Nelson to Wellington and on to Napier
Trip Start
Jan 14, 2008
1
13
22
Trip End
Mar 05, 2008
Wellington,
North Island,
New Zealand
Thursday, February 14, 2008
So we woke up at the adorable California Inn and got ready for our trip to the capital of New Zealand, Wellington where we would be spending one night. We sat down at the breakfast table with two other coupleīs from the UK and had delicious homemade Muesli, Frittata, seasonal fruit, Venison Sausage and fresh squeezed juice. Unfortunately just as we were finishing breakfast, the guy from Europcar came to pick us up to take us back to the airport where our rental car was. We quickly packed up, and got on the road to Picton in our flashy electric blue Ford Falcon.
We decided to take the scenic shortcut to Picton via the Queen Charlotte Drive, an incredibly curvy road that took us over mountains, by lakes and through valleyīs
Inter-Island Ferry
. After one of the incredibly sharp turns on the road, there it was... the Inter-Island ferry in all of its glory. It was a MASSIVE boat. A lot like a large cruise ship. Andrew turned to me and said that calling it a ferry was an understatement.We returned our Europcar and made sure to do a full walk around the vehicle, so as to not get another $1,000 charge and boarded the Inter-Islander with its 10 floors, bars, restaurants, cafeīs, video game lounges and 2 cinemas... one of which we took full advantage of to watch Atonement. With about 15 other people in the movie theater, it was a great way to kill 2 out of the 3 hours that we were on the boat. I LOVED the movie and had to take a few minutes after it ended to clean myself up as I had been sobbing. I am far too sensitive to emotional movies. I threw my sunglasses on and we went to the top deck, where we soon found that we had almost arrived on the North Island.
We picked up our bags, our silver Ford Falcon and drove the 5 minutes or so to get to the James Cook Grand Chancellor. Wellington was a lot larger than most of the other cities we had been to and the Grand Chancellor was the largest of all of the hotels we had stayed at in New Zealand. After freshening up, Andrew and I headed out to have dinner at a place Meg our travel agent had recommended: Monsoon Poon a super hip Asian fusion restaurant in downtown Wellington. I found it to be a cross between Left at Albuquerque and Betelnut, with cool music, great drinks and food and great looking people. We had passed by an adorable little white Victorian House a block or two away from our Hotel and decided to have our cab driver drop us off there for an after dinner glass of wine.
The place was called Boulcott St. Bistro and was a French Bistro and wine bar that opened in 1991 in a fantastic 130 plus year old home. We sat at the wine bar where we talked to the bar tenders who gave us wonderful recommendations on which wineries to head to in Martinborough the next day. After some fantastic wine and a few free tastings on the house, we left happy, wishing that we had a little more time in Wellington. Unfortunately if you are doing New Zealand in 18 days, there just simply is not enough time to do all that we wanted to do... therefore a trip back is mandatory.
We left Wellington the next morning after an enormous brunch at the Hotel and made our way over a huge mountain to Martinborough, an older New Zealand wine country dating back to the 1890īs. The area is known for its Pinot Noirs, Chardonnayīs and Sav Blancīs and upon arriving at our first stop, Martinborough Winery, that we went to based on the bartenders recommendation at Boulcott St. Bistro. The wines were great and the lady behind the counter gave us a list of 5 other must try wineries in the region... when I say region I actually mean in the surrounding 6 blocks.
We made our way to Ata Rangi where we were greeted by Rata, an adorable 16 week old yellow lab. We tried their excellent pinot Noirīs and desert wines and then went to Paliser Estate which had an adorable little garden setting and award winning wines, that I didnīt care for too much. We then went to Stone Cutter, where we were served by the wine maker himself and met a 70 plus year old couple from Bordeaux who own their own winery. We tasted a couple recently bottled wines and purchased an 04 Pinot Noir that we enjoyed. Our final stop was Vynfields where we had lunch. We just loved this spot. We went down a long drive past the vineyards to this adorable little Victorian with tons of picnic areas for lunch, beautiful views and great organic white wines. We sat and had a lovely lunch in the garden and enjoyed a fabulous platter full of fresh meats, cheeses and freshly baked bread.
We took the more scenic route out of Martinborough and continued on to Napier where we would be spending the next two nights. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Andrew decided to pass a large truck. It was maybe the 4th time he had passed a car in the two weeks we had been in the country, but of course, just as we raced past the truck, there it was... a police car in the oncoming traffic lane. We knew that since we were approaching 140 KMīs per hour we were going to get pulled over. We knew we were bound to get a ticket at some point, but I kinda wish it had been me, as I was the one who was consistently over the speed limit. So there we were, in the middle of nowhere, pulled over on the side of a two lane highway, in the grass, with about ten cows peering into our car wondering what the hell was going on. As the burly bald policeman approached our car, I saw him start shaking his head and look very disappointed when he saw the Europcar sticker on the back of our Falcon. Andrew rolled down the window and passed the guy his California Driverīs license, at which point the cop said, "How many days are you here for?" to which Andrew replied, "18 sir". The guy started laughing and told us that he HATES pulling over tourists and due to some new police car technology, he couldnīt let us off the hook. He did tell us that we didnīt have to pay the ticket, so long as we never come back to New Zealand, but we all knew that was out of the question, since we loved it and were certainly planning on coming back. The cop went back to his car shaking his head, so upset by the fact that we were American tourists on Holiday and issued us a $170 ticket that we would plan to pay as soon as we got to Napier. He apologized and said have a good rest of your trip and with that we were off.
After an incredible iced coffee in the next town to cool us off after our encounter with the law, I took over the driving and we were in the adorable art deco town of Napier in no time. Upon arrival at the adorable County Hotel right near the ocean, we had a glass of Pinot Noir to take away the sting of the ticket and Andrew began to sing "breakinīthe law, breakinīthe law" and went on and on about how he was on the lamb.
We walked around the adorable town that was leveled in 1931 by a 7.9 earthquake that added 40 Kilometers to the surrounding area. The town was completely rebuilt in the art deco style and was just charming. We made our way to a fantastic Mongolian BBQ place that was packed called "WOK U WANT". Andrew and I chose all of our own ingredients, squirted all of these sauces into our concoction and a guy cooked it all up for us on the grill. It was delicious. It included a great ice cream cone to finish off our meal and with that we were back to the County Hotel to get some rest before a day of wine tasting in Hawkeīs Bay the following day.
