On a Friday after work we flew on a little 19-seater plane to the small airport of Blenheim (pronounced Blenum) in the far northeast part of the South Island. The main reason for the trip was to go wine tasting in the Marlborough wine region. There are many wine regions in NZ, but this seems to be the most popular. We stayed at a great place called Vitner’s Retreat in the middle of the vineyards in Renwick, just outside of Blenheim.
On day one we set out see as much as we could, deciding to save the wine tasting for day two. We started out southwest on beautiful highway 63 toward the town of Murchison. We stopped in Murchison for a coffee, then continued a bit farther to our first destination: the Buller Gorge Swingbridge, the longest in NZ. It looked pretty cool on the website www.bullergorge.co.nz so we had to check it out for ourselves. It was worth seeing, and worth the $5 admission, but not quite as spectacular as we had imagined. So onward we went, deciding we might as well drive up to Nelson, making a big loop before heading back to Blenheim. Along the way, in a friendly town (blink and you’ll miss it) called Wakefield, we met a friendly police officer. He pulled us over (Andrew was driving) and very politely told us that we were going 81kmph in a 50 kmph zone. We hadn’t seen the 50kmph sign, but these reduced speed signs do seem to suddenly pop up in small towns, in any country. After officer friendly wrote out the $300 ticket, he sent us on our way with a cheerful “drive safely”. Moving right along… Nelson was a nice town; it’s the second biggest on the South Island next to Christchurch. It’s hilly and green and right on the water of the Tasman Bay. Quite livable we thought, for a small town. We stopped long enough for another coffee and to walk around the main street, before hoping in the car to continue our loop. In Blenheim we had a nice dinner at Hotel D’Urville before returning to our home-for-the-weekend in Renwick.
Day two was spent visiting wineries all over the Blenheim / Renwick area. We visited wineries Seresin, Cloudy Bay, Nautilus, Saint Clair, Lawson’s Dry Hills, and Highfield Estate. Wine tasting makes for such a fun day, going from one to the next for some free sips of each vineyard’s range, and buying a few bottles (at each stop) to take home! Lunch outdoors at Highfield Estate was soooo delicious and the view looked like it was right out of a movie. After our self-guided tour of the vineyards we decided to head up to Picton, just a 20 to 30 minute drive north of Blenheim. Picton is the town where the Interislander Ferry comes from Wellington, connecting the North and South Islands. It’s mainly a small port town sitting right on Queen Charlotte Sound. It’s beautiful: huge lush, green hills cradling the port and village. I imagine it’s much livelier in Summer when it’s full of tourists, but the stillness of it was nice. Peaceful Picton marked the end of this wine-filled weekend. From there it was back to Blenheim to catch our little plane home.
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