On leaving Abel Tasman, we drove to Nelson, en route to Marlborough.
Nelson is a known for its local arts and crafts and we arrived on Saturday when the colourful weekly market was in full flow. Buskers and vendors lived side by side.
We browsed the stalls (yes Dad a bit of mooching…:)) and bought some cheese, bread and pate for our evening meal from local artisan producers. Oh – and some wine 🙂
We then visited the cathedral before having a lovely lunch to prepare us for the rest of the drive to Marlborough.
Again, we eschewed a camper van for a lovely house set over looking the Wairau River vineyard. It had amazing views and was large and spacious.
Now you can’t come to Marlborough and not drink wine. Fortunately we are experts and so we embarked on a full day wine tour to sample what was on offer. Naturally, we had to start with the New Zealand classic – Cloudy Bay. Odie first drank this back in about 91 and we shared a bottle of Pelorus in 96 on Christmas Day in Malaysia. So it had to be done, and we weren’t disappointed 🙂
In total we visited six vineyards, some big some small – and it was amazing to see the number and types of wines they produce that aren’t sold in the UK.
Halfway, we stopped for lunch so that Sue was still able to stand for the afternoon session 🙂 🙂 We are not ashamed to say that we needed a little afternoon nap when we got back ! Fortunately we woke up in time to enjoy a bottle of Malbec that we picked up along the way !
And that concluded our Marlborough journey. Our time in New Zealand is unfortunately drawing to a close and we only have one more destination before heading home. So stay tuned for our last installmemt.