Wine Trail

After a quick drive to Napier, a lovely little town renowned for it’s amazing Art Deco architecture, we decided to stay there for a couple of nights and see if we could pick up some WWOOF work on our way to Christchurch.

For any New Zealand travellers in the audience, I would highly recommend the Napier Prison Backpacker’s Hostel. It’s a great place to spend a few nights; good clean facilities, very comfortable beds, and a whole lot of fun. Spending a night or two in the cells is pretty entertaining.

It only took a couple of phone calls for us to secure a WWOOF appointment at a really cute sounding place; we will be at a small hobby-type permaculture farm shepherded by a Swiss lady with a voice and accent that could immediately conjure boxes of Swiss chocolates wrapped with grosgrain ribbon. I’m quite intrigued by the presence of a hand-milked cow.

We left Napier a couple of days before our scheduled arrival at the WWOOF farm, as the farm is on the south island and it will take us at least a day’s travel to get across on the ferry. The Hawke’s Bay region is renowned for it’s wineries, and there were plenty of wineries along the Naiper-to-Wellington highway. We planned on stopping of at about eight or so wineries, but by the third winery I was completely hammered and Glen, despite diligently spitting out every mouthful of wine, was worried that if we visited any more cellars he was going to end up absorbing too much alcohol to continue driving. The first vineyard’s wine was nothing to write home about; pleasant but not particularly interesting. The second vineyard was quite a bit of fun; the woman conducting our wine tasting was a hoot, the wine was delicious, and the samples were generous. There were a couple of reds that I would have liked to purchase, but they were very costly and well outside our budget. At the third vineyard we came across a really fantastic dessert wine – the first dessert wine I’ve actually enjoyed – and a lovely Shiraz, so we bought a bottle of each.

Wine purchased and safely stowed, we stopped for lunch at a highway eatery known as The Chook and the Filly. If you are ever driving the South Highway 50, stop by this place and have a meal. Actually, if you are planning on driving the SH2, change your plans and take the SH50 instead just so you can stop at this place. The food is mouth-watering, the prices are reasonable, and the proprietor is a great man to talk to about the wines you have (or are about to) sample.

The remainder of the drive was quite uneventful, and we spent the night in Paraparaumu at the Barnacles Seaside Inn YHA hostel. This is another place that I will add to my list of recommended accommodations. It is very, very homey and comfortable. The kitchen is a little small, but the delightful dining room/TV room more than makes up for it, and it meets my cleanliness standards.