Bay of Many Coves Resort Picton

... with Greg. We left towards Picton, where we will take the ferry from the following day.Unfortunately, the wine trail was on our way again, so we had no choice but stopping at a few places again for some tasting!!!! This time, the places were not as good.We ended up in a really cool place by the graveyard(the door looks like a coffin!) and had a nice night with some Americans and Germans

... to see the movie 'Last Chance Harvey' with Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson, its very good and nice to watch something relaxing.

After lunch next day after a morning of packing and catching up on my blogs it was time to say farewell to David and Sally with many thanks for their kindness in having me.

My next destination - Hanmer Springs. Another journey through great countryside with quite a few photo stops which were too good to miss, there is something ...

... for a walk, again the people were wonderful and knowledgable.
We had dinner that night at Le Cafe, top notch and cheap.
The next day we headed to Kaikoura.
Recommendations, The Yatch Club, definitely Sounds Connections and ask for Sam, Le Cafe, the Irish bar (there is only one). Cougar, St Clair Wairau Reserve (40 Gold medals, 30 trophies) Sav Blanc, The seafood chowder at Allan Scott, if budget is not tight the Escape to Picton, if time permits an extra day in Picton.

... by beautifully cooked lamb from the bbq and lemon sponge cake. Yum Yum Yum, I say!! We had lovely NZ wine with this and just enjoyed chatting with them and the 3 other guests, Judy from US & Rosemary from Germany and their guide Glenn. Imagine it was Rosemary's 70th birthday and she was doing nearly the full 71km. Good for her! Yesterday, we had an easy day with only 12km, so this was over and done with in no time ...

... wind for every day that we cycled in warm sun. However hat is what makes NZ especially so beautiful. The wildlife was wonderfully but also included the frustration of Australia's endless supply of flies and the west coast of NZ's evil sand fly. NZ sandflies are almost invisible little critters that bite and leave an itchy welt like a mosquito bite, only it itches more and lasts longer. Stopping to work on a bike wheel in the rain forest on the west coast for an ...

Wow, how lucky are we? For three days Lewis pass has been closed to all traffic because of severe weather - basically snow too deep. We were concerened about setting off today and having to take a much longer route, but hey, Lewis Pass is open ...

... to make the most of my short stay here so I went to the i-site to plan a day trip. I got some advice and some maps and ventured off on the Snout Track which is part of the Queen Charlotte Sound. The hike around Picton and the sound was absolutely breathtaking, I wish I had more time to do a proper tramp here.

... harvest, but we managed to get a quick tour of the facility. After the trip out to Indevin I met up with Kate, who I worked with and Brickhouse and who set me up with the job here, and she took me out to Auntsfield. Auntsfield is owned by Luc's (Kate's boyfriend) family and he is the wine maker there. The vineyard was established in 1873 and was ...

... us some really good Riesling, in amongst some other perfectly good stuff. By now we were feeling a mite wobbly, so tottered back towards where we'd left Lucy. We stopped briefly (as short a time as seemed polite before running away screaming) in the pastel toned cross-stitch horror-show that was the Handicrafts Barn, then went and had a snooze in the van for a while. Fully refreshed, we decided that although we'd been intending to stay the night, we would push on for Nelson. So we did.