NEW ZEALAND - CHRISTMAS AND THE 26 X 2

DECEMBER 25, CHRISTMAS IN NEW ZEALAND
On the whole the New Zealanders were kind of quiet about the holidays.  There were decorations, but until a few days ago, the carols in the hotels hadn't started yet.  But, in Blenheim, on Christmas day, it was VERY quiet.  Everything was shut.  We had breakfast at the hotel, and, there were lots of people eating.

This was the only morning that I was a bit concerned with timing.  Our Intercity Coach was to leave Blenheim at 11:55, take 30 minutes to get to Picton,  and we had to check into the ferry at 12:30.  A bit close.We were to get the Super Shuttle to the Intercity Coach at 11 AM, and had to check out at 10.  We had asked for a little extra time, but were told that there was only one maid working the whole hotel, so we really had to leave.  Another couple with suitcases joined our lobby wait.  At 10:50 precisely, a guy came in and took them to the local airport.  Hmmmm....  No one came for us.  At 11, we asked the concierge to call the Super Shuttle people.  He said that he'd call, but was afraid no one would be around.  He was right.  No one answered.  Just as I was preparing to drag my suitcase the few blocks to the railroad station, the hotel manager told us he'd drive us over.  What a treat.  On the way over, I asked if there'd be a problem with the Intercity coach.  Not at all.  Not only was there no problem, but the coach showed up 10 minutes early.  We easily made it to the ferry.  All was well.

We had seats in the fancy ferry lounge, and got food for "free".  Because the boat was considered off license, we couldn't get wine.  But we ate a lot, and the food was pretty good.  I kept zipping outside to take pictures of the ride.  Just as we left Picton, we traveled through several small islands.  About 1 hour or so, we entered the Cook Strait, and then onto Wellington.

Fancy lounge on the ferry

Leaving Piction - the town in the background

Charlie on the ferry

Me on the ferry

Scenery around little islands on way to Wellington

Fish farm

More scenery

Last of the little islands then out into Cook Strait

Light houses near Wellington

When we got to Wellington, the Super Shuttle guy that took us to the hotel, turned out to be the owner of the company (no one to work on the holiday).  He took us around Wellington on a wonderful mini tour.  The governmental buildings, the old church, places that were getting earthquake retrofits.  The area around the harbor, and much more.  We went to the Rydges Hotel, checked in and got a great room.  We went downstairs to find out about dinner for tonight.  The hotel was offering a buffet at $120 each!  Gak.  We could get room service, but that always seems kind of depressing.  We decided to walk around the harbor and into the city center.  Our stroll would be for tourist purposes, but also, we might find an open restaurant.  We wandered through an almost empty city center, and while walking up Taranaki Street, found a Shanghai Restaurant open!  We got a seat, and had a wonderful Chinese meal!  Not only were they open, but the food was great.  While we sat there at least 40 people came to try to get dinner.  We were lucky that we tried a bit early!

View from our hotel room

DECEMBER 26, PART I - WELLINGTON

On yesterday's tour I had seen the old St. Paul's Church.  It looked beautiful, and I wanted to get a closer look.  Charlie and I didn't have to get to the airport until 12, so we had lots of time.  We wandered past the government buildings, and then on to the church.  It's not in service any more, but is one of the prettiest churches I have been in.  We then walked down to the harbor again.  Wellington's harbor is lovely.  We walked to the Te Papa Museum of New Zealand.  Out front, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Air New Zealand, they had a cockpit of a 737.  We stood in line, and then went inside.  Plane cockpits always seem hopelessly complex to me.  Back to the hotel.

This was on the French doors to a restaurant along the harbor.  Wellington, the windy city, apparently bashed people who tried to get into the place.  It was closed on Christmas AND boxing day.

Our hotel in the center

Another hotel view

The Beehive - a government building

Inside old St. Paul's

Outside old St. Pauls

Views of government buildings - hillsides beyoned

The exhibition

"Pilots"

Charlie outside the museum

View across Wellington Harbor - bald patch - Mt. Victoria overview of the city.  We didn't have time this trip to get up there.

We packed up.   Got to the airport for our journey from Wellington to Auckland.  Easy flight.  Our bags got checked all the way through to LAX - so we didn't even have to bother with them.  What a treat.

DECEMBER 26, PART II AUCKLAND - TO LA

We opted to walk from the domestic terminal at Auckland to the International terminal.  Our plane left on time.  We landed at LAX at 10:20 AM (we had left Auckland at 7:30 PM).  We got a taxi home.  I'm glad it was a quiet day, our taxi driver was a bit of a wild and crazy guy.   Picked up Wally.  Went grocery shopping.  hmmmm.... back

NEW ZEALAND - 2 DAYS IN ONE - NELSON TO BLENHEIM + MARBOROUGH WINE TOUR

TUESDAY, DEC 23

Yesterday, we got on the road after breakfast in Nelson.  We were picked up by a Super Shuttle, deposited at the bus depot, then took the Intercity Coach to Blenheim.  I expected the drive to be less beautiful than our other drives.  I was wrong.  We drove over two minor passes.  The hillsides, as in much of South New Zealand are steep, cut by farming valleys, and lovely streams.  This area specializes in timber.  The trees that they use are called pinus radiata (Monterrey Pine??).  We were told that it grows in Canada, but takes 75 years to reach full height.  In New Zealand, it takes 25 years.  These pines looked straighter than the Monterrey Pines we've seen growing all over, so not sure if the name is true.  Apparently, the wood has to be treated, or a borer insect destroys the wooden buildings in 6-7 years.  It made for pretty hillsides however.

A government building in Nelson

Hillsides covered with pinus radiata -

An area where the trees had been harvested

Most of the buildings in New Zealand have corrugated iron roofs - it does rain a lot

Farming valleys between the hillsides

This is a mountain of mussel shells outside the town of Havelock.  Havelock is the mussel capital of New Zealand - the green lipped mussels that get imported all over (and in the US).  The shells are used for fertilizer

We've reached Marlborough - and the wineries continue

We reached the Blenheim railroad station in about 2 hours.  We were picked up by another Super Shuttle and brought to the Scenic Hotel in Blenheim.  Not much to look at from our window.  Blenheim is in the valley between yellow hills on the north and larger mountains to the south.  The general appearance is much like central California.  

Once settled we decided to walk around Blenheim to see what we could find for lunch and eventually dinner.  There were an incredible number of pharmacies in town.  Given the number of pharmacies, the warmer weather here, and the number of elderly people, this must be like Florida for New Zealand.  Blenheim is about 3 blocks wide and 5 blocks long, so our walking tour didn't take too long.  We found a sandwich shop for lunch.  There didn't seem like much for dinner, so we ultimately opted to eat at the hotel.  

Seymour Square close to Scenic Hotel in Blenheim

One of the many pharmacies in Blenheim

The town centre

Another example of the corrugated roofs around here

Me at Seymour Square

The Dry Hills beyond the hotel made the area look like California

We walked around town later in the day, and had a coffee.  The coffee here has been superb!  Dinner at the hotel was good too.  We experimented and tried a few local wines.  They were good to great.  

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 24

We met the wine tour lady, Carol, and found for the first time since we've come that we were the only people with the 5 hour wine tour.  Last night we liked a Savignon Blanc from Villa Maria (sounds Mexican) the best.  So that was our first stop.  Their wines were really nice.  The most expensive wines from last night's menu weren't available on a 1 glass only basis - so we didn't try them.  The winery Cloudy Bay, was our second stop.  Nope.  We really didn't like their wines.  Any of them.  How disappointing.  Then on to Allan Scott.  There wasn't much there that we liked.  They had a Pinot Gris that smelled like apricots and had a bit of an apricot taste.  A little on the sweet side, I'm not sure if it hadn't been my third winery this morning, I would have like it as much as I did.  Mercifully, we stopped for lunch at Rock Ferry Winery (some of the wineries have restaurants as part of their tasting rooms) - I was kind of tasted out by this point.  I had fish and Charlie had a cheese platter.  The food was outstanding, the setting was lovely, and, they had great coffee.  We had a tasting after lunch.  Their wines were good - but their food was better.  Since it's the day before Christmas, the place was jammed full of people.  The servers did their best, but they had slightly hysterical expressions on their faces.  

At the Forrest Winery they told us about the grape vines here.  They are planted north to south, are drip irrigated, and hand-pruned.  They are so carefully pruned, the vines look a little like candelabras. They allow them to grow more fully to the east, where they can get more moisture.  Under the vines they keep a netting which they extend over the bottom of the vines when the grapes just begin to ripen to keep birds away.  Lots of details...

We took this photo to show off the Villa Maria wines - not us - hence Charlie's cut off head

Outside the Forrest Winery 

Grape vines lined up north to south

Outside the Rock Ferry Winery

In the display cellar of the Framingham Winery

Old cork jammer from Framingham Winery

We picked up some other wine tourists at Drylands after lunch - a place that had a lot of wineries represented in one place.  Nobilo could be tasted there - we didn't taste.  From there we tried Forrest Winery - another great Savignon Blanc.  Their Pinot Gris was not so good.  Lastly we stopped at Framingham Winery.  The owner had come from the Framingham Estate in Nottingham and named his winery after it.  The specialty there was Reisling.  We said we liked dry wines, and were given an outstanding Reisling - and I'm not a particular Reisling fan.  At that point I was definitely wined out.  Downstairs at the Framingham Winery was an old cellar that was for display purposes only - great stuff in there.

Our last stop was at a chocolate shop - Makana Confections.  The little sampler didn't get me, but they handed out a Macadamia Chocolate Toffee that Charlie and I fell for.  Carol was afraid the shop was going to close early for Christmas - fortunately - they were open until 4:30 and we got there at 4:15.  .  Back to the hotel.  Quiet evening - we'll eat in the hotel tonight - we're planning to try some New Zealand venison -  reviews to come.

Tomorrow on to Picton - for the ferry to Wellington - and the beginning of our homeward journey.

NEW ZEALAND - DEC 22 - NELSON WANDER - ART TOUR

After our breakfast, we decided to walk around our piece of town.  We walked to historic South Street. The houses here were built around 1860.  Some of them are quite lovely, but most of the rather small.  We walked passed the ring artist who created the Hobbit movie rings.  Apparently, the original jeweler died after making the first few rings.  His son and the man who trained with the original jeweler made severall hundred more.

The beginning of South Street

South Street itself

One of the houses for sale!

Hotel Rutherford

We then walked down Rutherford street until things became dull.  We noticed that the Hobbit movie was playing in town.  We'll wait until we get home.  We stopped at a Starbucks and I tried to pay with a Starbucks card.  Not here.  Somehow, it was a Starbucks, just not one that you can use any Starbucks cards for.  

We got back to the hotel, and waited for our 11:45 pick up for our Artisans Tour.  The Bay Tours van showed up, but the driver didn't have us on her list.  Somehow, a Claudia had signed up, asked to go on a wine taste as well, but wasn't even booked into the hotel.  We took Claudia's place.  I suspect she'll  try the tour tomorrow.  Bit of a scramble that ended well.  We went with a family from Miami. We began the tour talking about the estuary.  We went to an overview and talked about the area.   The rest of the tour consisted of wandering into various art galleries around the area.  We went into a so-so metal work gallery, and a few other not interesting places.  We then went into a fabulous glass blower's gallery.  We really didn't need or want much, and ended up buying some nifty bookmarks.  Our next stop was a water color artist that were really nice.  There were some beautiful landscapes, and many humorous paintings of heavy set women.  We then stopped at Mapua for lunch.  We had wanted to eat in a cafe, but the sandwiches didn't look great.  We ended up at a fancier than we wanted - but shared a tapas plate.  

The sand bar in the bay is a naturally occurring sand bar.  The break in the middle was man made to get the ships in and out more easily.

After lunch we stopped at a wood workers gallery.  He made wonderful garden oddities - a photo of some are below.  Then we stopped at a potter.  This guy came out to say hello, and was told I did some pottery too.  He had a Japanese wood fire kiln and was enthusiastic to show it to me.  It was huge.  His stuff was rough, and superb.  So was his garden.  Full of interesting plants, pots, and walkways.  

Matua ferry and the harbor - the waves are actually the water rushing out.  The land in the distance is Rabbit Island

Wood designs from garden artists gallery

Japanese kiln

Potter's lovely garden

The pioneer's cabin 

Our final stop was at a pioneer's cabin.  It had been restored, and had many original items in it.  It had three rooms, a main room, bed room and small kitchen.  Then back to the hotel.  I got a shot of the cathedral out our hotel window.  It was originally built by Queen Victoria.  Although it was restored, it still retains some of the original English cathedral look.  It's built on a hill to one side of town.

We wandered down to Hopgoods for dinner tonight.  Nice dinner.  Back to the hotel. Watched Piha Rescue.

 Bed.