Marlborough

What's not to like about driving out into wine country to visit as many vineyards as possible, after which,  I feel I can properly drive on the left hand side to get home.  Four. Five vineyards.  OK Six.   

Three Sauvignon Blancs, Gewurtztraminer, Pinot Noir, Riesling

These vineyards are nice.  Very nice, and the wine is great.  Why does it always seem so fabulous when you taste it at the Cellar Door, then when you buy it at the store?  Naturally, we bought wine at every stop.  We are carrying around enough wine....well... to last three weeks.   Yet we still have to visit the Central Otago region in the mid part of the South Island.  Whew,  tough duty.  I am going to have to come home to sober up.   Seriously this is the "Hoity Toity" part of New Zealand.  There is a big airport, lined with corporate jets, plus hourly flights from Auckland, Wellington, etc, bringing the beautiful people to Marlborough and the food and wine it provides.   This is the new Napa Valley.   Lots of American Beautiful people.  

Notice that pretty blue sky from the picture above taken yesterday.   All gone!  We have had 14 days of beautiful weather, but last night it started to rain.   We drove through rain all day to the farthest northwest corner of the South Island, which is the Able Tasman National Park, Golden Bay, and the Farewell Spit.  We have such great ambition to walk these beautiful treks though the park, walk the beach at Pohara, and doing some salmon fishing.   (You catch a salmon, they clean it, then smoke it over a fire, for lunch or dinner.)  Alas, the forecast is for three days of rain.   Heavy rain.   Now that is not a problem to these Aussies and Kiwi's.   It is in the low 60's, rainy, cloudy, but they don't care.   They are swimming in the pool at our Holiday park, walking around in shorts, and just in general being really "outdoorsy".   Pisses me off.   I have every bit of clothes I can find, plus my raincoat, just to go to the john.   Wimpy American.  

One bright spot in an otherwise dreary day, was an early lunch in Havelock.  Shelley had been reading about this small cafe, called The Captain's Daughter, known for its Green Lipped Mussels.   Ummm Good.  Those babies are 4 inches long.  

It was 10:00 am and she had to ask the owner if they would make her lunch.   Of course they would!!

It's raining still tonight.  I get claustrophobic.  I had to wash clothes today since we have been confined to quarters with the bad weather.   That does not stop Shelley from making a great dinner in our little camper.   New Zealand lamb sausage and pesto cream sauce with green onions!!

Fabulous dinner, but as I write I can still hear the rain on the roof.  I can't stand it.  Change of plans tomorrow.  The forecast is 3 more days of rain, so we are moving on.  Let no grass grow under these feet, let's move on.  We're heading south to the Glaciers in the Southern Alps.  

(Of course they say that the wettest spot in New Zealand is the west coast of the South Island where the Southern Alps are located)  

We have raincoats.