BoomerGirl Diary

During our travels in New Zealand, we had driven through several wine producing areas on both the North and the South Islands. But, since we were driving, we had not stopped to do any wine tasting.

Now that we were settled into our temporary home, we began to look for opportunities to explore the vineyards around Christchurch. We chose to go on a wine tasting tour provided by Discovery Tours.

This afternoon trip left from Christchurch City Center and took us north to the Waipara Valley. Waipara currently produces about 90,000 cases of wine in an average year and claims to be one of the fastest expanding regions in New Zealand.

Our first stop was for a great lunch with several wines at the Waipara Springs Winery. Then we hopped back on the bus to visit Torlesse Wines, where the owner took extra time to explain the subtle differences in his various Rieslings.

Next we visited my favorite vineyard of the day, Mount Cass. The grapevines at this vineyard were planted in 1982, but the very friendly current owners have been running the place since 2002. I plan to watch for their wines when I get back home.

Our last stop was for a few final wines at Pegasus Bay, followed by coffee in their beautiful café.

One unexpected pleasure with our tour was that there were only five of us taking the trip on this afternoon. My husband and I were joined by three charming young women from Great Britain who were taking time off from their jobs at a local restaurant to expand their knowledge about wines. The three of them have been traveling around the world together, before, as one put it, “we all get office jobs and sit at a desk all day”. They came to New Zealand from Australia where they had also worked in various restaurants as they slowly made their way around that country. Despite our preconceived opinions about their young age, these three women were well informed, intelligent, kind and beautiful. They were some of the best traveling companions we had come across on our various tours.

Our next day trip out of Christchurch was to Akaroa. Akaroa is an old French whaling colony on the Banks Peninsula. We were told that when the original French explorers came to claim this area, they stopped at a British settlement further north first and accidentally let their plans become known to the locals. The British quickly sent out a group to claim the area first, while also stepping up the hospitality offered to the French visitors. When the French explorers sobered up and finally made their way to Akaroa, they found it already under a British flag. Most of them decided to stay anyway, and we can easily see why; it is a beautiful harbor.

Traces of the early French residents remain evident by the French flavor to the names of the streets and neighborhoods of this very picturesque town. There is no longer any whaling to support the economy of Akaroa, but it has been replaced by salmon farming, blue pearl farming and tourism.

We take a two-hour cruise around the harbor and are thrilled to see the endangered Hector’s dolphins, as well as little blue penguins, fairy terns and fur seals. Hector’s dolphins are among the world’s smallest dolphin, growing to about 4 feet long. They have a unique rounded (Mickey Mouse-ear shaped) dorsal fin, a white belly, and between their eyes and blowhole is a crescent-shaped black mark. Sometimes they are called the panda dolphin due to the striking black and white markings on their gray bodies. I think they are a very cute variety of dolphin, and I hope the efforts to reduce dolphin deaths in fishing nets and to protect their habitats are successful!

After our cruise, we enjoyed an excellent meal of the local salmon at the award-winning waterfront restaurant Bully Hayes. As for the third offering of blue pearls, we decided to pass up the opportunity to acquire any of these locally produced beauties, as they were pretty darned expensive.

Our bus ride back to Christchurch took us back along an exciting one-lane road along the top of the Port Hills for a scenic view of Lyttelton Harbor.

Next up is a trip south to see more penguins and hopefully the largest seabird, the albatross….