Renwick

Another sunny mid winter day. We are now in the heart of the Marlborough Wine area just west of Blenheim near Renwick. We are staying in a hotel with views over the vinyards.

 This morning we took a bike ride along the Wairau river and ended up at Giesen Winery for lunch. After tasting virtually all their range of white wines and ate a large mixed vintage platter of meats fish shellfish, pate and cheese, we wobbled our way back to the hotel.

Queen Charlotte Sound at sunset

Entering Queen Charlotte Sound -just beautiful!

Interislander Ferry

Yesterday Roger finished working at Otaki Medical Centre and today we have left our digs in Waikanae and taken the Interislander Ferry accross Cook Straits from Wellington to Picton in the South Island.

A gloriously sunny day has made for a spectacular crossing.

Otaki Medical Centre -Weekend on Call

This weekend Roger has been on call for the medical centre, so Lindsay has gone off to Wellington to meet Avreal and Wilma for a girlie wekend.

Apart from a Saturday morning Clinic all fairly quiet on call so I have managed to do a cycle tour of Otaki Beach and the river estuary.

Waikanae Beach

This weekend we havent travelled very far. It was quite wet on saturday, however we met one of the other doctors at Otaki Medical Centre, Bert and his wife for a meal out at The Red House Cafe in Te Horo and were then invited back to their house to meet the rest of the family and watch the rugby international. As South Africans they were mostly on England's side against The All Blacks. Not the right result but a very enjoyable evening none the less.

Today is a lovely mild sunny winter's day. Lindsay has gone to do some Samaritans training so I cycled to the local swimming pool and later took a walk on the Beach.

Only three more weeks in Waikanae until we move down to the South Island!

Napier Cathedrel

Today before we left Napier we visited the cathedrel. The old cathedrel was lost in the earthquake and the new one is a fairly modern design. There is a link with Coventry as both original cathedrels were destroyed within a decade of each other. As a guesture of solidarity Coventry sent a simple cross made out of medieval nails from the original Coventry cathedral.

We were made very welcome at the cathedrel and even celebrated communion in a small chapel.

Napier

This week is a long weekend for the Queens birthday, so we have come to Napier, "The Art Deco Capital" and the centre of Hawkes Bay, a large wine production area. Yesterday we took a bike ride out fron the centre of Napier to Craggy Range Vineyards to have lunch, a 63 Km round trip! It rained the whole way there so we arrived in the quite smart Terroir Restaurant dripping muddy sweaty and probaby quite smelly. However the staff we fantastic a helped us dry out and warm up beside a large open log fire, whilst keeping the wine glasses filled up. We arrived back at the hotel at about 5pm tired but satisfied we had achieved the round trip in some adverse weather conditions.

Today holiday Monday we took a guided Art Deco bus tour of Napier. We were the only two on the tour so had personal service from the guide. We were shown examples of the pre 1932 earthquake architecture and the Art Deco style revival of the city post quake.

Finding an open restaurant tonight might be a challange as most seem shut for the holiday.