Marlborough

The previous night, I'd booked an afternoon winery tour on the assumption that the bad weather would continue. But the sun was shining the next morning, so I hotfooted it down to the waterfront (via the next door Dutch bakery to buy a giant Wild Berry muffin) to book myself onto a Beachcomber cruise around the Queen Charlotte Sound. 

The Marlborough Sounds are drowned river valleys at the top of the South Island, with the main port of Picton at the head of the Queen Charlotte Sound. Skipper Matt explained that the greenery covering the landscape was native vegetation finally beginning to grow back after the initial settlers either cut it down for building materials or burned it to clear land for farming. Many places in the Sounds are only accessible by boat - he pointed out one holiday cottage which was 2 hours from Picton by road, but only 45 minutes by boat.

There were a mixture of people on the cruise - the majority were getting dropped off at lodges out in the Sounds, or doing day treks (at the end of which they would be picked up by the afternoon boat). One of the inlets that we visited was Ship Cove, which Captain Cook visited several times during his explorations to refit his ship and stock up on fresh water. We only had 15 minutes there to stretch our legs and drop off the day trekkers, but it looked like a great place to spend the day and make use of the picnic tables there.  

On the way back to Picton, we passed a salmon farm, which was being circled by a hungry seal. Matt said that they had tried tagging the seals, and taking them down the coast to Kaikoura to be released - but 2 days later they had returned: "To them, that farm must be like the best shop in the world, with a big No Entry sign on it - are you really surprised they keep on coming back?" Apparently there are 4 full time people employed to check on the nets, as the seals do manage to get through sometimes!

The afternoon wine tour was great fun - there were only 5 of us, plus our driver Frank, who hailed from Croydon. We visited 4 wineries - Villa Maria, Allan Scott, Forrest Estate and Drylands. As Frank drove us around, I recognised other names from the supermarket shelves, like Stoneleigh and, of course, Cloudy Bay. The others were very professional with their tastings - marking off the wines sampled on tasting lists, and also scoring them. Gino, an accountant, went for the quantitative method (8.8 being the highest score awarded), whilst Jana went for the qualitative method (everything was either "good" or "very good"). 

Marlborough is famous for its sauvignon blanc (I think Frank said that 95% of all NZ sav blanc comes from this region). However, all of us went nuts about the local Riesling - we all ended up buying at least one bottle of it from one of the vineyards during the afternoon. The last stop of the day was at the Makana chocolate factory, where I fell in lust with the Very Berry Toffee Crunch free sample, and promptly bought a gift wrapped box for myself :)

Gino, Jana and I had dinner at Le Café back in Picton, which had been highly recommended by many people for its fresh seafood. Naturally, we had some Riesling with our food (in fact, the same kind from Forrest Estate that the 3 of us had bought earlier that day). The conversation moved to typical national cuisine - so we learnt about Filipino food from Jana, and Dutch specialities from Gino. They both liked the sound of Sunday roast dinners and pies, but I was less successful trying to describe a battered Mars bar. "Wait, wait, you *fry* them?!" said Gino incredulously. I don't think they'll be trying those when they come over to the UK...