Fri, Dec 13 - Wine tasting in Marlborough

We said goodbye to Sharon, Russell and Chloe, the cat, and took the scenic route west along the north coast on a narrow winding road past various bays and sounds and through isolated tiny villages.  After 30 km we turned south, crossing the Wairau River and into the Marlborough wine district.  This area must be in a rain shadow as the hills are golden as in California, unlike the emerald green elsewhere.  Bob had some articles from the Wine Spectator with him as there are about 50+ wineries here and we wanted to try to make sense of it all.

We started with a stop at Seresin Estate as we had had a really good bottle of their pinot noir (Leah 2010) at a restaurant in Wellington.  We tasted several wines and bought a bottle of sauvignon blanc. Seresin also offers tastings of olive oil - the lime flavored was quite nice!

Next, we visited Nautilus Estate where we took away a nice bottle of pinot noir.  We finally finished our tastings at the Hans Herzog winery, the only place where we were charged a tasting fee, but then their wines are produced in much smaller quantities and are quite a bit more expensive.  We had an interesting discussion with the very knowledgeable pourer. They also have a bistro and fancy restaurant but we have received a lunch recommendation from the nice woman at Seresin so we proceeded on.

That was enough wine tasting for us for the day and we drove on to  Rock Ferry Winery for lunch.  Their pretty restaurant was crowded but they managed to fit us in.  Hilary and I had steak sandwiches with baba ghanoush and steak fries and Bob had an excellent salad topped with chicken.  There was a very festive atmosphere with some company Christmas lunches with everyone wearing Santa hats or antlers and large family groups sitting out in the garden in the warm sunshine.

Snowy peaks in the distance

Christmas lunches

We returned to the coast, continued south and started seeing snow-covered mountains in the distance.  We hit the shore and stopped to watch a large fur seal rookery: seals cavorting in the water, and others relaxing in the sun waving their flippers.

We reached the Kaikoura Peninsula, drove through the crowded downtown and out towards the point where Waves on the Esplanade, our hotel apartment, is located.  The owner led us up to #9 on the third floor, a 2-bedroom, 2-bath unit with kitchen and laundry (!).  The website promised an elevator, but this turned out to be only for certain units, and apparently #9 is not one of them.  Carrying our heavy suitcases up two flights of stairs and climbing back and forth seemed a lot for my poor knees so we managed to switch to an identical unit, #4, on the second floor.  Less view but fewer steps.

We set off along the esplanade, turquoise water lined with Norfolk Island Pines - we’re too far south for palms now.  In a couple of weeks, the place will be a zoo with holiday revelers, but now it was quiet, the street lined with motels of varying classes, some empty fields - sort of like Monterey of 50 years ago, before it got snazzy.

NZ Fur Seals

Kaicoura coastal shelf

We drove out to the end of the peninsula and walked up along trails that go along the cliff top.  We got great views of the very large coastal shelf at low tide, huge flocks of Red-billed Gulls, groups of seals, and  schools of fish visible in the clear water.  We walked for about an hour looking at this summery scene and back at the snow on the distance mountains!

NZ Flax seed pods

Yellow Hammer

We drove back into town and  found an Italian restaurant where we ordered a tuna and onion pizza and a large green salad which we took back home for dinner on our balcony.  I ran some laundry, we organized our gear and went to bed.