Kerikeri
Trip Start
Oct 17, 2007
1
39
64
Trip End
Ongoing
Kerikeri, New Zealand
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
The town has a small centre with a number of boutique shops and cafés. We lunched at a vegetarian place called Zest Cafe, where we had a vegetarian burger (with a falafel patty—tasty) and the 'Zest Lunch' (with soy steak patties and hashbrowns and salad and veggies—fairly boring). My flat white was drinkable, but mediocre with too much foam.
Most of the sights of interest are in the area surrounding the centre. The two main approach roads (Kerikeri Road and Waipapa Road) are lined by various art galleries and artisan shops. A chocolate maker, a fudge shop, Kauri wood products, and various art galleries. We particularly liked the kaleidoscope studio on Waipapa road. It sounded like it could be neat, but it turned out to be really cool: in addition to the kaleidoscopes you're used to, there are 'dancing' kaleidoscopes with objects bouncing around on a speaker, and (we think coolest of all) bubble kaleidoscopes, where you see ever-changing colors refracted by the film of a soap bubble. Psychedelic!
The area also plays host to several wineries, two of which we visited. First was Cottle Hill Winery, run by an expat couple from San Diego who sailed to New Zealand some years ago on their 35' yacht. We talked to Mike, who was refreshingly unpretentious. He strongly feels that you should drink the wine you like, not the 'right' (read: dry red) wine, and his shop makes a wide variety of wines. Most of them I found pleasant enough but not too memorable, but I was impressed enough with their Pheasant's Walk red meritage that I bought a bottle, which I drink as I write this. Others are sure to find different wines to their liking. An enjoyable tasting.
Secondly we stopped at Marsden Winery, which makes a number of very nice wines. I'd previously tasted their Pinotage at a shop in Wellington and liked it, but I was even more impressed by their Cavelli meritage, which was on special for a bargain price of $14. Yum.
After lunch we dropped by Rainbow Falls, which are of pleasing height and volume, and certainly worth a stop. From there we headed to the must-see Stone Store. It's the oldest stone building in New Zealand, dating from the early 1800s, and is of attractive proportion and construction. Next door is the Mission House, claimed to be the oldest building in New Zealand, period, dating from 1822. The Mission House is decorated largely with original furnishings, and contains relevant history as such places invariably do. The store was more interesting to me, with history of various items traded by the store in the 1800s.
For our last stop of the day we drove out to Opito Bay, based on signs beckoning us in that direction. Out that way we found lots of pleasant looking houses and a small marina on a pleasant bay on one of the many convoluted waterways piercing the eastern coast of Northland. It was a nice enough area that I was plotting ways of living there for part of the year (all implausible, sadly).
