Live the Live ™

Marlborough wine, that is. It’s about 5PM and my two gals have passed out again. What’s up with that? Kelly’s giving me funny looks why I’m not grabbing a nap and I’m giving her funny looks why she is. Oh, well…

As I mentioned at lunchtime, we had been to several wineries in the morning alone, each quite generous with their tastings. I found the sparkling wine at No 1 Family Estate to be the best I’ve ever had. Granted, I’m not a fan of sparkling wine or champagne, so the fact that I loved these wines was not just a surprise to me but to Kelly as well. Nautilus wines were just OK…I think we may have bought one bottle from them. Wairau River had that amazing lunch (an incredible mussel and fresh dill soup, fantastic chicken liver pate, and a shrimp-spinach-feta-olive pizza that was out of this world.) It was, along with Elephant Hill in Hawkes Bay, the best lunch we’ve had on this entire trip. And Wairau River white wines were excellent…did a tasting and had some more with lunch.

Then it was off to Seresin, where they not only create some nice wines but they also have their own olive oils…some infused with lemon, lime, or even  orange. They’re also a totally organic winery, which is admirable, but as Kelly said: “I never found an organic wine that I loved.” I kinda understand that. Some man-made non-organic tweaks just make some wines better…no way around it. As long as there’s a balance, that’s OK. I’m the same way with my garden at home. I would love to be 100% organic, but the fact of the matter is, if I get a swarm of insects in my yard devouring my plants, no organic cure will ever get rid of them like a chemical solution. The secret is to use it in moderation and only when absolutely necessary.

There was still time for one more winery and that was Fromm. They’ve gotten great reviews, and many wine experts rave about the winry. But I wasn’t really crazy about any of their wines. Maybe it was because I already had 25 tastings before that! But Kelly did find a Sauvignon Blanc that she liked and bought a couple of bottles.

After that, it was a trip to a little shopping area that featured distilled spirits by a company called Prenzel. They make all kinds of booze, including an award-wnning vodka that I sampled and enjoyed…but not enough to buy. And they have a brandy-based honey liqueur that was delicious despite being incredibly sweet. I bought a small bottle to take home.

So tonight it’s dinner at Herzog winery, arguably the finest restaurant in this area. I just got the OK for dinner tomorrow night at Gibb’s arguably the other finest restaurant in this area!

It drizzled on and off all day today…the sun showed itself just a little. It’s squalling outside right now. But we’re hoping to see more sun later on this evening at the “golden hour,” when it sets and the real amazing colors come out. Sunset here is around 7:30 to 8:30, I guess…so our daylight lasts a long time. Quite a change from back home, where I see on Yahoo that they had a blizzard in NYC, with crazy amounts of snowfall, and I guess New England will be getting a bunch of it, too.

We’re enjoying lunch (and a 3rd tasting session!) at Wairau River Wines. We’ve been to Nautilus and No. 1 Family Estate, where we had some amazing sparkling wines.

Got wi-fi here, so here’s my blog from this morning…

OK, here’s a visual for you…the only place I can write quietly this morning without waking my girls up is on the toilet. We’ve arrived at the Marlborough Vintners Hotel in the town of Blenheim, which is right in the middle of the famous Marlborough wine region of New Zealand. The hotel consists of suites that make up a small neighborhood, and you drive to your little home, surrounded by growing vineyards.

Despite getting room 13 and finding a dead bird at our door as we arrived, I’m trying not to be superstitious about this place. The room itself is spacious and ultra modern and super clean…the beds comfortable (Ava gets the sleeper sofa)…and it has a nice kitchenette area.

Our trip yesterday, from Tom’s Cottages in Havelock North to this place in Blenheim was the longest day trip of our entire vacation, by my calculations, and we were all extremely fried by the end of it: over four hours driving through somewhat mountainous roads…four hours waiting for the ferry (we got here early and found that restaurant with wi-fi to kill some time)…and then another four hours total for the ferry ride itself plus the drive to Blenheim.

We will have long driving days of five hours still ahead of us, but it will be all driving and nothing else.

One of Kelly’s biggest complaints about this trip so far (and she’s right) is that the distances between places are so huge–and we’re trying to see everything–so we’re just blasting through the countryside without being able to leisurely stop and take a lot of pictures, soak up the scenery, whatever. I’m hoping we can take it a bit slower here on the South Island.

We also have not had the greatest weather. Cloudy, windy days have been common, rain threatening sometimes. Only Christmas Day was perfect, with blazing sunshine all day. And so I think that also reduces the photo opportunities we’re looking for. For example, the ride into Marlborough Sound and Picton, the port on South Island where the Interislander ferry lands, is supposed to be one of the most beautiful in the world. Instead, we had heavy clouds and even heavier winds that beat me up as I tried to take some video on the top deck of the ship. I’ll post one and you’ll see for yourself: it was nuts. Of course, standing on the top deck of that ferry means I was about eighty feet in the air…the wind whipping all around me, and spray hitting my camera lenses.

A quick note about the hugeness of these ferries: this is not your basic car ferry.
It holds hundreds of cars on one level, railroad cars on another level, trucks on another level, and hundreds of passengers on two more levels, including cafes, bars, a kids’ playground, a nursery room, a movie theater, even a luxury lounge for those who paid the big bucks for a ticket.

Our ferry had no railroad cars aboard, so they used that level for cars as well, and we actually drove onto the ship via a railroad bridge on railroad tracks to get to our space! Crazy. This was no small boat…and no surprise here, the ride was really quite smooth.
Back to driving, even though we just had that long day of travel, the original plan for today was to jump back into the rental and drive to the “nearby” town of Nelson, about an hour and a half away. It’s known as New Zealand’s playground in many ways: its beaches, art galleries, amazing restaurants, wineries and more. But wisely, we decided that we would stay in the Blenheim area today and try Nelson tomorrow…to get a break from a lot of driving.

We literally have several of the best wineries next door to us here, so we plan on checking them out today. One of those wineries, Herzog, has what many critics call the best restaurant in all of New Zealand, and we’ve managed to get reservations for dinner tonight! Looking forward to that. The Herzog story is an interesting one: they established a beautiful vineyard and Michelin star-winning restaurant in Switzerland, and then at the peak of their fame, packed it all up and came here! That’s some set of balls. Apparently, they know what they’re doing because they’re getting rave reviews here as well.

As you’ve seen, I got a chance to post a bunch of photos from our trip now. I did that last night, as fried as we were, after our long day’s journey. I also have video that needs to be uploaded. That will be next.

But right now, my legs are going numb from sitting on this toilet bowl! Gotta sign off!

I bought a Flip HD video camera specifically to be able to share videos on this blog, and for whatever reason, now that I’ve put a few movies together, the software won’t let me upload it onto this site. Very frustrating.

I also wrote a blog this morning on my iPad, which for some reason is not working at this hotel. Will try to uplink elsewhere later today. (I’m using Kelly’s laptop right now.)

The lack of wi-fi locations in this country has kind of caught us off guard, as has the fact that distances here are much further than we thought, leaving us little time for communication with family or friends via phone lines or SKYPE with that pesky 18-hour difference in time.

So…just to say it…we are doing well! Our colds are pretty much gone, but we’re really pushing ourselves on this trip to see as much as possible, and it’s leaving us exhausted by the end of the day. There will be a few places where we can catch our breath, but it’s one of those situations where you really don’t want to miss anything in a far-off land you may never see again, and so you push yourself (and your hardy daughter) to the limit every day.

So we apologize for not calling at Christmas…we hope to be able to do that around New Years. But suffice it so say, this is a wild adventure and we’re trying to do as much as we can in what now seems like a very short amount of time, despite it being the longest vacation of our lives!

Peace!