Days 121-126: 3/18-23/24 - Wine in Marlborough, and Dolphins in Kaikoura!
3/18-19
3/18-19:
Our first full day was spent lounging, walking the beautiful countryside, and preparing and eating meals.
If LoTR drew us to Wellington, wine drew us to Marlboro. Making good on our original interest, we filled the day with a tasting tour. Our guide was Bill, who had retired (from what i did not record) but loved wine and was a consummate host. We learned fancy words for wine and forgot them in a day, heard stories of success and expansion and dynasty, and got well sloshed. Favorite retained wine fact: noble rot! When temperature and humidity conditions are just right, a specific kind of fungus can develop on the grapes that sucks some of the moisture out without damaging the grape. This leads to a much more potent grape and allows for syrupy wines.
Benefits of middle of nowhere: Stars!
3/20-22
A final wine tasting in the afternoon followed a morning of grocery shopping and waiver filling for our dolphin swimming the next day!
With Kaia’s birthday around the corner we planned to celebrate that evening with a lovely meal prepared by Marcy. Unfortunately she was sick, and I stepped up. I now understand the appeal of those meal kits. She had put together a wonderful menu and already gotten all of the ingredients, I just got to cook them! I had made the lasagna that night, and in the morning before we left for the dolphins, made the orange cake.
We then set out to Kaikoura. The drive down the coast was breathtaking. I often find that being a beautiful place for a longer time, one can become immune to the breathtaking capabilities. This was not the case on the South Island of New Zealand!
We checked in for our dolphin experience, and after being corralled into a changing area and changed into full body wets suits we set out on a tiny boat. We were warned that the experience is with wild dolphins so there is some unpredictability in their interest in us and if they will be there at all. Thankfully, we piqued their interest. Over 400 dolphins from 3 different species swarmed around the boat and dove and spun around us for the better part of two hours. With breaks out of the water to warm up and see if the dolphins were still interested in playing, it felt like a whole day. It was mesmerizing to lay face down in the water with your snorkel up and watch as dozens of them swam by underneath. If you caught one’s eye you could start going in a tight spiral and it would follow you around and around and around and around, switching directions and pace. They always won that game though.
Grape harvester in action!
Our neighbors were some very rambunctious calves and some completely over it mothers calling them constantly from playing far away.
Some of us may have gotten seasick while actually swimming in the ocean, a heretofore unobserved medical phenomenon. (Featuring: goggle impression)
Apparently, these dolphins feed at night and spend most of the day playing and micro napping. Jealous.
3/23
3/23:
Our drive down to Christchurch was beautiful, and we saw many seabirds and seals (sea lions? I don’t know the difference). I thought I spotted some penguins in a section of road we couldn’t really pull over on, but I don’t have picture or confirmation they could be in that area. We enjoyed a wonderful vegetarian Chinese meal around the corner from our motel and a last NZ red in the room before our impending travels.
