Last Days in South Island & Ferry to North Island

Blenheim
Left Kaikoura after doing a brief walk to the hill above the seal colony not much of a hike but nice views. Not too bad a drive to Blenheim, I reckon (commonly used in NZ) it took us about 4 hours. The town was a bit bigger then where we left and after checking out a backpacker using the drive-by method we stopped at Kaianui Lodge. A bit more pricey but really nice owner with great space in the dorm and the facilities. The one odd thing was the lights in the toilet and shower stalls. You pushed a button and they automatically went off by themselves. Of course the showers were timed really quickly so I had to keep reaching over to turn it back on again! Heck, I was going to enjoy the nice showers! Had a nice lunch in town and tried a local wine for a treat. I made us a yummy salmon dinner (also a treat) and we decided to book on a wine tour the next day from 1-5ish.

So, next morning we got some laundry done - that is always an issue for us to figure out when is the best time as most places that have a washer don't have dryers so you need some good weather to dry it on the lines. Worked out well and we had a beautiful day to tour the local wineries. Our driver Gerry was a really nice older Kiwi, made it even more fun. These are the wineries we visited:

1. Montana - larger winery (goes by Brancott in the U.S.)
2. Lawson's Dry Hills - smaller family run and very cute. The dog Tomey eats the grapes when they are ready!
3. Villa Maria - fairly large and a guy working the tastings is actually from Takoma Park, MD but moved here with his wife who is a Kiwi. This winery has won more accolades then any other single winery in NZ.
4. Matua Marlborough - Interesting asian flair to the decor
5. Cloudy Bay - Brief visit here, a bit bigger like Villa Maria
6. MudHouse Village - Last stop, had to keep drinking water during the tour and here they had some crackers too!
7. Prenzel - next to Mud House and they sold liquor not wine. We bought a bottle of Butterscotch Schnapps to try out.
8. Manuka Chocolates - hand made chocolates here and we treated ourselves to a box of dark chocolate caramels for Christmas.

The Marlborough wine region is known best for it's Sauvignon Blanc wine but we tasted quite a few yummy Pinot Noir and other whites. Of course we were good sports and tried everything!

Back home to sober up a bit, make dinner, and watch a movie for the first time on TV. Jerry Maguire was the selection of the evening and entertained us, forgot how funny Cuba Gooding, Jr.'s character is as the football player. Of course the romantic stuff is pretty corny.

Picton

Only about 1 1/2 hours drive to Picton and we found a really cute BBH called the Villa to stay for the night. Attempted to do a walk to what they call the Snout but the rain interfered. So, when we arrived back very wet we decided to do some exercises (pushups, situps, etc.). In the middle of this is where we met one of our roommates Tom from England. That must have been a lovely site for him arriving! Ha ha. Our dorm (the biggest with 10 beds) was called The Swamp and once it filled up it did smell a bit swampy. he hee! Although this place overall was pretty large it had a great homey feel to it with beautiful gardens and outside areas to hang out. Made us a very simple meal of boiled kumara (sweet potato) and carrots because we didn't want to go to the store. Not bad actually! Poor Tom was persuaded to help us test out the Butterscotch Schnapps, yikes - sweet as! Thanks to Tom and our Israeli friends for playing some great music on the guitar for us! Too bad we had to leave the next day to take the ferry to the North Island because we had a great time there at the Villa.

Arrived 1 hour to the prior ferry departure to check the car in and wait to get loaded on board. I've never been on a ferry like this one - it was HUGE. I wonder how many vehicles actually fit on the ferry!? Went up on the sun deck and met some people from U.S. and Belgium, too bad we had to cut the lounging out when the weather got bad. We weren't feeling so great when we started heading through the Cook Straits - not fun to be on a huge ship inside a crowded lounge with hardly any air. I think we ended up standing for over an hour once we found a good spot outside on the back of the boat. Sorry to leave our new friends as we weren't staying in Wellington but heading on to Lake Taupo for Christmas. Our friend Tom from Picton and Vignesh on the ferry both told us about the Tongariro Crossing - they had not gone but planned to and heard it was an incredible day walk. Got us thinking about doing it the day after Christmas.

On the way to Lake Taupo

Left Wellington at almost 6pm and decided to go ahead and drive the 5 hours to Lake Taupo where we already had reservations booked at Sunset Lodge for Dec. 24/25. It ended up being a long drive and the last portion was on the Desert Road which is very bleak so luckily we filled up with petrol and went to the super market before finishing the drive. Yeah we arrived at Sunset Lodge about 11pm and found our room and just went to bed. Next day we didn't even wake up early although we could have slept later if our room wasn't right off the kitchen area.