Visit to Martinborough and the Wairarapa

We took the train to Featherston and met Simon, our guide for the day. Wairarapa is a special area of high quality vineyards and boutique wineries. The region is especially known for Pinot noir.



The grapes are just beginning to ripen with harvest not until April. Birds are a major pest so most of the vines were being covered in nets,


We met Karen who took us on a tour if the Murdoch James winery.





They also had a lovely garden, site of many weddings.


Lunch was at Posie a new restaurant and winery.


Ata Rangi is the oldest and a highly regarded winery in the Wairarapa.





TK was our last stop and after 4 wineries and wine at lunch it was hard to tell the pinots from the "sauvs!" Thank goodness Simon was driving.


Very last stop was an olive orchard for a tour and tasting. Yes, olives are grown in NZ but not too often. Olivo was an interesting enterprise and we were sorry we couldn't bring some flavored oils home.
BTW my favorite wine was a very different Chardonnay from the Cabbage Tree Winery. Al bought me a bottle which I just might bring home if we don't drink it first.
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Te Papa Tongarewa aka TePapa

This is the National Museum of NZ and the famous of all the country's museums.-it is centrally located on the waterfront and only a little more than 10 years old. So much to see...we went twice.





We had a delightful French gal as our guide.


Large, carved Maori welcoming gate.



Maori storehouse for food,


-central meeting house


In addition there was art and natural history displays including birds and mammals. the strangest item to us was a giant squid over 30' long caught in Antarctica and preserved and floating in a large tub.

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Wellington Botanical Garden

Between the top of the Cable Car and the CBD is a wonderful botanical garden which we visited several times.
It has a large Rose Garden.





Even more spectacular was a greenhouse filled with the most gorgeous tuberous begonias I have ever seen.





We both really enjoyed this lovely garden.





It had the best and most complete Herb Garden I have ever seen.


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Wellington

Wellington aka "Windy Wellington " is the capital of NZ located on the southern part of the north island. It is a port city situated on a very large bay surrounded Byatt hills. It has had many many earth quakes and the entire harbor area resulted from upheaval from a particularly large earthquake over 100 years ago.
Several times we have ridden the cable car up to a lovely area overlooking the city.












Other beautiful views are from the top Victoria Peak where we went by bus,










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Christchurch Rebuilding

Our OAT tour leader has lived his entire life in Christchurch and so we had heard much about the current situation prior to our arrival. NZ receives 15,000 (that's not a typo!) earthquakes a year. You may remember that in 2011 Christchurch had two major and many slightly smaller aftershocks which killed almost 200 and really devastated this 150 year old city. While billions have already been spent, much remains to be done. Bob told us that it will be many years until the city fully recovers.
Many buildings have already been demolished but we were all struck by how many remain empty awaiting the wrecking ball.
The taller building in the background is an empty hotel!


A very large parking garage awaiting demolition!


Site of some new construction...


The empty central police station..




The major shopping area was destroyed and await an investor to rebuild. Cleverly shipping containers have been transformed into coffee shops and popular stores.















This is a sculpture build from steel beams from a WTC building which is a memorial to all the firefighters especially those who lost their lives in 911.




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International Antarctic Centre

Christchurch is the major send off point for many countries conducting research in Antarctica. When we arrived in Christchurch we visited a "museum" which featured excellent displays and information about Antarctica.





The centre serves as a sanctuary for blue penguins that due to injury are not able to survive in the wild. These penguins are very small, maybe one foot tall, and much smaller than those we saw in Antarctica last year.

Feeding time....








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Flock Hill Station

On our way from Greymouth to Christchurch we went over Arthur Pass. We stopped at Flock Hill Station to visit a large sheep station.


This is the shearing shed.


Most of the wool from this place is sold to Smart Wool in the US. First we saw the 3 types of wool grown on these sheep...merino, hybrid and rommney.



Merino is both fine and strong.


Next we watched a sheep be shorn.





















After that we watched a shepherd muster the sheep using his dogs. He is 17 yrs old and very accomplished as a musterer. The dogs belong to him.








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