Wine Tasting and Whale Watching

more W's...man, NZ must be the land of W's....

Anyway, yesterday (7/25) we woke up in Picton, booked our whale watching trip for 7/26, rented a car, and headed for Marlborough wine country. When we got close to the winery area, we decided that since the sun was shining we should rent some bikes to get some exercise and fresh air during our wine tasting. We found a backpacker's hostel and adventure center called Swampy's with bikes for hire. It took a while to find the person in charge, but we finally found him (Swampy, himself). We rented our bikes for $25 each, ate a PBJ lunch and rode off toward the wineries. 5 wineries later we were a little worse for wear and it had little to do with the wine tasting. The sun had disappeared and the wind picked up and suddenly, the bikes didn't seem like such a good idea. We decided we'd check out a couple more places and then call Swampy to pick us up! :) Our favorite winery in NZ so far was the 2nd one on our tour, Cloudy Bay. I fell in love with the place before we even tried the wine, and then the wine didn't disappoint. Mari and I both liked SO MANY that we even considered shipping some home (the hefty price tag brought us back to our senses, but SERIOUSLY...it was good). There was just something a little...different about all the wines. There wasn't ONE we sipped and said, "this tastes like a typical ______ (insert wine varietal here)." We ended up purchasing a DESSERT wine and anyone who knows MY taste in wine knows that it MUST have been impressive because I do NOT LIKE dessert wine!

After our last winery, we called Swampy and he was happy to pick us up. He asked if we were in a rush and we said no, so he stopped by his son's house and we met his son, his son's wife and their two boys (6 & 1). The kids were adorable and it was pretty fun to just be sitting in a house with a family and chatting!

Eventually we hit the road and made it to Kaikoura around 7. It's a very small town and when we asked at the hotel where we should eat dinner, he said "well there won't be much open now..." YIKES...at 7??? So, we picked up a burger and an order of fish and chips and ate it back at the hotel. We were in bed by 8:30. whoa.

7/26-
Today was whale watching day!! We woke up early (easy to do when you go to bed at 8:30) and went for a run, ate breakfast (with more instant coffee) in our room and drove to the whale watching center. After a quick walk on the beach and a safety briefing, we boarded the bus, which took us to the boat. The water was really calm (perfect because we were a little nervous about being sea-sick). Whale watching was GREAT!! We saw 6 or 7 sperm whales. They were huge and when they left the surface to dive really deep for food, their tales came out of the water for PERFECT picture taking :) We also caught a glimpse of a humpback, some seals and a few albatross. It was a very successful trip!

After whale watching, we drove back North about 20 minutes to see a viewpoint recommended by the woman at the hostel in Picton (it was dark the night before, so we couldn't see it then). We saw SO MANY seals there!!! The ones near the ocean were mostly just basking on rocks, but there were literally hundreds! Then we hiked up a bit along a freshwater stream to a waterfall. Along the way, we saw a few seals playing in the stream and even got within 3 ft of one basking on the path! When we reached the waterfall, we saw at least 50 more seals playing in the pool at the base of the falls. They were jumping and spinning all over the place. It was so fun to watch them! It was a good thing that it was quite chilly out or we never would have left!

Finally we got back on the road for our drive to Christchurch. PBJ for lunch again. (getting kind of sick of PBJ at this point) We stopped at a winery about 40 min North of Christchurch and enjoyed a tasting. We bought a light Pinot Noir. It was good, but not SO AMAZING. We won't be transporting this one home...it's definitely for drinking in NZ. Unfortunately, the cafe at the winery (it advertised fancy gourmet pies) was closed, so we had to press on to Christchurch before we could get dinner.

Arriving in Christchurch was stressful. We tried to check in at our hotel only to realize that we had accidentally booked for the 25th...and it was the 26th. After a stressfull 30 -40 min, we just decided to stop worrying, rebook for tonight and just...let the mistake go. It's hard to make that kind of mistake, but the money just wasn't worth the stress.

After checking in, we walked around looking for a place for dinner, but decided to just get food at the hotel and it turned out to be a great idea as the pasta dishes we ordered were DELICIOUS! We opened our wine to enjoy some with dinner and it was quite lovely.

Our room here is pretty great. I feel like I can't describe it well, so we'll post pics at some point, but just so you get an idea, there's sleep lighting and wake up lighting. SO you can set an alarm for...say 6am, and it starts getting a little lighter a little before 6 am...just gradually and then the TV comes on to some nature scene, like a beach with crashing waves or something. The reverse is true for the sleep lighting. When you set the sleep timer, it starts bright and gets gradually darker, lulling you to sleep. It's pretty great...we'll let you know how it works after tomorrow!

Good night from Christchurch!