The Marlborough region is located at the north of the South Island. For us it was our last stop before crossing the Cook Strait to the North Island. Here we planned to explore the Marlborough Sounds and taste the famous Sauvignon Blancs from the Marlborough Wine Region.
Our travels in this part of New Zealand started with the Marlborough Sounds, a maze of peaks, bays and beaches, formed when the sea flooded deep river valleys after the last ice age.
We drove from Havelock to Linkwater along Kenepuru Sound observing the fantastic views, staying for two nights at Smiths Farm Holiday Park. From here we lunched at the Mussel Pot in Havelock, gorging on delicious steamed and grilled green mussels, the largest we’ve ever seen! Havelock is the green mussel capital of the world.
We also walked the last part of the Queen Charlotte Track, a 70 km trail offering gorgeous coastal scenery from Ship Cove to Anakiwa. Our walk was a gentle 6km from Anakiwa to Davey’s Bay. Another cloudy drizzly day. We are getting very used to the New Zealand summer! Dave was particularly pleased to visit Davey’s Bay.
Later that same night we did a thirty minute walk from Smiths Farm Holiday Park to a waterfall and glow worm dell. We ventured out at 8.45pm with our head torches and walked up through fields and thick woodland at the back of the farm in diminishing light. By the time we reached the waterfall it was dark so we retraced our steps through the woodland. By now it had come alive with magical glowworms. Glowworms are the larvae of the fungus gnat. The larva glowworm has luminescent organs that produce a soft greenish light. Living in a sort of hammock suspended from an overhang, it weaves sticky threads that trail down and catch unwary insects attracted by the light. The insects get stuck to the threads – and the glowworm just has to reel them in for a feed.
From the Sounds we moved on to the Marlborough wine region. This area is famous for its white wines, mostly Sauvignon Blancs, but also produces some lighter reds as well.
We did a wine tour by bicycle, fun for everybody (at least that was the plan). We were all looking forward to today, cycling and wine tasting, what could be better.
Our start time was 11am so we arrived early to get our bikes and map of the vineyards. Unfortunately for us it was now drizzling with rain. This is a self guided tour so after ten minutes of vineyard information we were off, clad in our rain gear.
In all we toured five different wineries tasting wine in each. While Dave and I tasted Sauvignon Blancs, Pinot Gris, Rieslings, Pinot Noirs, and even a Gruner Veltliner, the boys watched and listened, getting a sniff or a swirl every now and again. The boys are going to be wine experts by the time they are old enough to drink it! In between wine tastings it was back on our bikes for a short ride to the next winery.
By lunchtime the drizzle had turned to heavy rain and now the cycling wasn’t so much fun anymore. Lunch was booked at Wairau River Winery and here we enjoyed seafood chowder and a bottle of cold Sauvignon Blanc. We soldiered on, getting absolutely soaked every time we took to our bikes and sporting rather fetching black poncho’s! Cycling around the vineyards was meant to be a fun day for us all but it ended up being a very wet soggy experience.
We do however, have several excellent bottles of wine to drink before moving onto Fiji, so life is pretty good!
WHERE WE STAYED
We spent two nights at the Smiths Farm Holiday Park, Linkwater, in the Sounds. This is a privately owned campsite perfect for families. We were greeted on our arrival with warm banana muffins, the only campsite to do this on our month long tour of New Zealand. The children were also given bags of animal feed for the sheep and goats on the site. There is also a lovely nighttime walk to a waterfall and glowworm dell which we would highly recommend.
We then spent a night at the Picton Top 10 Holiday Park before catching the ferry across to the North Island.
