Marlborough District

Fresh off the boat in Picton, the entry to the islands and inlets of the Marlborough Sounds, we follow the Queen Charlotte Road to the small rural community of HAVELOCK, at the top of South Island – a great tourist destination and gateway into the many bays and sounds. The Green Shell Mussel Capital of the World, we had a delicious meal of Green Lipped Mussels at the Mussel Pot – along with lots of homemade bread to soak up the coriander, ginger, chili and coconut cream sauce. All paired nicely with Four Hawk Day Pinot Gris. Followed by crème brulee. Magnifique!

The hub of the famous Marlborough wine district, with abundant fields of grapes, vineyards and fine dining, is BLENHEIM – one of the sunniest towns in New Zealand. We especially enjoyed Lawson’s Dry Hills’ Pinot Gris and

the Wither Hills vineyard where we shared an amazing lunch: sourdough focaccia with pastrami, slow cooked beef cheeks, roasted carrots, triple cooked potatoes plus raspberry brulee for dessert. It really doesn’t get much better than this! And then we stopped for some MOA Brewing Company beer. A short walk from our hotel we worked off some of our lunch at Pollard Park - delightful, well-kept gardens with extensive flower beds, including a beautiful & fragrant rose garden in full bloom, a walking path with bridges along a meandering bubbling stream, and even giant sequoia trees.

Life is Good!
XOXOXOXO
Gma & Gpa

A little trivia: A “sound” refers to a large ocean inlet that is larger than a bay, deeper than a bight and wider than a fjord. Perfectly clear?
A little more trivia: Back in the 1850’s Blenheim was known as “The Beaver” or “Beaver Station”. Despite the fact that there’s never been a beaver in Blenheim, the town has adopted the dam thing as its unofficial mascot.
And MORE: A MOA is a giant flightless bird of NZ, similar but larger than an ostrich, weighing as much as 550 lb. Abundant in NZ for thousands, maybe millions of years, moas became extinct in the 1400’s, less than 200 years after the first humans settled here.