally made it to Franz Josef in early afternoon. Franz Josef is a
town based around a glacier that sits in the mountains high above the town and
the entire city is kept alive by tourism around trips that go up to and around
the glacier.
One of the things Jeff and I originally wanted to do was go on a
trip that requires a helicopter ride up to the glacier and then we could hike
around on top of it. Unfortunately, all of the spots on the following days trip
were booked, so we were unable to go on the trip. L It’s
okay though, because the tour costs a lot of money, so we could spend that
money on beer and wine instead. We checked into a holiday park in the early
afternoon, bought some internet access, and relaxed for the rest of the day.
The holiday park is called the Rainforest park because it is situated in a
pocket of thick native bush, which makes it look like a rainforest, even though
it is freezing outside.
britzy and a glacier behind her!
There isn’t much to do in FJ at night so Jeff
and I tried to clean out our fridge and cook some stuff, then we went to
Monsoons bar (motto: when it rains – we pour). Now we are just waking up and
heading to one of my all time favorite places Wanaka! Hopefully the roads are
safe, open, and clear for us! 4 days till I am stateside!
Miss you all!
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