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We left Chile on Thursday night, and arrived in New Zealand 15 hours later on Saturday morning - the international dateline is a crazy thing. We haven't been to New Zealand in a couple of years and in that time the war against fruit and vegetables has stepped up. There were more customs officers that passengers getting off the plane, and all were in search of one thing - the rogue South American apple or banana that has the potential to bring the entire country's agriculture to its knees.
Luckily we hadn't accidentally imported any Chilean soil on the bottom of our shoes and were allowed into New Zealand. We stayed on the North Island for 10 days to see family and of course, taste wine. First stop, Auckland. In our first morning in New Zealand we went to Nandos, and I went shopping, excited to be in a country that stocked clothes for people over 5'5" tall. We watched the sunset from the Auckland Sky Tower, the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere. Building is stretching it a little; it's essentially a very big pole with a lift going up the middle, and a viewing platform three quarters of the way up. There is a good view from the platform and we had a look around at Auckland's surroundings, including looking at Eden Park; home of the Rugby World Cup final last year, and Waiheke Island, where the England team disgraced themselves in the same tournament. After a glass of wine Jon was definitely feeling at home and even started to think he was seeing people he knew. I put it down to the excitement of being in an English speaking country again, but it turned out later it actually was his friend Phil's Dad on the other side of Sky City. We spent most of the rest of the night feeling stupid for not going over to check it out and say hello. It really is a small world.
First stop on our tour was Waiheke Island. A couple of years ago when we came here Jon got over excited and decided to invest in some wine. Waiheke has very similar growing conditions to Bordeaux and grows cabernet sauvignon blends that are taking the wine world by storm (apparently). We now receive a box of Larosse premium wine from Stonyridge vineyard every year, and Jon is classed as a VIP member, which entitles him to 20% off lunch there, with a free glass of the Larosse. This hasn't really been much use for the last couple of years being in London, so Jon was determined we were going to get our monies worth. He emailed them in advance to book a table and all we needed to do was show up at 2pm. We got to our hostel in plenty of time, and got told about a 15 minute long short cut across the vineyards to Stonyridge. 45 minutes later we emerged from the vineyards, 200 yards up the road from our hostel. Turns out when Jon says "yes, yes, OK" when listening to directions he is just being polite, and expects me to be doing the real listening. I was fooled by the "yes, yes, OK" and assumed he was paying attention so I didn't bother. We got the bus in the end and rocked up 30 minutes late. Being a VIP meant we didn't lose our table and spent a very pleasant couple of hours eating and drinking lots.
We spent our second day on Waiheke doing pretty much the same thing, except this time we went to Mudbrick which is on the other side of the Island. We've been to Mudbrick before and I can honestly say it is one of my favourite places in the world. It's perched on hill in the bay of Waiheke and you can see Auckland over the water. The sun was shining; we worked our way through the entire tasting menu and had a three course pairing lunch. Those two days definitely wiped South America from the memory, although we could've covered a weeks' worth of board and food with the cost of the two meals. Sometimes I think about not going back to London and spending the rest of my life bumming around South America and Asia on $10 a day, but then I realise I like boozy lunches too much….
We picked up a car from Auckland the next morning and headed off to Napier. It was very exciting for Jon to be back behind the wheel again, and very exciting for me to be sat in the car without worrying about whether the taxi driver was going to rip us off, or just take us out. We called in to see Jon's cousin Sarah in Tauranga for lunch before driving through Rotorua and Taupo to get to our hostel in Napier for a couple of days stay. Napier, in the Bay of Plenty is one of the Art Deco centres of the world, has fabulous wine and beachfront mini golf. Everything you need for a little coastal break.
In the 1920s Napier was a small seaside town with a natural harbour restricting significant growth in the town. All that changed in 1931 when there was a massive earthquake and the ground raised by 2 metres instantly. The harbour became land, and more land was reclaimed from the sea. Buildings were destroyed in the earthquake and even more were destroyed in the fire that tore through the town immediately afterwards. The town was rebuilt in the following years, primarily in an Art Deco style - in the years after the earthquake there was more building work in Napier than in the whole of the rest of New Zealand. The town is one of the largest collection of Art Deco buildings in the world, and in the 1980s people began to realise what an important collection it was. The Napier Art Deco Trust was created, and they champion the preservation of the buildings, as well has running tours around town and hosting the annual art deco weekend. There was a cruise ship in town the day we took our tour so the volunteers (all of whom are at least 70) had dressed up especially for our walk round the town centre whilst they pointed out the key features of the buildings.
We also managed to fit in 36 holes of mini golf in Napier. I had forgotten how competitive Jon can be. You know how golf pros take a pretend shot when putting on the green, making sure their feet are lined up, thinking how much strength to put behind the put and visualising the ball going straight down the hole? That's how Jon plays mini golf. I take more of a whack-it-and-see approach. He thrashed me on the first 18 on the 'Pacific Pro-AM' course', but then had a bit of a moment on hole 3 of the 'Deco Drive' course. We stopped counting at 10 shots, but his strop lasted for another 10 holes. I let him win after that just to cheer him up.
After a glorious days weather when we were exploring Napier it totally turned for our bike and wine day. We learnt it is possible, but not the most practical, to bike in a waterproof poncho. We got dropped in Havelock North wineries, and had 6 hours to make it 20km to the coastal vineyards in Hawkes Bay. Most of the biking round Hawkes Bay is on specific bike and walking tracks so we had a lovely day tasting wines and pootling round apple orchards until we hit the coastal road. It was so windy I swear we started going backwards - the pedometers attached to the bike showed we were going forward at a mighty 6km/hour. Most of the wineries around Hawkes Bay are smaller, family owned producers. We started at Red Barrel and chatted to the lady who owned it. When they bought the vineyard last year it only grew red grapes, but they have replaced most of the vines with white grapes and will make their first Chardonnay this year. BlackBarn was another family owned, but much bigger vineyard that export to the UK. Then we headed to TeMata, a much older vineyard whose marketing refers to a reference to them in a Mills and Boon novel that says 'Te Mata Chardonnay…not the cheap stuff'. Interesting marketing technique (nearly as good as a restaurant sign we saw advertising itself in a small town as "… as good as it gets").
The Coastal vineyards we eventually got to were Elephant Hill, one of the most modern in the area. Elephant Hill is owned by a big German wine firm and is targeting the mass market. Bizarrely they didn't pick most of their white grapes in time last year so they don't have many whites this year. They also ship in a lot of red grapes from Otago to make Elephant Hill branded pinot etc. I didn't like them so much, but the whites were nice. Then we went to Te Awanga who until recently only grew grapes for others but have started making their own branded wines recently. They do their tastings at a little shack up a gravel track and it is lovely. Finally we went to Clearview which was awesome. They had a fire burning and the very posh English lady hosting the tastings decided she liked us because we weren't swapping red and white glasses so she let us taste the entire range of 8 or 10 of each colour grape. We ended the trip sitting by the fire, eating cheese and sipping red desert wine before getting taken back to the hostel with all our purchases from the day.
Back on the road the next day we headed to Wellington to spend a few days with Jon's cousin Rachel and her husband and two daughters. Last time we were in Wellington we had to do the tour from the car window as it was raining so heavily. This time we were pleasantly surprised by what a nice city it is in the sun. It was great to spend a few days with family and we headed out to see Jon's Aunt and Uncle in their new house on the coast (and checked out their new local club), as well as going to Wellington for the day and taking the cable car up one of its many hills - we could see the south island as it was such a good day. We also did a tour of the Parliament building which is really quite British in the way it is set up, and on some of the interior designs.
The curse of the last night struck again when we went out for dinner, then drinks, then more drinks the day before we were due to go leave New Zealand. I gave up when the port ran out at 1am, but Jon and the others started on the Baileys, finished the Baileys, then started on the Kahlua. I think they only actually gave up on the Kahlua because Jon seemed to have tipped his entire glass down his t-shirt. That might explain the fuzzy heads the next day - I realised 3 hours before we were due to fly to Australia that we needed visas. Mine when through instantly, but Jon's needed to go through a manual process and he wasn't allowed to check in to the flight. Luckily the nice man at the Quantas ticketing desk had a hotline to the Australian High Commission and it got processed before the flight closed. Panic over, and we were on our way to Australia J
In New Zealand we…
Stayed…
· At the YHA City Hostel in Auckland. We had a good view of the Sky Tower from our window and used the excellent kitchen to have beans on toast. Mmmm it was good.
· At Kina Backpackers in Waiheke - the hostel overlooks the beach and had a happy place hammock. Overheard some bizarre conversations including one mother worrying to her son's friend that he wouldn't be able to attract girls with his ginger dreadlocks.
· At Criterion Hotel in Napier, and art deco building in the centre of town.
Ate…
· Extremely well at the vineyards in Waiheke, and lunch at Vynfields in Martinborough, another wine region near Wellington.
· No fish and chips as we have given up chips for lent. This got increasingly depressing throughout the week as the quality of the fish and chips increased.
· Curry in Wellington which made Jon very happy.
· A lovely meal with Rachel and Andrew on our last night in Wellington at Monsoon Poon, a South East Asian restaurant near Cuba Street.
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