Hawke’s Bay on the eastern coast of the North Island had many bike trails. We bicycled thru Vineyards, along the Esplanade, and thru an estuary. As usual, paper maps are confusing to us and we got a little lost. We knew we were close to home but how close. We saw a police car at a Bakery (some things are universal) and decided to make the stop useful by asking for directions and also having a meat pie and pastry. It turned out that we were only a few miles from our accommodation. One of the wine estates was Alpha Domus which produces wines under three labels – AD Range, Alpha Domus Range and The Pilot Range. What caught David’s eye was the name of the wine bottles: First Solo Chardonnay; The Barnstormer Syrah; The Wingwalker Voignier;The Navigator; and The Aviatrix.
The next Lower North Island stop was Palmerston North, a small town in the southern central part of the north island. We stayed in a great B&B and made this day a catch up day, since we had great Internet. We also streamed two of the latest episodes of The Big Bang Theory. Driving thru town we saw a cinema and stopped to see what was playing. We saw Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. After the movie in the food court was a take away Roast Deli. These are delis that prepare different roasts such as: pork; lamb; and chicken, all with fresh home cooked veggies. We chose pork it was great.
The next day we headed to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, and the port city for taking the ferry to the South Island. We detoured a bit and drove to Martinborough to sample more wine. We tasted a Reisling, probably the best ever.
We had an apartment for the 4 days in Wellington. Our first task in Wellington was to search out a sports bar that would had ESPN so that we can watch the Denver – New England game at 9am Monday morning. We found a bar named Chicago that opened earlier than normal to allow fellow Americans to watch the game.
We toured the Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa, the national museum and art gallery. A great museum and a must do if in Wellington. Some of the exhibits showed maps of NZ with all the fault lines; another was the earthquake house a motion simulation of an aftershock earthquake felt in 1987.
On the Eve of the game we took a tour of the Weta Workshop. Weta Workshop is a multi-award winning conceptual design and physical manufacturing facility servicing the world’s entertainment and creative industries. Some of the best known for the company’s design and effects work on award-winning film projects, including Lord of the Rings Trilogy, King Kong, Avatar, District 9, The Adventures of Tintin and The Hobbit. See our blog photos for some of their creations, sorry we were not able to take photos of their workshop.
The audience in the bar were split with fans cheering for their favorite team. We went back to our apartment after the game, prior the the end of the Seattle game we walked to a hotel located next to ours and watched the end of that game. Just as the game was finishing, the hotel was rolling and shaking, (which we thought were from Seattle fans) only to have experienced an 6.5 (severe) earthquake centered about 80 miles north of Wellington. But we were prepared having been shaken at the earthquake house exhibit at the New Zealand museum.
The next day we took the Bluebridge ferry crossing Cook Strait arriving in Picton 3 hours later.
