I made a special detour via the ferry from Wellington to the South Island in order to visit the Marlborough wine region.  This is New Zealand’s biggest wine producing area by far – 70% – and it would have been a shame to miss it.  It is a sea of  Sauvignon Blanc however and although I like it you do need to be aware of that.  The rest is mostly Pinot Noir and then some Chardonnay, Pinot Gris and assorted others even including Montepulciano.

I treated myself to a wine tour as I was getting a bit sick of driving and having to spit everywhere…Hop’n’Grape was definitely worth it and highly recommended.  Cameron is a wine maker of 20 years standing who now runs this company and has special access to the winery he used to work for – Mount Riley.  Since I was the only one who knew anything about wine I got to pick 2 of the wineries we visited –Fromm and Cloudy Bay.  The tour of the Mount Riley winery was comprehensive to say the least and it was only because the wine in the stainless steel tanks were too low for Cameron to reach to get a sample – using a special wine sampler – a large plastic jug! – that we didn’t get to taste the wine in the tanks.

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Our nextstop was Framingham which was a completely different experience.  Their main grape is Riesling but they do others as well.  Sauvignon Blanc is the cash cow everywhere and they all make a typical Marlborough one.  Then onto Wairau River for tasting and lunch.  The food was really good and the wines pretty good as well.  After lunch we headed to Fromm which is a tiny organic boutique winery which concentrate on Pinot Noir but as everywhere else also do Sauvignon Blanc. They are also one of the few places which still use corks.  Everywhere else it’s screw cap apart from a few bottles at Clos Henri.  I was really impressed by their personal service and honesty about what they do.  We tasted a 2016 Riesling Beerenauslese which seems to have come about by accident.  It was really yummy and of course I didn’t have to spit!

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Then onto Cloudy Bay which is on another level – very corporate and slick but still excellent.  The setting is lovely with Australian gum trees and eucalyptus being planted by the original Aussie owners.  Now it’s owned by LVMH.  We ended the day there sipping their Pinto Noir on bean bags on the lawn. 

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The next day I visited 3 more wineries before getting on the ferry back to Wellington.  Saint Clair had the added benefit of coffee in the morning and as you know that’s really important to me!  This is a family owned winery and I particularly liked their sparkling which is called DAWN Methode Traditionelle Vintage 2013.  Dawn is apparently the  who is almost 104.

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Clos Henri is another organic boutique winery wholly owned by Henry Bourgeois of Sancerre fame.  All the staff are French and the tasting room is a tiny deconsecrated church which they had bought and transported from 40km away.  They also sell their Loire wines but you can only taste them if you are a large group.  This one also impressed with their attention to detail and is the only place I actually bought wine – Bel Echo Pinot Noir 2016 at NZD33.  Their top wines are also still corked although I’m not sure how much of a sign of quality that really is as it’s quite risky these days especially as UK consumers expect NZ wine to be screw cap. 

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Last one Highfield Terravin – also a boutique winery with a very nice restaurant and a tower you can go up into and see all of the Wairau Valley vines.

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Some thoughts on the Marlborough region.  The last 2 vintages have been challenging and there are vineyards for sale as they probably took their eye off the ball relying on the region being bone dry and warm all the time.  People are moving away from that punch you in the nose Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc and towards a subtler style.  They are also showing Sauvignon Blanc which has had more attention than just stainless steel and quick bottling experimenting with wild yeasts, old barrel ageing, on the lees and if they can afford it keeping it for a few years before releasing it.  Te Koko 2014 from Cloudy Bay is an example of this.  Te Koko means Cloud Bay in Maori.

This is an interesting wine region which has it’s streets laid out in the shape of the Union Jack – didn’t get the story behind that. It’s also a great place to cycle or even walk around as the vineyards and small and close together.  I decided to walk and I have to admit it was further than I expected.  I struggled to get lunch as well as it was a Saturday and the place was littered with hen parties.  The weather was pretty good though after all the rain.  The main grape is Pinot Noir but they grow everything from Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling and some odd ones like Tempranillo.

Margrain had a huge list for tasting.  You could go on and on.  The winery is small and they only sell at the Cellar Door.  They also claimed that you cannot put bottles of wine in your luggage when you leave NZ so the only way to take wine with you is to buy it at Duty Free.  This is of course complete rubbish and I  have no idea where that came from.

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Poppies had been recommended to me by Dale from Sileni both for the wines and for the lunch.  As it was a Saturday it was completely booked out and they couldn’t even squeeze one person in after I asked.  I did stay to taste the wines which are excellent and Poppy is even a real person.  My favourite here was the Pinot Gris.

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Luna was the winery next door which did have room for me for lunch.  The food is Asian fusion and I had the Okonomiyaki which is a Korean kind of vegetable pancake with a glass of Pinot Gris. By the time I had eaten the hen party sitting next to me (very fancy ladies in summer dresses and a cut out of the famous rugby star who was the groom) were doing their tasting and there wasn’t really room for me.  I avoid being a singleton taster in such situations as you get ignored…

Stone Cutter is a tiny boutique winery only selling at the cellar door and the only place in NZ I didn’t have to pay for the tasting. I was the only one there and the lady was very welcoming and asked me lots of questions about myself.  This is always appreciated as we all know.

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Palliser is a well-known winery in the UK and their wines were very good but by this time I was exhausted from the walking.

All in all a good place to visit – I didn’t really have a favourite – so you will just have to go yourselves.

Well this was a different experience.  A weekend in Ponsonby – one of Auckland’s most popular neighbourhoods looking after Arthur (English bulldog aged 8) and Claudie (French bulldog also aged 8).  Once again quite spoilt dogs in my view at least.  They were fed raw meat mixed with tripe daily and Arthur had a probiotic added to his feed due to the high protein content which was causing him to be very constipated.  Well what about not feeding him such a protein rich diet then??? Only saying.

They were also used to sleeping in the bed with their owners.  This was something I was not prepared to do mainly as Arthur was very big (32kg) and had festering sores on his paws (apparently normal for an English Bulldog his age) which wept all over the place – yuk.  As you can see from the photo he survived without sleeping in the bed with me and did perk up once I took them out for a very sedentary walk.  Both Arthur and Claudie were great dogs to look after.  Unfortunately I managed to loose all the other photos of them.  The house was a very cool former butchers shop.  It was a mixture of being done up and falling apart including a leaking ceiling.  The owners were very welcoming and let me stay 2 extra nights to make my journey around North Island easy.  I really appreciated that as well as the wonderful Central Otago Pinot Noir they served me when they cooked me dinner on the first night.  Living the dream!

Here are some musings on difference between Down Under and the UK.

Blackout blinds are standard everywhere in Oz at least.  For someone who likes to sleep in total darkness and wake up from my own alarm it was a blessing in disguise.  The worst place for blackout blinds I have ever come across in Norway – I guess it’s got something to do with the lack of daylight in the winter…

Public toilets are everywhere in Oz – amazing never having to worry about where to go next!  Bins on the other hand are far and few between.  Recycling is big business and you are encouraged to take your rubbish home with you – what if you don’t have a home as you’re travelling around???

It’s not cool to have a tan…coming from a culture which values a tan it’s strange to be in Western countries where being being pale is good.  Sun cream only comes in factor 50+ and everyone wears hats all the time even when the sun isn’t out.

Petrol prices in Oz were a pleasant surprise.  When I arrived they were AU$1.60/litre and when I left AU$1.24/litre.  I’m not sure whether this was because the oil price dropped quite a lot or if a price war broke out on Sunday 18th November?  In NZ prices were  a lot higher at NZ$2.30/litre in Auckland vs NZ$2 in the country side.  It was still cheaper than in the UK.

You would have thought that OZ and NZ invented coffee from the way they go on about it.  It doesn’t actually grow in either country…Anyway you can get a decent coffee anywhere – even at motorway service stations!  Mine is a flat white in a Keep Cup.

Being a beach bunny, I decided that it would be nice to spend some time on the coast south of Sydney.  I settled on Moruya Heads as it was an easy 4 hours’ drive on my way from Melbourne to Sydney.  It was a great idea but I hadn’t factored in the weather which did not cooperate.  In fact, it was freezing and it rained a lot.  Moruya Heads is a beach suburb of Moruya which is a bustling little town as these things go.  Quite a few shops including an absolutely amazing quilting place called Steph’s, some restaurants and cafes.

My AirBnb was on a hillside with a view of the estuary.  It was a brand new very spacious studio with a balcony.  Everything was catered for except a cooker – now why that had not been installed in a studio with a kitchen was beyond me but people do strange things.  Instead there was a microwave and a plug-in frying pan.  I wasn’t really prepared to learn how to cook rice in a microwave on this trip but needs must.

One of the things to do locally is take a trip out to Montague Island to watch the penguins come ashore after feeding for 4 days to see their chicks that are hatching.  Unfortunately, the weather was so bad that most of the trips were cancelled but on Friday there was a brief respite in the weather and we had a glorious boat ride out to the island in the sunshine at lunch time.  At least I got to see the island – no penguins though!

Market day in Moruya is Saturday and it was a very enjoyable experience – a proper local market with stuff from local farms and businesses.  People had obviously travelled in from all over the hinterland and the coast and that made for a lovely time.

They laugh at me when I pronounce place names.  A is sometimes pronounced like an English O, other times as and English E.  An example would be Wagga Wagga pronounced as Wogga Wogga, or Alan pronounced like Ellen.  This last once confused the hell out of me at the Heide Museum of Modern Art when a painter was referred to as Ellen as earlier the guide had expressly said that it was a male.  During the same tour another painter was referred to as Liz when his name was Les – so E is pronounced as I.  Apparently that’s how you’re supposed to tell the difference between Kiwis and Aussies.  Six is sex (NZ) and sex is six (Oz). U can be pronounced like an English A – Tuross Head becomes Tarass Head.

The Tim Tams are good though – particularly the coffee one!

The Mornington Peninsula turned out to be just over an hour’s drive from the house so I set out on a Friday to avoid the weekend crowds.  Most of the wineries are open Fri-Sun so that worked out really well.  There were very few people around apart from in the vineyard restaurants.  The area is beautiful with varied coastal landscape – the ocean side beach was absolutely stunning with some very wild surf breaks.  I drove all the way to the end of the peninsula just to see what that was like and then had a coffee in Sorrento.  Wow what an upmarket place, full of expensive shops and food places.  Still the asparagus was only 70c for a bunch – the cheapest so far.

I had learnt my lesson from the Yarra Glen about food so made sure I got to a place to eat before 3pm.  The nearest winery to Sorrento is The Cups Estate and I had a lovely posh lunch and a glass of their 2015 Syrah.  Apparently as this is cool climate wine  making they are encouraged to call it that rather than the usual Aussie Shiraz – never mind.

I then drove to the 10 Minutes by Tractor winery which had set up a pop up cellar door at a local restaurant as the winery had burnt down in January.  I was the only customer but the wines were pretty good and the lady who worked there recommended the next winery – Oceans Eight.  I have to say of all of them this was my favourite.  Once again I was the only customer and the place itself was stunning.  The family live there and it had a more authentic feeling than lots of the others.  The wines were fantastic and pretty expensive but then all these wineries are boutiques and the prices are high.  I had decided not to buy anything anyway as when I checked online you could buy the wines cheaper at Dan Murphy’s if available and also they were mostly out of my usual Aussie price range of $10-15.  The top Oceans Eight wine was the 2013 Aylward Pinot Noir at $80 available online for $60 – that’s quite  big difference.  It was very good though!

I then added on a 4th vineyard but frankly I might not have bothered.  Main Ridge is the oldest winery on the Mornington Peninsula but their wines were mediocre and the only place that actually charged me for the tasting.  It’s usually $5 but this place was $10.  Mostly as I’m on my own they don’t bother to charge which is a nice bonus.

So all in all a much better experience than the Yarra.  If it wasn’t for the dogs I would probably have stayed there overnight.

Rhonda (Boston Terrier 5 years old) and Charlie (Italian Greyhound 5 months old) were the cutest things ever to look after.  It was a real eye opener looking after someone else’s pets.  It made me realise how easy going I and our pets are!   Rhonda took to me immediately although I wasn’t too keen on her jumping up and trying to kiss me while taking my eye out.  Charlie took ages to come to me but apparently Greyhounds are known for being shy.  What a life these dogs have – fed twice a day on vanilla bean yogurt, beef mice (raw), dog mince (raw) and some dried dog food.  They also had a probiotic pill with their dinner – no idea what that was for?  Rhonda loved walks but Charlie was too young to take out and also she wouldn’t leave Rhonda so that was fairly easy.  They could be left alone for most of the day as the back door was left open for them to go outside – no problems with security then…

I did love looking after them but started to feel trapped as I was so far out in the suburbs (Greensborough) and there was nothing really close that I could just walk to other than the shopping mall which did have good coffee at least and Rhonda was up for walking there.

I travelled into Melbourne CBD (Central Business District) on the train quite a few times to go the galleries, the fabulous Queen Victoria Market and wander around the laneways.  I took the tram out to St. Kilda and had coffee on the pier.  I do think that if I had been a bit more central I would have got a lot more out of Melbourne but then on the other hand I had a free place to stay which was comfortable if a little strange and lots of doggie cuddles.  Would I do it again?  Only if it was just a weekend or just cats.

 

So maybe doing wine tastings in the Yarra Valley on a Sunday isn’t a good idea? Seems like half of Melbourne was there. Also it turns out most of the wineries are open 7 days a week. The wines are expensive at an average of A$ 25/bottle at the cellar door and the food although it looked good was even more. I guess I have to get used to a different price level from the UK but it’s proving hard. When you go somewhere as a tourist everything seems more expensive than at home at first (not Bali though…) until you find your feet. That has not been the case here. Dan Murphy’s is a chain which sells beer and wine and has a very good selection. You can buy wine from A$2.99 to 299/bottle. A$10-15 seems a reasonable level and you do of course get an amazing selection on Aussie and NZ wines as well as lots of other countries in the world. Supermarkets are not allowed to sell alcohol. They do have drive through bottle shops which is something I remember from years ago which for 2 Norwegians left us speechless. Anyway here is a list of the wineries, for those of you who are really interested I can supply the list of wines as well as I tasted over 30 and spat out every single one as I was driving!

Yarrawood, Immerse Winery, De Bortoli, Balgownie and St. Huberts

 

I am really not into horse racing but when am I ever going to be in Melbourne on the day of the Melbourne Cup again?  It’s a national holiday in Victoria so I bought a ticket and a hat ($7.99 in the 2 for $5 store – not sure why it was 7.99?)

Anyway, race day arrived and it was bucketing down with thunder and lightning.  Roads, rails and creeks were flooded.  I made it there in one piece armed with my hat, raincoat and umbrella.  The whole event is huge and I mean huge!  It’s the richest price pool in the world.  People were really dressed up – both men and women.  I was glad I made an effort although I hadn’t brought any heels with me so went with my white Converse.  That turned out to be a really good idea as the race course was very very wet.  98% of the women wore hats – fanciers mostly – and their dresses were totally over the top – imagine Newcastle girls going out on the toon.  Some of them might as well have been naked with what they wore but the crowd was very young and I think that’s great as horse racing seems to be mostly older people in the UK – but then what do I know.

The weather cleared up for the race itself and it was really hot and sunny.  I was surprised how close I managed to get to the racecourse – basically right up against the low fence quite close to the finish.  I bet on 3 horses – Yucatan, Best Solution and Youngstar.  I didn’t win anything as the prize was taken by an outsider which nonetheless was owned by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the legendary owner of the Godolphin Stables. The minute the race was over the heavens opened again and as I didn’t win anything I decided to head home.  It was a fun day and I’m really glad I went.