22nd December 2009
Tonight we’ve been invited to Sarah and Hayden’s house in Christchurch for a BBQ and to stay the night. Since we’ve got to do a big shop for over Christmas and had run out of stuff for breakfast yesterday, this morning we treated ourselves to a full cooked breakfast at the Powerhouse Cafe - bloody gorgeous.
To walk off the aforementioned gluttony we headed up to Conical Hill, where a gently sloping path winds back and forth up the hill to a viewpoint at the top. The views from here were amazing, you really see how flat the plains are surrounded by mountains on all sides with the little town of Hamner nestled directly in front of you.
Then it was time to head to Christchurch. To break the journey, and because we hadn’t managed to do any tasting in Blenheim we decided to call into some wineries in the Waipara Valley. Again, white wines dominate in this region, but we were in no rush so we thought we’d see what was on offer.
Our first stop was the The Mud House, a massive stone building right on the highway. They have vineyards in the Waipara Valley but also in Central Otago and Marlborough. The lady doing the tasting with us wanted us to try some whites before we moved onto the Pinot Noir. I think she saw us as a bit of a challenge and gave us some Sauvignon Blanc to try as we prefer the crisp, dry whites. The SB was ok, but then she gave us some of their Riesling and we really liked it, fresh, dry and very light - very drinkable especially in the summer. To the contrary, we didn’t really like their Pinot Noir, coming from the big cabernets and shirazs of the world, it was a bit weedy - apparently it’s an elegant wine - which explains why it’s not our cup of tea better than anything else I think!
So, us red drinkers ended up buying just a bottle of white - bizarre, but they also had 20% off until the end of December, so that was a lovely bonus :).
The lady at the Mud House recommended we try the Pegasus Bay winery a little further on. These guys do produce some bigger reds, mixing Cabernet grapes with Merlot and Malbec. The winery itself has an old-world ambience, set out like a French chateau and surrounded by a lovely garden. The wines we weren’t so impressed with, we tried their Cabernet Merlot and cabernet Malbec and their Pinot Noir, but nothing grabbed us so we left empty handed.
We arrived in Christchurch and decided to head out to the beach and read for a while before heading to Sarah and Hayden’s. Unfortunately though there was a very chilly breeze blowing across the beach, so we retreated back to the car and headed for the supermarket to buy some supplies.
We spent a wonderful evening with Hayden and Sarah and their lovely dog Ron, and cat Frank. It was still sunny so Hayden fired up the barbeque, a proper one with charcoal and everything, our first charcoal barbeque since being in NZ because they all seem to be gas. Sarah wizzed up a lovely potato and garden salad and we sat down to a fine meal, with great company, and yes, everything did taste better having been cooked on a proper barbeque - don’t think we’ll be switching to gas anytime soon.