Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Go South young women......

Off to the South Island.  We took the Interisland ferry to Picton; the gateway to the south island.  They say you do not just take the ferry, but cruise the passage.  It was truly a lovely passage and our first viewing of the Queen Charlotte Sound, beautiful. 
The Gate way to the South Island from the Snout Hike
 We had booked The Villa, another BBH place.  We walked down to the ‘ I’ Site (yup the place where you get the skinny on the area)   and to the Interislander booking site.  We wanted to change our return date and to make sure that we received our BBH discount, not an issue on either point.  Karen asked a lady in a car rental site for a recommendation for lunch, we did look at it, but…not so much.  So we went into the Flying Haggis, then Karen asked the waitress did she know who Robert Burns was, and this was the eve of his birthday!  And did they have Haggis! We got a blank stare and settled for a sandwich and chips with sour cream and bacon, several food groups hit there!  To wear off our nutritious lunch, the next day we walked the Snout trail.  OK, we got lost at the start of the walk and going the wrong way, we ended up talking to dog owners(actually it was a cute little puppy), both were cops and they pointed us in the right direction!  Beautiful views!  And back to the hostel with sore feet once again!

The next town, Blenheim is the centre of the wine region for Marlborough, where 75% of New Zealand’s wines are grown/made, not to mention the home of NZ’s Sauvignon blanc’s.  We started our ‘tour’ with a trip to the local market.  There we purchased fresh picked potatoes, fruit and venison!  We had a lovely BBH accommodation, The Grapevine, on a river.  A lovely setting for a barbeque!

The wineries:  our mission was to find a wine to go with our venison!  We started at Nautilus, of course.  The wines were not spectacular, but the lady behind the tasting counter gave us a list of other wineries to try.  So off to Herzog’s for some awesome reds.  Many of their wines needed to be put down for a few years and we are looking more for immediate gratification!  So we bought a Zweigelt, to go with the venison.  We need some lunch, so we headed  to Cloudy Bay.  Now Cloudy Bay makes some awesome wines, lovely to taste, but at $75 a bottle, a little beyond our range.

Back at The Grapevine we compared notes with some others who had gone to several of the wineries.  So next day we started on a new list:  Wither Hills, after all, this was the name of our room, then Fromm, then Brancott, NZ’s largest winery.  At Brancott you start by watching a video on the history and the making of their wines, it finishes with voice over as the screen is pulled up and the vineyard comes into view in front of you…….Heaven.  Their wines were also well worth the tasting.  We had lunch there, which was great, matched with wines, sitting overlooking the vineyard.  Our last vineyard that day was Gibbons.  This is a winery done by a husband and wife.  He does it for love, and mostly Pinot Gris, as it is his favourite grape.  A gruff man, making some great wines.

We had a lovely drive the next day to Greymouth.  We stopped at White Creek swing bridge, paid the toll to walk across and do the short walk on the other side.  Aside from it being a gold mining centre, it was also where the tectonic plates decided to make a move and the ground level around the fault adjusted moved in one day by 5 meters! Luckily not the day we were there.  Back across the bridge and back on our way through the Buller Gorge and along the side of Victoria Forest Park.  Beautiful scenery all the way.  
Swinging over White Creek
 
Greymouth Beach
We stayed at Global Village in Greymouth (another BBH).  It was an amazing place, beautiful rooms, kitchen, TV room, and sitting room, all on a river.  It was decorated with pieces from around the world, but mostly from Bali.  We took the car to the Tasman seas, watched some fur seals playing in the surf, and then walked the beach looking for green stone or Jade.  Both of us picked up a few pieces and enjoyed the walk on the water’s edge.

As we didn’t come into Greymouth via highway 6 we missed the Pancakes rocks and Blowholes.  So we drove there the next day, truly a sight not to be missed.
 

PANCAKES ANYONE???


The topography was dramatic and we saw our first Weta, it is a bird.  We lunched at a restaurant back in town then back to Global Village to enjoy the hostel and a glass of wine.  Cheryl made up mincemeat tarts and Karen used some of the left over puff pastry as a bed for a seafood medley, very nice!

We took Highway 6 along the water until Hokitika.  There we stopped to see what greenstones they had for sale, to see if any stones spoke to us.  Basically it seems that everyone does the same traditional cuts, not too many original pieces.  So we carried on, having enjoyed the stop.  We stopped for 2 nights at the Fox glacier, and stayed at the Ivory Towers, not sure about the name.  We drove down to the start of the walk to Matheson lake.  This is one of those iconic pictures of NZ, but you need no wind and clear skies to get Mount Cook reflected in the water, but this was not the day for that, but a lovely walk none the less.  We booked a half day tour on the Glacier for the next day.  We ended up in a group of only 5, one lady did not speak English.  Which turned out to not be a problem as we ended up with a couple from her country on the Glacier with us, what are the chances?



Haast Pass
The next day we drove to Wanaka.    The road from Fox glacier to Wanaka takes you through the Haast Pass, which has some amazing views.  Our first view of Lake Hawea was a call to lunch, as you really can’t have a better view for lunch. 

Lunch break at Lake Hawea
We then carried on to Wanaka, to Wanaka Bakpaka.  The view from this place is amazing! 

Mt Aspire

We did some provisioning and made a stop at the I-site.  A lovely meal of barbequed Salmon, with an amazing wine and an amazing view.  Next day we started fairly early for the hike to Rob Roy Glacier.  It was a lovely walk with so many beautiful sights along the way.  At the top the view was truly spectacular.  A gentleman was taking pictures of some Kea sitting in front of him and flying around.  The wife was showing Cheryl the pictures and she asked Cheryl where she was from.  Cheryl answered Canada, but she lived on a boat, Interlude.  The lady looked at me and asked Cheryl if we were “The Interlude”.  It turns out that Cheryl was talking to Sue from Spruce, a boat we had not really met.  We took their parking spot in Isabella, Galapagos and spoke on the SSB radio, but never met!  I guess not so surprising really as Andy (of Spruce) said, most of the Pacific Fleet is in NZ!
 
 

Kea in the wild

Spruce (Sue and Andy) meets Interlude

 

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