Antares Homestay Blenheim

We headed back to Blenhiem for another week of work. By Wednesday though we had have enough of fruit picking and by that point we had swapped supervisors from a lovely lady to a stupid lady who treated us like toddlers. We looked else where for work and came across alot of jobs in the franz josef area so we thought we would take the risk and go there.

... good weight and acid, lime finish, crisp and good length.

2008 Riesling – 16g/l residual. Rich honeyed nose with some blossom notes. Ripe citrus with good acid balance.

2007 Envoy Riesling – 56g/l residual. Minerality and honeysuckle on the nose. Sweet start and lime dry finish – luscious. Long.

2008 Pinot Gris – Pears and spice (like a crumble!), cinnamon. Good acidity and ...

... perk of coming just out of season. It then started to rain so we had to close to soft-top and turn on the windscreen wipers :-( But we returned to our favourite vineyard from the wine tour - Highfields, for a spot of lunch and acquiring some more bottles of wine. In the evening we took the owner's dog Tess out for a walk to the supermarket and bought a chicken to cook on their rotisserie BBQ for dinner. Feeling very at home we ...

We drove up to Marlborough Sounds, near Picton, and decided to day hike part of the Queensland Track. We camped overnight at a DOC campground. The campsite was beautiful and we had our first experience with the flightless Weka. These birds are not afraid, and roam around, under, and even in our ...

... trucks, cars and vans overtook us while we popped into the first post office we saw (though they likely would have over taken us even if we hadn't stopped) we cycled the easy 30km to Bleheim our first amazingly scenic kilometers of South Island. Everyone we met was friendly, even a man named vince or possibly somone who knew him had painted a building to advertise his love of tits, clearly a uncomplicated country man with no city fussing over the specifics this is the land of ...

... backpack or taking a lift off a guy who I didn't know, but seemed ok from my internal 'freak monitor'.. I took the lift. I did however play it slightly safer by spotting 2 other female backpackers loitering about looking at a map for their hostel. So I wandered over and introduced myself and told them that this guy was offering me a lift to town and did they want to join? They said yes.. only their hostel turned out to be ...

... like strong black coffee but tasted mildly salty. I also especially enjoyed the unlimited flow of electricity, steaming hot showers & the ability to stand up straight until I fell asleep - Visited Glenorchy - population 215 today. Remote is what Glenorchy is. Sat in a lush valley at the head of lake Wakatipu surrounded by spectacular mountain scenery. But what truly touched me, was amongst all the timeless beauty & isolation there still stood a monument to all ...

... nests and other rubbish from the loft space, washed the outside of the building, repainted the windows at the front of the hostel, redecorated the bathroom, chopped back overgrown hedges, made lots of pairs of slipper socks, designed posters for the hostel, done some cleaning and lots of cooking! In our free time, we've been on a couple of nice little walks around Picton and had the first ...

... a day walk into the park but as we get out of the car it starts raining. We walk for about an hour and a half before we retreat to the dryness of the car. We then drive into a different part of the National Park and as it's stopped raining we go for another walk, this time we're slightly luckier with the weather this time and make it to a massive cave which drops straight down into the ground. We walk back through the woods and then drive back to Nelson where we stay ...

... to the cost of the wine itself. Gary, our driver, was very informative and amusing, so we had a really good day out. Ours was supposed to be a half day tour and we could have stayed on but by the time we had visited the last winery, we no longer knew or cared what we were drinking! For once I was pleased to get back to the darkened van for a rest. Off to Kaikoura tomorrow.