Art Deco, Wine and Cheese!
Trip Start
Feb 26, 2010
1
10
21
Trip End
Mar 19, 2010
Napier, North Island, New Zealand
Monday, March 8, 2010
Up bright and early today and it suddenly dawned on us that, although we had planned the first half of our trip quite carefully, we had not booked anywhere to stay on the South Island so we had a planning 'meeting' this morning to agree the final stages of our trip and where we should stay. Thank goodness for the internet!! The Famous Five (Matt, Tess, Zara, John and I) finally headed out late morning in time for lunch in Napier. Tess and I got to get a good look at the art deco architecture and browse in a few antiquey shops – thank you oosbands! With that box ticked we headed to Cape Kidnappers but our plans to see the magnificent views from the cliff top were foiled by a rather large gate with a very hi-tech lock on it :o(. We were so disappointed that we had to go and try some more wines to console ourselves. I bought one bottle from the Black Barn Vineyard cellar door, well we have been residing amongst the very same vines that the juice is pressed from after all. Next stop was the local cheese maker where we were fortunate to have a taste of their produce. Sadly we weren’t able to buy small amounts of each cheese so we settled for a block of delicious feta instead. I couldn’t resist a last visit to Craggy Range – my favourite out of all the wineries we stopped at yesterday – and I now have a bottle of their finest to bring back home with me. The last stop of the day was to Ocean Beach and we are so glad we made the effort! Stunning views, lovely beach and even a friendly seagull who held its nerve whilst I crept close enough to get some excellent shots. With not much of the day left we cruised back to the lodge. Tess and I went for a lovely walk and managed to climb down to the banks of the river and get some more fantastic photographs of the area (John please upload one or two). We then went back to help the others with dinner. Bryan and Nadine made a fab smoked salmon starter, I made stuffed mushrooms using bacon and the feta we bought on our travels and John cooked the meat on the bbq, nearly setting himself on fire during the process. Is this too much focus on food? I can’t help it because it’s all been so good! After all that grub we settled in for some board games: first up Cranium – I was shit at that (pardon my French) so I refuse to write anymore about it other than Bryan and Nadine won extremely convincingly; second up Scattergories (I think that’s what it was called) Tess and I were brilliant and we won despite not sitting at the table at the same time. You would not believe how many bands / artists I can name that begin with the letter K. I would explain in even more detail how fantastic our answers were but I don’t like to brag ;o) And there endeth another wonderful day. 6 very happy people and 1 happy baby girl – it’s good night from us!
