We'd spent night in a backpackers' (hostel) in Cromwell, a small town in Central Otago, right in the heart of what is becoming famed wine country. Well-renowned these days for its Pinot Noir. Interestingly, they're at about the same latitude (except in Southern Hemisphere) as Oregon, which might explain that.
We had a lovely chat with a local gold prospector (this area having revival of their late 19th C. gold rush) and his Israeli girlfriend before we hit the road. We hit the local iSite and got a few additional suggestions for wineries to visit and then headed to Bald Hills Winery in Bannockburn, a few miles south.
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I'd read about Bald Hills online a while ago while researching this trip, and read about a recent medal they won at a big Sydney wine competition. Followed the winery on Twitter and learned one of the owners is named Estelle! (like my sister) I really hoped to visit this particular winery to see two Estelles together (a rare name at home) and of course to try their award-winning pinot noir.
Estelle Hunt welcomed us, gave us tea and home baking, and a lovely wine tasting. We left with one bottle; sadly not more. Estelle mentioned she could "make a phone call" to get us an invite to Sam Neill's nearby winery - am now kicking myself that we didn't take her up on that! Oh well, if I see him kicking around Vancouver when he's back filming Alcatraz I can ask after his grapes..
We visited a couple more wineries, both quite nice and one of which was SO Napa Valley (right down to the charge for tasting). The second one, Wooing Tree, a new winery, was quite nice and they let us have a little picnic on their property in the sunshine.
Time to point ourselves towards the West Coast! It was a lovely drive over the Okanagan Valley-ish hills to Wanaka, which has very much become a "Queenstown lite". Penticton-like in its lake setting but much more geared to adventure tourism. It's crazy what you can drop big $$ here. Extreme bungy jumping, jetboats, parachuting, even taking controls of stunt planes. Yikes! Doesn't seem to be a litigious environment and the currency is favourable, so come on down, thrillseekers!
For the rest of us, there's always the scenery. I loved the winding mountain drives, even with the number of switchbacks and lack of shoulders. Anyone remember what the Slocan Valley roads were like in the 1970's? Kind of like that.
Weather was good, in any case, and we rolled into Haast township, on the West Coast, at nightfall. Very cranky/quirky hostel manager (who reminded me of older version of an old boyfriend, heh heh) who only had young women (and us) in the hostel. Invasion of the American and Euro women! Had lovely chat with a young blonde Swedish au pair girl. Insert your own joke here, dudes.. :) Always cool to chat with these young folks who are travelling and having time of their lives. Really takes me back and, surprisingly, they seems to enjoy some of my old stories. God bless 'em.
Well, time to sneak into bed. Estelle will already be sawing logs. Here's some pics from Thursday.
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