Akrotiri Estate Olive Grove & Accommodation Martinborough

... was a fun little place entirely themed in 60s-style stuff. Lots and lots of stuff including uncomfortable wire kitchen chairs, ugly wall clocks that didn't work, and a lava lamp(!) It was comfortable and more interesting than your ordinary rental.

Cut to the next morning...

I continue (somewhat annoyingly) to wake with the sunrise, probably due to my regular work schedule being early each day. Steve and Ange were up early, too ...

... and I should not have been surprised to be asked if I wished to taste some wine. Oh boy the Pinot noir here is VERY good. I had to have a sleep though in the afternoon when we checked into our motel. Martinborough is very pretty and well manicured and also geared up for fine food and wine tasting. We ate extremely well tonight , with four different wines by the glass and food so good Tim said it was ...

... was even happier to find it quite edible, if not transformative. From there it was down the highway to Martinborough, where we turned south for a few kilometres and finally left onto the heavily-signed road leading to the wind farm. We'd seen this road several times before, and it always looks so alluring; there's a signpost indicating about 10 attractions just down the road. It's all too much to read in such a short time, so you're left to ...

... in the Palace Café. I'm always a big fan of New Zealand café food, and this one was not a disappointment. Sheila had an exemplary seafood chowder, and I a perfectly decent vegetarian phyllo. From there, we headed north to Upper Hutt and Akatarawa Road. Akatarawa Road is a 35-ish kilometre-long narrow and windy road connecting the upper end of the Hutt Valley to the west coast at Waikanae. In the middle of that stretch lies our star ...

... belching out everywhere!!! Oh Betsy!!! She had burst a coolant hose and Dale had no tools so couldn't do a thing - useless! As it was quite late there was nothing we could do so we had a few beers and forgot about it till the morning. Next morning we had to nurse Betsy into the town and phone the AA who uplifted us to the local garage. The guy told us to go for a walk and he would have it fixed in around 2 hours ...

... the beach with white rocks, black sand and seals and sheep next to a huge iron boat that had been wrecked onto the shore. The water was dark blue and you could tell the mountain just continued down into the water. There is almost no contenental shelf there and so swells sort leap up onto the reefs. The waves were pretty good - about head high but I had missed the high tide and the rocks were beginning to pop up everywhere. Plus the swell angle was a bit too east for the spot ...

... at 5 days and not try to beat that... The next day we headed for Christmas grocery shopping in Upper Hutt. On the map it looked like about 40km away, in reality that 40 was more like 80 as it was winding mountain road for most of the way. Serpentine roads are longer than straight ones! It was all worth it though as we also sneaked a shower at a campsite, to celebrate Christmas. Never has a shower felt that good! Our Xmas menu ...

We were on our way back to Picton and the North Island, our time on the South Island was nearly at an end and all that was left was Marlborough Sounds, Queen Charlotte Drive and maybe if we had time another trip back to Renwick to the Marlborough wine region for supplies!. The weather was wet and windy and the thought of crossing the strait the following day in this weather did not fill either of us with much enthusiasm. The road back towards Renwick followed closely the ...

... have to make some sacrifices some where along the way. Joe bless him drove for 10 hours so that we could get up to Picton for our ferry the following day. With my last cast I couldn't grip the wheel but now with my new and improved model which I had fitted on Tuesdays I can do everything. I paid a little extra so the it's water proof

Often confused with Marlborough, Martinborough is the Pinot Noir capital of New Zealand. Like mentioned in a previous entry, the highest rated wine came out of this region. To get there, I first had to cross through a gorge that ended up being pretty. The only problem was it was a curvy, one-laned, unpaved road. I think I held my breathe at each turn expecting to get in a head-on. The gorge brought me back to the main highway and then shortly to the turn off to Martinborough ...