Day 12: Flight from Blenheim to Napier
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Tuesday morning, we had an early
breakfast, thanked our hosts for welcoming us into
their home, and headed to the airport in Blenheim. After returning our rental car,
we checked in for our flight. Because this was an
in-country flight, there was no security check, ID
validation, or anal probes. We just checked our
luggage in and got on the plane. From Blenheim, we flew to
Wellington. From there, we took a connecting flight to
Napier near Hawke’s Bay. |
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We would like to have spent some
time in the Martinborough region in the southern part
of the north island but the less abundant wine scene
and limited time dictated skipping straight to Hawke’s
Bay in Napier, where Syrah is all the rage. After picking up our rental car,
we were going to plot a route to the next B&B in
Hastings, south of Napier, but it was only mid-day so
we looked for promising vineyards in the area that we
could visit first. Within a few miles of the
airport, we stopped at Mission Estate Winery. We
hadn’t done any research yet for candidate vineyards
to our visit so this stop was based upon close
proximity. The “Mission” building was an
actual mission, founded in the mid-1800s, originally
built as a seminary building to train missionaries.
They had been making wine since that time, at first
for sacramental wine for religious purposes but most
recently quality wine to rival that being made in the
Hawke’s Bay region. Of the wines that we tried, we
found the BEST chardonnay so far in all of our New
Zealand adventures, in addition to favorable mentions
for their Syrah and even a Malbec. Win. Fun fact about New Zealand:
There are more sheep than people. In fact, as of the
2013 census, there are 7 sheep to each person. This is
actually a decrease from 30 years ago when there were
about 30 sheep to every Kiwi. Note about my sheep photography:
Along our journey, I have been trying to get a picture
of a mama sheep with lambs and had many opportunities
to do so. Unfortunately, every opportunity resulted in
me spooking either the mama sheep or the lambs and
they retreat, leaving me with nothing but lamb ass as
a photo opportunity. |
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Another fun fact: 94% of those
in jail in NZ are males. 50% are Maori. Not relevant
to my fact-finding mission but a great ice-breaker for
parties where there is a Kiwi present, especially if
the Kiwi is Maori. Afterward, we headed next door
to Church Road Vineyard. Since they had a restaurant
component to the vineyard, we stopped for a lunch of
paprikas csirke and lamb ravioli. When we were in Queenstown a
week ago, we had tried a couple of Church Road wines
so we knew that this place was a candidate for
visiting on our Hawke’s Bay tour. The wine tasting
here wasn’t disappointing. We found four that met our
exceptional criteria. Win.
We tried three more before cellar doors closed for the
day:
Triple fail. Not wanting to attempt any
further failed vineyard visits at this late hour, we
headed to our place for the night, the Hawthorn House
B&B. Our hosts, Paul and Debbie, met us and
introduced us to the house. |
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Hawthorne House, our accommodation for the next two
nights, had the most historical charm than any of the places that we had
stayed so far. It was built in 1906 but was moved to its current
location after the 1931 earthquake that destroyed almost every building
in Napier and surrounding suburbs. |
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The four of us chatted in the
communal sitting room over wine and nibbles until it
was time for Lorna and I to head out for a dinner
reservation that Debbie had made for us at Vidal in
town. In addition to having a
restaurant, Vidal is also one of the winemakers so the
wine list was almost all Vidal wines. For supper
we had pumpkin soup, fried blue moki (a local fish),
and lamb short ribs. |