Beaches, Wine and Whales
Happy Valentine’s Day! Hope you all got at least 1 card!? I didn’t – but then neither did Matt!
Our first stop after crossing over to the South Island a week ago was at an awesome beach near Nelson called Tahuna Beach. We had a relaxing day walking round Nelson market and watching grown men play with parachute sized kites on the expansive beach (I don’t get it?!).
The next day was my favourite of NZ so far – we got a sea taxi up to Onetahuti Beach, and walked back to the amazingly beautiful Torrent Bay, via the equally stunning Bark Bay. These string of bays were along the Abel Tasman National Park.
We soaked up sun, sea and sand before grudgingly getting our speedboat ride back to the caravan park at Kaiteriteri. This beach was also gorgeous but we left the next morning for Blenheim (I wish we could have stayed there a month).
Blenheim was our base for a wine tour around the Marlborough region. Although Matt and I are usually red wine drinkers the majority white wine tastings of the day were all very tasty; the spittoons remained unused. We can now swirl, sniff and swill with sufficient confidence to appear as if we know our wines.
A really great day including fabulous food at the Montana winery, and I did manage to head back with a couple of bottles of my favourites from the day.
Next stop Kaikora, which I am very sad to say was a bit of a disappointment. It wasn’t helped by the fact we had bad weather and the campsite we stayed in was a dump (it has 5 stars?!). We decided against the swimming with dolphins trip because of the weather and went with the whale watching. We saw 4 whales which is apparently twice the average viewing. It was pretty cool to see a whale but at the same time not as impressive as I had imagined because you only see the area of their backs around the blowhole then a flash of tail before they disappear off to the deep again!
Since leaving Kaikora we have crossed over to the West Coast via Hanmer Springs and Maruia Springs. We had planned to visit both thermal pools for comparison, but as Hanmer was heaving, we passed it by and headed straight to Maruia. We thoroughly enjoyed our hot soak, outside in a rocky pool at the bottom of a valley overlooking Maruia River, and thankfully we had minimal company! We camped at Maruia that night and had an irritating introduction to sandflies, which are much worse than mosquitos.
We are now cruising down the West Coast – but I will save that for the next post.
Laters x
2 comments
Hi travellers,
Nice looking tan you have there Rach, You look very smart with your new hair cut Matt. We really are getting quite jealous of you two with all these lovely beaches etc. you are visiting. Will I ever see a whale I wonder or sit in a hot water pool ! Be careful with the sandflies, they can have quite nasty consequences. Have fun, miss you lots. xx
Hey guys, glad to hear you’re still having a “whale” of a time! and not getting too bored with all those fabulous beaches! We are very envious. However, not to be outdone,Dad and I stayed in a Holiday Inn up North for the week end! Does that compare? I hear that the bungi jump is a done deal Matt! Thanks for remembering not to tell me beforehand! Hope it was an exhilarating experience – Rachel next?(more sense I hope) Do you have a video of the jump? I am sure I would have enjoyed the winery trip, and come to think of it Dad does a lot of swirling, sniffing and slurping (and thats without a glass of wine in his hand!) On to Christchurch now? – just noticed there is a place West of there called Dumbarton! Happy travelling ( L o v e the haircut Matt)xx
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