Journeying South

 

After our hike around Lake Waikaremoana we drove down to Napier and found a local brewery so that we could treat ourselves to a well deserved cold one. Napier is located in the Hawkes Bay region of New Zealand and is known for its art deco buildings and wineries. We spent two days walking around town and driving out to a couple of wineries to have a taste. The highlight of our stay in Napier was the evening we got to spend with a woman we met on the Waikaremoana hike. She owns a nursery and works as a rural reporter so she had a lot of interesting information about New Zealand for us.

From Napier we drove down the east coast to Porangahau to try to get a white bait fritter at the pub in town. It turned out that the kitchen in the pub was not open on the day that we were there so all we got was a beer and a fun conversation with the locals. The next day we drove down to Wellington. Being back in a city was quite a shock to our system. Our guidebook says that “negotiating the inner-city one-way system is like the Krypton Factor on acid.” We will testify that they are not far from wrong and that the parking and narrow streets makes it even worse.

In Wellington we met up with our friends from Alaska, Emily and Jason. They are on a short trip to New Zealand so we wanted to make sure that they could get as much out of it as possible. We took in the sights around Wellington including the botanical gardens, Te Papa (The Museum of New Zealand), Old St. Pauls, Weta Cave, the wineries in Martinborough and a couple of pubs that serve local beers.

 

Our ferry ride from Wellington to Picton was wonderfully smooth and the passage through the Queen Charlotte Sound was beautiful. After landing on the South Island we drove straight to Blenheim. There is not much to do in Blenheim except visit the Marlborough region wineries and that is exactly what we did. We went on a full day tour of the wineries in the area with stops at a chocolate factory and a liquor store thrown in for good measure. In the evening we watch the Rugby World Cup final where New Zealand beat France 8-7. It was amazing how exciting such a low scoring game was. Emily and Jason flew out of Blenheim to Queenstown and we continued on to Nelson.

Nelson bills itself as the sunniest place in New Zealand so of course it has been raining on us. Nelson is an arty city and we made it into town for the last day of the Urban Art Show and walked around town looking at all the objects that had been covered in knitting. We have been relaxing without any real plan, but we are hoping to do some hikes or find another helpx spot in the next few days.