Happy birthday Dad!

Sleeping in was great this morning. Today we booked a winery tour to visit 4 vineyards, some artist colonies and a brewery. We had breakfast on the balcony of the hostel, and were picked up a bit early. Before the tour started, we went to a hill top view of Nelson, something we're finding New Zealand has plenty of. We found ourselves to be surrounded by Aussies on the tour, but they were a fun bunch from the Gold Coast of Brisbane. The tour started off with a huge platter of food from the region designed to bring out the flavors in the local wines. After a few tastings, we toured an artist colony. Bec's purchase? A pair of black wool gloves. Moving on to some other wineries, many of which make wines from local fruits like feijoa, and chutnies from tamarillos, even some great olive oils. Our last stop was the brewery. First let me say that all winery tours try to con you into buying all kinds of bottles, after you've already paid for the full day of tastings, and many vineyards are quite stingy with the amount they give you to taste. The Aussies were buying bottles around $20/per. Now on to Harrington's Brewery. We walked in, were handed a glass and were told we had an hour to try as much of, and any of the 30 or so taps on the wall. The most interesting part was crushing and smelling the local barely and hops in our hands before tasting the beer. The most fun part was drinking the beer. We left with two 2-liter bottles of Wheat beer and Big John at a whopping $12 total. Do most people end up buying beer on winery tours? Well, we do.