New Zealand's 2008 vintage is rolling right along, ready to wrap up probably in the next week, at least the actual harvesting of fruit.  Work in the winery will continue of course.  My role on the crush deck means I will have seen at least half of the approximate 4000 metric tonnes we are slated to bring in.  Very busy work, eithe...

We have now travelled to Blenheim through the usual beautiful countryside.  Blenheim itself was rather a souless place but it is situated among the vines and we took a guided wine tour which proved to be a most enjoyable trip. We were picked up at ten a.m. and had another couple join us with their little daughter.  He was an English ba...

We had planned to leave Christchurch early this morning but time just dragged on a bit and before we knew it, it was 4o'clock - in any case we hit the raod for Blenheim. We passed by Kaikora on the way, there is a seal & penguin colony here and we saw loads of them. When we arrived at Blenheim we booked out wine tour for the next day and boo...

So headed off about 8 or 9 pm ish...  Drove as far as blenheim to spend the night there... got this pict of a gorgous sunset enroute.. just after the Rai Valley in Nelson - about an hour and a half or so into the journey!

Today we went on a tour of the Montana Brancott Estate.... visit: http://www.montana.co.nz They are the largest wine company in NZ... and it is a beautiful vineyard to visit.... we had a spot of lunch there - breads and a cheese selection - yum! We bought a bottle of Rose, which is just lovely... I now know a bit about wine - it is so nice to dr...

Time to bite the bullet and get on the fully loaded bike. The bike handling was not great with the weight on the front and the clipless pedals are quite stiff even though I have them as loose as possible, (for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about. my shoes clip into my pedals. However the drawback is that is you can't release quick...

Prior to heading back to Christchurch we went up past Nelson and to Blenheim where we stayed next to a great little vineyard, heading back down the coast we past Kaikoura. In those days it was no more than a 'spot' on the map!!!