This is a Wine Lover's Paradise!

It's nice to stay in one place for a while.  We generally move from country to country on a fairly consistent basis, but we will spend almost two weeks in New Zealand by the time we leave.  

Of course, staying in one place is a figure of speech, since we'll have actually stayed in five different places within New Zealand (NZ for short) with more to come.   And we try to keep our days filled with activities, so it's not like we're resting or anything.  

 
With that in mind, we are now on the South Island of NZ, after sailing across the Cook Strait in a huge ferry.  There's that name again; Captain James Cook left his indelible imprint on the Pacific Ocean, and because he was the first to see a lot of this stuff, he got to name it.  





We were in Wellington, the capital of NZ at the southern tip of the North Island, and the best way to get to the other side is on a boat.  It's a really big boat, and takes 3 1/2 hours to get across.   The weather was good, although a bit windy which is common around here.  In fact, it's fairly breezy all the time, bordering on high winds. 


We crossed over to Picton and Blenheim, on the north end of the South Island.  If this north/south thing sounds confusing - it is!  I have been mixed up on which direction is which, and various other major orientation issues.  What day is this?  Is it tomorrow for those at home? - yes, NZ is 22 hours ahead of Oregon.  Which direction does the weather come from?  How come the sun goes down in the East?  (It doesn't, I'm just turned around!) 

How to speak Kiwi - that's the nickname for New Zealanders

And once you get to Blenheim (pronounced Blenum) well, you have arrived at the epicenter of one of the world's great wine regions = Marlborough (pronounced Mar-bruh).  

If you haven't guessed by now, the Kiwis have a funny way of pronouncing words or names.   For example, we were talking to a wine grower and he said pretty soon they were going to put up the "nits".  
"The nits?"  
"Yih, you know, the mesh cloth things that cover the vines to keep the birds away".  
Me: "Oh, you mean 'nets?' "
"Yees!", he joked, "and I won't want to have to expleen it ageen!" - (explain it again). 

Marlborough is an amazing region with two very large valleys, it's a prime area in the world for Sauvignon Blanc white wine.  They are really good at it.

 

In fact, part of our visit here was to see some friends, Jeff and Evie, who moved here from Oregon to be in the wine industry.  Jeff is a pretty high level manager in a major winery facility here, and he gave us a tour.  It was amazing.   Local Jefferson boy makes good!

I mean, this is like no other winery I've ever seen, it was gigantic.  They had tanks that held 300,000 liters and stood 80 feet high, and they had like a hundred of 'em.  The volume of wine they produce is staggering.  


Jeff showed us around and after spending some time with him and Evie, we went on a wine tour of the local region.  It was very impressive.  In addition to their specialty of Sauvignon Blanc, they also produce Pinot Noir.  

 

And the area is beautiful.  Rolling hills, vineyards everywhere, nice winery facilities - it's all good.  The wine industry in New Zealand is world class, and most of it gets exported.  As Jeff says, "we produce a lot more wine than we can drink here."

Interesting note about the town of Blenheim.  For all you Oregon State fans out there, it was once known as Beaver Town.   Of course, there aren't any beavers in NZ (it's kind of a North American thing), but it was a rather swampy place in the early days and earned the Beaver tag.  

They even have a couple of bronze statues in the local park.    Ha!

Then, on to Christchurch

We left Blenheim on the train to travel to the middle of the South Island of NZ.  It was a rather long journey partly because we had to go slow.  There have been several major earthquakes in New Zealand in the last few years, wreaking havoc on transportation, among other things.  

We were a bit lucky, because the train just opened up in the last couple weeks, after extensive repairs to the tracks along the coast (which took years).  It was a spectacular ride, and occasionally we got nervous. 


As we made our way south past the bad section of track the scenery became extraordinarily pleasant.  The train has an open car where you can hang our and take pictures. 

And when we reached Christchurch, our final destination in NZ, we saw evidence of the devastation created by the last major earthquake.  It takes a long time to rebuild from these things, and the local historic cathedral was still in a state of disrepair as they work on fixing things. 

But Christchurch is a beautiful place with lots to see.  We finish up our time here and tomorrow we depart for Australia.