Greetings from Hawke’s Bay! We are out at sea, heading towards Taranga/ Ah, I see the period key no longer works (again) Poop!
Since we last weighed in, we’ve been to Picton and toured the infamous Marlborough Wine Region, Wellington (the capital) and to Napier. New Zealand continues to impress.
Picton was an adorable tiny little town of about 3000 – which blooms to 4000+ with the holidays. We loved it! Very small, but plenty of wonderful places to eat and shop, a gorgeous harbor front area, and great wine.
As we got off the boat, a group of ladies was waiting and handing every single woman from the boat a lovely little corsage. They hand make them for every boat – more than 24,000 were made in the last year. We weren’t entirely sure how to interpret the instructions we have received on how to find our tour guide but before long we’d figured it out and found Ray.
So, I pointed out sometime back how impressed I’ve been with the signs in Australia and NZ. Check this out – each little town has at least one “I site” where you can go an get information, including maps and nice, clean restrooms. On cruise ship days, some local volunteers come out and answer questions, hand out maps, etc. So great. On certain ports, we aren’t allowed to walk on or through the working port, so shuttle buses take us into town and drop us off at the I site. This makes it so easy to figure everything out. It reminds me of Iceland – though that was much less fancy – but every town, no matter how tiny, had an area with a map of the area and clearly marked free public restrooms! And, since we're discussing public bathrooms -- Jason said this was the best one. When you close the door, you hear a message say you have 10 minutes and then beautiful music starts to play.
Anyway, we found Ray and our tour van at the Picton I site and loaded up for Marlborough/ We had about 10 in our group, including 2 couples from the St Louis area! How fun is that? Ray was a great guide – formerly from England, an air force pilot, a Singapore airlines pilot, married a Kiwi and now a tour guide in New Zealand – a lot of stories in that guy!
We visited 2 wineries (St Clare and Framingham – where the wine maker won best wine maker in New Zealand last year), then had lunch at a 3rd winery (Geiten), visited 2 more wineries (Spy Valley and Whitehaven) and then a chocolate shop before heading back to ship. Oh man! These kiwis are serious about their coffee and chocolate.
The countryside was stunning. Very, very clean and well cared for. We had a gorgeous, sunny day and the group really enjoyed sitting outside and taking our time to enjoy every place. Despite going to so many places, everyone felt fine because they do a great job with giving smaller pours. The area is legendary for their sauvignon blancs and that was certain the pride and joy at each place. Very few reds that far south.
As is our new normal, eventually, everyone had to know how we were able to be on the trip so long. I don’t mind this at all – I’m proud to get to share a bit of our story and brag on how awesome PayPal is. And, of course, Jason’s story about the urban farm continues to steal the show.
Because (so far) everywhere we go has free wifi, I was able to send an email to Rod and Louise and let them know we were planning to stay in Picton for dinner. They got the email and were waiting for us at the I site so we could walk around the charming little town before settling in for some of the infamous green mussels the area is known for.
One note on the wifi – we love that the cities have numerous free wifi zones but that means we have to stop there long enough to use them;) Imagine a hoard of older Americans standing around together on their phones or iPads – enjoying all the free wifi. We want to quickly make a post of say hello, but we don’t want to sit and zone out so we still haven’t had much online time, which is perfectly lovely.
I need to catch up on a few awesome characters we’ve met! I’ll come back to Wellington and Napier later.
A lovely older (duh) couple originally from NYC, now retired to Florida. We met them in line for the ferry to Sydney. They told us about the best pizza place in NY, just off the Staten island ferry. They both teared up talking about his sister, who recently died, and who was supposed to be on this trip with them (and her husband, too). Very sweet but sad – morale of the story is to go when you can and do not wait. There is no guarantee for a tomorrow. We periodically bump into them now and always stop to talk. So sweet.
Carina, a beautiful and glamorous lady originally from Finland and now residing in Hawaii. She sat with us at the 9:00 PM Port Tasting. She had wonderful stories of what was clearly a very full life, traveling the world and being adventurous. She told us she did the climb the bridge excursion in Sydney – which we all found way too scary!! We asked her if she was scared and she said no, she found it exciting! Then, she drank all 3 of her glasses of port and liked all of them/ Imagine her in a long black dress, dripping with rubies, a scarlet feather barrette in her beautiful white hair, European accent – what a doll.
So, awhile ago at a Sip and Savor, we met a really nice guy whose wife was clearly very ill and she almost immediately got up and left before even acknowledging us/ Well, they show up at the Port tasting about 1 hour late – in other words, we were done/ But, they pulled up chairs to join us, which was fine. Turns out, she is deaf and needs to read lips. AS such, she also talks a little bit louder than others but she speaks incredibly well. The only real reason this matters is that, somehow, she not only immediately takes over the conversation and then dominates it from there on, but she somehow got us talking about Hitler and the atomic bomb he was secretly building. I tell you – after a long day, 3 glasses of port, and it being something like 10:30 PM, I really couldn’t handle Hitler and his atomic bomb at loud levels. She also told me that her kidney died when she was sick and when I looked shocked, she held up her glass (as if to say cheers) and said, “well, what can you do?” Having no answer, I said, “Cheers to your kidney” -- It felt right at the time.
Miss Alice and Miss Diana – super sweet older BFFs who have been on the boat since Vancouver (a 42 day cruise) They let us join then for happy hour so we could have chairs to sit in at their table. So much fun! I bet they were in their late 70s, early 80s and so funny, full of life and energy. When we pass them in the dining room or wherever, they light up and wave and holler. What a hoot! They are from Vancouver.
An update on our lovely 82 year old birthday girl from the waterfall hike – we saw her dancing with a dapper gentleman and even smooching him o the dance floor! So cute!
I can’t believe we’re almost done with the cruise. We’ve now been gone a full month and on the boat 28 days. In some ways, we can tell it’s been a long time but it seems to be really flying by now. There are still plenty of things we haven’t done! Yesterday, we walked by the library and stopped to play checkers. Something new to do everywhere you look!
Tonight, we’re off to our final cellar master dinner and then tomorrow we kayak to the glow worm caves!
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