Posted by C.J. and Bri
All,
We arrived safely to Australia yesterday and are now happily exploring the city of Brisbane. Then we are headed north to Agnes Water, which is near the southernmost tip of the Great Barrier Reef.
As usual we are a bit behind with our posts. We still have a lot to say about New Zealand before focusing on Australia.
C.J. and Bri
Armed with our recommendations from Martin at Wai restaurant and a handful of phone numbers, we set out on Saturday morning to taste the best that Central Otago had to offer.
Here’s a little background on the region from Wikipedia:
At latitude 45º south, the Central Otago Wine Region is the most southerly wine producing region in the world. The vineyards are also the highest in New Zealand at 200 to 400 meters above sea level where they cling precariously to the steep slopes of lakesides and the edges of deep river gorges. Central Otago is a sheltered inland area with a continental microclimate characterised by hot, dry summers, short, cool autumns and crisp, cold winters.
Pinot noir is the leading grape variety in Central Otago, and is estimated to account for some 70% of plantings. The Pinot Noir variety is notoriously fickle and difficult to grow. Central Otago, however, with its combination of climate, terroir and determined winemaking appears to have the capacity to produce a world-class Pinot Noir that is increasingly sought-after. The grapes there are producing elegant wines with great aging potential that some experts believe will ultimately equal the best in the world.
We began our day at Peregrine Wines, which is the site of one of the most imposingly expensive looking tasting rooms we’ve yet seen. For some reason they built a huge metal and glass sail above the whole length of the tasting room and part of the winery. It’s inarguably cool looking, but the engineer in me couldn’t help it when the the tasting room host told us that it was intended to echo “the shape of a peregrine’s wing just as it takes flight”. My immediate response to him was, “Who told you that, an architect?”
It wasn’t until just now that I actually looked up Peregrine’s website and found this:
“It was recognised early on that the building would be important in reinforcing the Peregrine wine brand,” says architect Christopher Kelly, “and the canopy roof may be interpreted on a number of levels: a transformation reflecting the process the grapes go through, as the roof rises from its low gradient at the river end to the 25 degree slope at the woolshed end. On a more literal level some see it becoming one of the uprising rock reefs, which mark the ancient geology of the valley.”
I have yet to figure out why architects feel compelled to imbue meaning into every structure they come up with. Is it a peregrine’s wing? Or the transformation of grapes? Or maybe rock reefs? It does my head in, I swear. I mean, Gustave Eiffel didn’t need to make up some nonsense about what a 1000 foot steel phallus was supposed to represent, and why not? Because Eiffel was an engineer, and probably never took the lessons in subjective nonsense they give art students and architects. Anyway, we liked Peregrine’s wine alright, but the whole place smelled of money (it’s owned by Sam Neill) which we are finding is often a bad sign when visiting a recently established winery. It means nobody’s had to work for anything. In a final bit of window dressing, we also found out that the barrels lining the below-ground tasting room were full of water, and therefore just for show.
I should have mentioned this earlier, but the Central Otago wine region encompasses several different sub-regions. Starting furthest west and heading east and south, they are: Gibbston Valley, Cromwell Bannockburn, Clyde, and Alexandria. We were hoping to meet with someone at Felton Road early in the day, so after Peregrine we headed directly into the heart of Bannockburn.
Bannockburn is a strange looking place for vineyards to exist. Gold sluicing in the late 1800’s washed away huge amounts of the surrounding hills and left behind man-made formations in landscape that look a lot like parts of New Mexico and Arizona.
Felton Road was closed, so our next stop was Olssens, followed soon after by Mt. Difficulty. We were impressed with both wineries, and the stars and exclamation points beside several of their wines in our notes reflect that.
We next tried to visit Bald Hills, which was one of Martin James’ major recommendations, but a sign by the gate said “Closed- Tastings By Appointment Only”, so we went down the street to Carrick Wines, tasted their wine, and then placed a call to Bald Hills. Martin had mentioned the name “Estelle”, so when an older female voice answered my call, I took a guess and asked, “Hello, is this Estelle?” When she confirmed that it was her, I introduced myself and explained briefly what it was we were up to. Estelle invited us to stop in, and five minutes later we were tasting Bald Hills’ wine in the kitchen in the welcoming home of Blair and Estelle Hunt. After some delicious wines and delightful conversation, I asked Estelle who their winemaker was, and she answered with a name that we’d already heard from Martin: Grant Taylor. We didn’t know it then, but the name and the man would soon become synonymous in our minds with Central Otago.
Martin had given us Grant’s name and number as someone we should definitely try to meet while in Otago, and based on our enjoyment of his work at Bald Hills, we had to agree. From the Hunt’s home we rang Grant and soon set an appointment with him the following afternoon. We thanked Estelle for accommodating us and then stopped by Akarua Winery, Rockburn Wines, and Aurum Wines, enjoying different wines at each place.
Outside Aurum Wine’s tasting room
Our last stop of the day was at Amisfield Wine Company, whose reassuring motto of “Grown Not Made” was reinforced by a large selection of interesting and tasty releases. Starting like we’d began the day, the engineer in me couldn’t help but notice the lovely old timber scissor trusses supporting the roof of the building. I can appreciate any structure for its aesthetic value, but I really love when they actually do something, too.
After a pleasant dinner involving steamed green-lipped mussels and Jaws 2, we headed to bed and fell asleep wondering, like the A. A. Milne poem, what will tomorrow bring?
***
Grant Taylor, Total Winemaker
On Sunday afternoon we headed back out of Queenstown to the Gibbston Valley Wines, which Grant suggested would be a good meeting place and also happens to be one of his former employers. Not a man to burn bridges, he maintains strong relationships with Gibbston Valley Wines and many others- at one time or another he’s made for most of the wineries in the area.
When Grant arrived we made our introductions and then hopped into his truck for a short ride over to his Gibbston Valley vineyard. His other vineyard is located in Bannockburn, and it is only the grapes from these two vineyards that he uses to produce his single vineyard Pinot Noirs under the Valli Vineyards label. I’ve heard that French do not have a separate word for Winemaker and Grape Grower- ideally, the two roles are indistinguishable. There are some winemakers who arrive in a winery just before harvest and make wine from the grapes they are given, and there are grape growers whose involvement with the end result ends as soon as the grapes are picked, but the total winemaker understands that great wine begins in the vineyard and ends in the glass, and by that definition Grant Taylor is among the first total winemakers that we’ve met so far.
I don’t think Grant would argue with my characterization. After all, it was his desire to produce single vineyard Pinot Noir showcasing the place where the grapes were grown (terroir alert!) that led him to leave behind jobs at larger wineries for a place where his control over the finished product is absolute.
Coincidentally, Grant happens to represent yet another of the Oregon-New Zealand connections we’ve found while here. He helped build and has handled several vintages at Archery Summit, a premier Pinot Noir producer located in the Dundee Hills of the Willamette Valley (what was that I said about money?), and knows Portland well.
We arrived at his vineyard and were given a short tour of the property before entering a well used (and historically protected) work shed on the property for a private tasting of Valli’s 2004 Bannockburn Vineyard Pinot Noir and 2005 Gibbston Valley Pinot Noir. Grant offhandedly mentioned that in 2005 he did not think his Waitaki grapes were good enough and decided to sell them to another winery rather than produce a vintage that year. The same was true of his Bannockburn grapes in 2004. The comment struck Brianne and I as a great testament to Grant’s ideas about quality- no one else we’ve met has every presented not producing a vintage one year as an option.
All things being equal, Valli’s 2005 Gibbston Valley Pinot Noir is easily in the top two Pinot Noirs that we’ve tried in New Zealand or anywhere else, and I can’t easily decide what the other one would be. Grant has big plans for Valli, and having met the man, I have little doubt that they’ll be realized. The $50 bottle of his wine we later saw in Christchurch was a challenge to leave at the wine shop, but budgets and backpacks limit how much wine we get to take with us to our next destination.
Inside Gibston Valley Wines’ Cave
After our tasting Grant drove us back to Gibbston Valley Wines where we joined a tour of their man-made cave, tasted lots of good wine and shared a delicious cheese tray including a delicious local sheep’s milk cheese called Hokonui. While standing in the tasting room a man approached us and said “Here are some familiar faces”. We didn’t recognize him, but he explained that he and his wife had seen us tasting wine at Mt. Difficulty the previous afternoon. “We noticed you writing notes in that little book of yours,” he said with a laugh, “and looking very serious”. It hadn’t occurred to us that keeping a record would make us stand out, but it’s true that we have yet to see anyone else writing notes at any tasting room we’ve visited. We explained a bit about our goals and gave the man one of ours, said goodbye, and headed for the last winery we’d visit in the area, Chard Farm.
Set back along a steep and narrow gravel road that used to be the wagon route to Queenstown, Chard Farm offered more of the high quality Pinot Noir that we’d quickly come to expect from the Central Otago. Central Otago’s combination of dramatic setting and consistently high quality ended up winning my vote for favorite wine region in New Zealand. The self-confidence exhibited by wine producers in the region is a result of good wine rather than good marketing, and there seems to be an understanding that Central Otago’s geographically limited room for growth will require a quality over quantity approach in the future.
Chard Farm
It was late afternoon when we drove back to Queenstown and returned our rental car, and then spent the rest of the day walking around the waterfront. During our time in Queenstown we’d gotten in contact with Kim Rayner at Torlesse Wines in Waipara, and were planning to come and work for him later in the week. But before that we’d first head for Milford Sound, next to Dunedin and finally to Kaikoura, a sleepy beach town situated on the east coast of the south island. After that a few days of work in Waipara would be followed by a few days of rest in Christchurch, and then we’d leave New Zealand altogether and fly to Australia. For people without a home or jobs, we always seem to have an awful lot to do.
Armed with our recommendations from Martin at Wai restaurant and a handful of phone numbers, we set out on Saturday morning to taste the best that Central Otago had to offer.
Here’s a little background on the region from Wikipedia:
At latitude 45º south, the Central Otago Wine Region is the most southerly wine producing region in the world. The vineyards are also the highest in New Zealand at 200 to 400 meters above sea level where they cling precariously to the steep slopes of lakesides and the edges of deep river gorges. Central Otago is a sheltered inland area with a continental microclimate characterised by hot, dry summers, short, cool autumns and crisp, cold winters.
Pinot noir is the leading grape variety in Central Otago, and is estimated to account for some 70% of plantings. The Pinot Noir variety is notoriously fickle and difficult to grow. Central Otago, however, with its combination of climate, terroir and determined winemaking appears to have the capacity to produce a world-class Pinot Noir that is increasingly sought-after. The grapes there are producing elegant wines with great aging potential that some experts believe will ultimately equal the best in the world.
We began our day at Peregrine Wines, which is the site of one of the most imposingly expensive looking tasting rooms we’ve yet seen. For some reason they built a huge metal and glass sail above the whole length of the tasting room and part of the winery. It’s inarguably cool looking, but the engineer in me couldn’t help it when the the tasting room host told us that it was intended to echo “the shape of a peregrine’s wing just as it takes flight”. My immediate response to him was, “Who told you that, an architect?”
Or, How To See The South Island’s West Coast In A Day
Click Here For All The Fox Glacier Pics!
Click Here For All The West Coast Pics!
At around 2 a.m. a duo of drunk German teenage boys woke up everyone in our hostel with a cacophany of door slams, laughing, and conversation. It was bad enough being near the room they were staying in, but we felt really terrible for the people sharing a dorm room with them.. Eric, the older gentleman we’d met earlier in the day, Chrystelle, the French girl we’d met after dinner, and another woman.
In the morning we shot the Germans dirty looks and chatted with everyone else during breakfast. Then we gathered our bags and took a shuttle to Fox Glacier village about 45 minutes away. We arrived at the hostel we would be staying in too early to check in, so we locked up our bags in storage and began walking up the road towards Fox Glacier. Shortly after reaching the glacier access road a Swiss couple picked us up and gave us a ride the rest of the way to the carpark. Then we followed a path deeper into the gigantic valley and rounded a bend to reveal Fox Glacier, a mass of blue ice that seemed to glow from within, but was really illuminated by the bright spring sun that had been almost totally absent at Franz Josef Glacier.
We hiked closer, and I found my self marveling once again on the size of the formation before us, the fact that it was in motion, and that at different times over the last century, it’s terminal face had been located far beyond the carpark.
Just as with Franz Josef, a rope barrier had been set up a significant distance from the glacier, and just as with Franz Josef, I found myself drawn closer to it than I was supposed to go. It was like Roy Neary in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In particular I was interested in photographing a fin of ice jutting out from the rest of the wall that was collecting the sunlight through it into a spectacular sliver of white, and I just couldn’t get the shot from where everyone else was standing. I always feel a bit conspicuous when I’m forced to leave the tourist herd to get a photo that I want, but I also know I’ll regret it if I don’t, so I jumped the ropes and gingerly walked a couple hundred feet closer to the glacier, got the shot I wanted, and then headed back to the safety of the nylon rope barrier.
For essentially being a big ice cube, glaciers have presence. They covered the Earth once and they probably will again (regardless of what Al Gore says), and standing so close to a dynamic natural phenomena of that scale brings to mind the George Carlin line about humans being as insignificant to the planet as fleas on a dog’s back. But that perspective doesn’t change how good the glacier-chilled air rolling down into the valley feels in the warmth of the late morning sun.
Or, How To See The South Island’s West Coast In A Day
Click Here For All The Fox Glacier Pics!
Click Here For All The West Coast Pics!
At around 2 a.m. a duo of drunk German teenage boys woke up everyone in our hostel with a cacophany of door slams, laughing, and conversation. It was bad enough being near the room they were staying in, but we felt really terrible for the people sharing a dorm room with them.. Eric, the older gentleman we’d met earlier in the day, Chrystelle, the French girl we’d met after dinner, and another woman.
In the morning we shot the Germans dirty looks and chatted with everyone else during breakfast. Then we gathered our bags and took a shuttle to Fox Glacier village about 45 minutes away. We arrived at the hostel we would be staying in too early to check in, so we locked up our bags in storage and began walking up the road towards Fox Glacier. Shortly after reaching the glacier access road a Swiss couple picked us up and gave us a ride the rest of the way to the carpark. Then we followed a path deeper into the gigantic valley and rounded a bend to reveal Fox Glacier, a mass of blue ice that seemed to glow from within, but was really illuminated by the bright spring sun that had been almost totally absent at Franz Josef Glacier.
We hiked closer, and I found my self marveling once again on the size of the formation before us, the fact that it was in motion, and that at different times over the last century, it’s terminal face had been located far beyond the carpark.
Just as with Franz Josef, a rope barrier had been set up a significant distance from the glacier, and just as with Franz Josef, I found myself drawn closer to it than I was supposed to go. It was like Roy Neary in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In particular I was interested in photographing a fin of ice jutting out from the rest of the wall that was collecting the sunlight through it into a spectacular sliver of white, and I just couldn’t get the shot from where everyone else was standing. I always feel a bit conspicuous when I’m forced to leave the tourist herd to get a photo that I want, but I also know I’ll regret it if I don’t, so I jumped the ropes and gingerly walked a couple hundred feet closer to the glacier, got the shot I wanted, and then headed back to the safety of the nylon rope barrier.
For essentially being a big ice cube, glaciers have presence. They covered the Earth once and they probably will again (regardless of what Al Gore says), and standing so close to a dynamic natural phenomena of that scale brings to mind the George Carlin line about humans being as insignificant to the planet as fleas on a dog’s back. But that perspective doesn’t change how good the glacier-chilled air rolling down into the valley feels in the warmth of the late morning sun.
We began walking back to the village and soon passed a a small mirror smooth lake that had florescent green algae covering the bottom in psychedelic lava lamp patterns- yet another thing we’d never seen anything like.
A small white car passed us as we continued towards the village, and the driver inside waved. It was Chrystelle, the French girl we’d met in Franz Josef. The car continued up the road to Fox Glacier and we continued walking back to our hostel, but just as we reached the village Chrystelle’s car appeared again. She pulled over to the side of the road and asked us what our plans were.
In truth, we had no plans. We had intended to stay the night near Fox Glacier only because the bus schedule along the west coast is very limited, and the bus south to Queenstown left Fox Glacier before our shuttle had arrived.
Chrystelle told us that she was planning to drive to Lake Wanaka that day, and to Queenstown the next, and did we want to come along? Brianne and I looked at each other for a moment, shrugged, and said, “Sure!” Within minutes we were checked out of the hostel in Fox Glacier Village and I was stuffed beside all of our bags in the backseat of Chrystelle’s Ford Laser GS (it was an Escort). We had been told by Mark and Stephen in Wellington that the best way to see the west coast was in a car so that we could hop out and explore wherever we wanted and were not limited to bus routes, and here, suddenly, was the chance to do that.
Brianne sat beside Chrystelle and as we zoomed south I swear I heard the ghost of Jack Kerouac whisper “Go, man, go!” This is what I traveling should be, I thought- free of reservations made two weeks in advance and full of seized opportunities. It marked the first time on the trip so far that I felt the delicious uncertainty of not knowing where you’ll spend the night, not knowing who you’ll meet or what you’ll see, but confident in the fact that in the end everything will turn out better than could have been planned. It’s an incredible feeling I haven’t had much of since a solo road trip around the country at age 18, and it’s that feeling that I believe distinguishes traveling from vacationing.
Our first stop was Lake Matheson, where we hiked around the whole perimeter of the lake and were treated to many wonderful views of Mt. Cook and Mt. Tasman. We chatted about French and English, and Chrystelle revealed that although she had studied English in school, she didn’t actually speak it when she arrived in New Zealand nine months earlier. We complemented her on her progress. With the exception of some vocabulary, we had no major problems understanding her or being understood. After our walk we ate lunch at a nearby café and talked about our plans. We looked all around with delight smiling as though we’d just been told a very clever joke. It was like we were sitting at the bottom of an enormous bowl made of mountains and filled with sunshine. “Beautiful life!” said Chrystelle.
When Brianne went to order a coffee I asked Chrystelle if her family had encouraged her to travel. She told me that most of them were, but that she had one cousin who told her it was a bad idea, and dangerous, but that they had never been anywhere. I told her I thought it was tragic that fear prevents people from finding out the secret we’d discovered. “I think,” Chrystelle replied, “that… people need a…” She struggled to find the right expression and then continued, “a foot on the bottom.” Chrystelle gestured for emphasis. By now Brianne had returned, and we agreed that sometimes everyone needs a kick in the ass to get motivated.
The remainder of the day was a endless parade of fantastic sights. We’ve visited Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Arches, Canyonlands, and driven Highway 1 through California, but the stretch of road between Fox Glacier and Lake Wanaka is easily the most beautiful I’ve ever been on. Part of it is the incredible amount of diversity of landscape. You start at a massive glacier, wind through serrated mountains out to the rugged coast and then back inland between Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawae, where thousand foot cliffs plunge directly into the water below.
There are other sights to see along the way, like the house sized boulders forming the gates of Haast and the blue pools that can be reached only by crossing a shaky steel rope bridge, à la Indiana Jones. In fact, that was whose theme I was humming as I raced across its bouncing planks as fast as I could.
It’s not every day that you’re treated to mindblowing vistas and discoveries literally every 20 minutes, so a day like that burns itself into your memory pretty deep. As we reached the town of Lake Wanaka at the southernmost point of the lake, we were treated one more sight to remember- a tranquil mountain sunset reflected across the water.
We found rooms available at The Purple Cow, a clean and well run hostel that also happened to be where Eric (our friend from Franz Josef) was staying the night. We greeted him and then went to get cleaned up for dinner with Chrystelle. Since none of us felt like cooking, we went out to a nearby Indian restaurant with excellent food and an atmosphere made somewhat surreal by a big screen TV over the kitchen that was showing a Bollywood version of the bizarre Korean revenge flick Ong-Bak. Chrystelle gave us her address back home and offered to have us stay with her while in France. After dinner we walked back to our hostel through the chillingly cold but quiet streets of the small town. Stars sparkled overhead, and though the setting was lovely, we were eager to continue south to Queenstown and beyond.
The following morning I drove Chrystelle’s car from Lake Wanaka past Queenstown to Glenorchy for more stunning mountain views and an afternoon snack at a nearby café. As she had done after every meal, Chrystelle rolled a cigarette to go with her cappuccino. The bag of tobacco was labeled as being “mellowed with rum and wine”, and the resulting smoke was not unpleasant. Heading back to Queenstown, Chrystelle dropped us off at our hotel and we wished each other well, promising to keep in touch. I have no doubt that we will see her again when we make it to France in September.
It was now Friday afternoon, and we decided that the best thing to do would be to rent a car for a couple of days and explore the surrounding area, especially the Central Otago wine region just east of Queenstown. We walked through the small but fast growing town, stopping in to interesting looking shops and reading menus at restaurants. One restaurant overlooking the water, Wai, was especially proud of its wine list, so we went inside and got some winery recommendations from Martin James, the restaurant’s head chef and owner. Martin even provided us with names and contact numbers of winemakers who were not on the winery map we had (available at all the tourist information centers), and the first thing we did after picking up our rental car was start calling them. We had had a great time during our wine hiatus through the Abel Tasman and Westlands National Parks, but we were also happy to return to the focus of the trip with a visit to Central Otago, a wine region famous for its Pinot Noir.
Queenstown
We’re spending a week working in Waipara, a wine region that is north of Christchurch and makes some very delicious Pinot Noir and Riesling.
We’re a bit behind in posts… since last time we’ve tasted all over Central Otago, met some really interesting wine people, visited Dunedin (home of Cadbury Chocolate and Emerson Beer), visited Christchurch, visited Kaikoura and scored a free fishing trip, ate a lobster, and headed to where we are now.
Since we’re spending the last few days of our time in New Zealand at a place with free internet access, we should be able to catch up on posts and pictures by the time we head for Australia next week.
We hope everyone is doing good.
Click Here For All The Franz Josef Glacier Pics!
Our morning bus to Franz Joseph Glacier left Nelson at 7:45 in the morning and did not arrive to our hostel until shortly after 5. Strangely, the full day on the bus seemed to pass faster than many 10 hour fights we’ve been on. Brianne listened to music and slept while I blew through Gold Rush, the surprisingly informative story of a young wagon driver and gold prospector in 1850’s Australia who also, according to the back cover, “beds shielas from Melbourne to Brisbane”.
Although we packed along many great works of literature by big names like James Joyce and Henry James, something about our transient lifestyle has prevented me from digging into them. Instead I’ve has ended up reading trashy romance novels and the lesser works of Dan Brown, which are much more suitable to the pick up and drop nature of traveling. I’m currently reading a collection of short stories by Joseph Conrad as a way to kind of ramp up to actual literature.
When we arrived in Franz Joseph the rain and fog was waiting for us, and the sun was already fading as we walked around the two road village and got our bearings. We stopped into the visitor’s center and read the weather report:
Today: Rain.
Wednesday: Light rain in the morning, heavy rain in the afternoon.
Thursday: Clear in the morning, with rain starting by early evening.
Friday: Rain.
We were planning to visit the Franz Joseph Glacier (barely visible from outside the visitor’s center) the following morning and then move on to Fox Glacier on Thursday morning, so at least the weather would be good for one of them.
Back at the hostel we made dinner and watched part of The Two Towers, comparing and contrasting the places we’d seen with those showcased in the film. The day before in Nelson we’d visited the permanent home of “The One Ring”- the modest shop of the New Zealand jeweler who had created it for the films, Jens Hansen. We may be huge geeks but we’re not all that proud of it, so we were nonchalant while browsing around the shop. Actually, many of other creations were extremely original and pretty, including a series of rings containing a resin “window” allowing you to see interior of them. It’s hard to explain, so here’s a picture of one. In any case, the shopkeeper offered for Brianne to try one on and later, outside, we realizied how she should have replied:
Shopkeeper: Here.
[handing the ring to Brianne]
Brianne: No.
Shopkeeper: Just try it on to see how it looks.
Brianne: You cannot offer me this ring!
Shopkeeper: I’m giving it to you!
Brianne: Do not tempt me! Understand that I would use this ring from a desire to do good. But through me… it would wield a power too great and terrible to imagine.
Like I said, huge geeks.
For some reason we were especially tired the first night at Franz Joseph despite doing nothing all day so we retired early and hoped for better weather in the days to come.
The following morning during breakfast we chatted with a middle-aged Greek couple and ended up getting a ride up to Franz Joseph Glacier with them, saving us over an hour of hiking beneath skies that looked like they were about to rain. We followed the stream of tourists from the carpark along a paved path leading to the glacier valley. After a few minutes the pavement ended and we continued on the path leading to the glacier. At first glance (and under cloudy skies) the glacier looks like an enourmous blob of dirty glue- it is not until getting much closer that its features become apparent, and this was our first experience with trying to photograph one of the many giant vistas along New Zealand’s west coast. When zoomed out enough to capture the whole scene the subject’s details become indistinct, but it’s impossible to zoom in without losing the context of the picture.
One of my favorite pictures of the day turned out to be one that was taken early. While we were walking we noticed a Buddhist monk nearby, his robes flapping widly in the strong breeze. Occasionally he would stop and narrate a bit to a friend with a videocamera, as though he was hosting his own travel show. At one point the monk began narrating near to where Brianne was standing for a photo, so I zoomed out and captured Brianne watching the monk talking to the videocamera and pointing at the glacier. Brianne’s blue North Face raincoat was a great contrast to the monk’s saffron robes, and both contrasted with the grey of their surroundings and the mass of ice in the background that had brought to two together.
Eventually we reached a yellow rope barrier where everyone was stopped and taking pictures. A few feet past the rope were large signs reading “DANGER, DO NOT PROCEED” and “INEXPERIENCED OR UNGUIDED PARTIES SHOULD NOT CONTINUE” along with four pictoral representations of the ways that moving beyond the ropes could kill you:
1. Rocks could fall on you.
2. Ice could fall on you.
3. You could drown.
4. Rocks or ice could fall in the river, creating a mini-tsunami and washing you away.
Of course, we quickly determined alternative interpretations of the signs:
1. Giant chocolate chip cookies.
2. Giant white chocolate and macadamia nut cookies.
3. The water will only reach your waist.
4. Surf’s up!
The distance from the ropes the glacier was about 400 meters (a quarter mile), and although photographing the glacier from that far away seemed extremely limiting, we remained behind the ropes until a guide walked up and opened them wide for a small tour group of senior citizens, outfitted only in sneakers and sweatshirts to move through. We joined the group as they gathered closer to the water and glacier than anyone else had dared, and that’s when we noticed a path leading up to an aluminum ladder.
Guided hikes on New Zealand’s glaciers are a major source of income in the areas where they’re located. For $95 to $175 dollars the tours will outfit you in parkas, snowpants, boots and crampons (boot spikes) and guide you up for the best view you can get without a helicopter, which is another popular option for sightseers. Before donning the jackets and crampons, however, the group must climb a short aluminum ladder up a granite face and walk over to the glacier, because the boulder that the ladder is attached to provides a natural barrier to unguided tourists less daring than ourselves.
We considered each of the warning signs and decided that since we would not get close enough to the glacier for anything to fall on us and would not get close enough to the river to be swept away, we felt comfortable ascending the ladder and making our way closer to the glacier than anyone else was choosing to go. As we milled around with the seniors we saw a group heading up to the ladders and decided to try following them. In an effort to minimize risk as well as protect their livelihoods, the tour guides had hung a long piece of wood about 16 inches wide by 4 feet long to prevent the ladder from being used by, well, people like us. We watched as the guide climbed the ladder halfway, lifted the board from its hooks and then carried it to the top. As his tour group began climbing the ladder we silently joined the queue.
For the record, we had no intention of actually climbing on the glacier wearing only fleeces and hiking boots. But the laws in New Zealand are very clear- you’re allowed to go wherever you want with the understanding you’re responsible for whatever happens if you do. No tour guide has the authority to say where you can and cannot go, but this did not stop the first tour guide from trying to do so. As the last member of his group reached the top the guide began placing the slat back in place, and I called out to wait a moment. He refused, and then said, “Don’t come up here, man. Do not come over here.” Although I knew the law I decided not to push it, so we waited 5 minutes for the next group of climbers to arrive, hopped into line with them, and were soon on the other side of the boulder. The second guide did not say a word.
Now separated from the rest of the unguided tourists by several hundred feet, we found a prime location at the top of a rock pile and sat down to eat lunch. As the sun was intermittently broke through the cloud cover it illuminated the ice and provided me with photos not possible from behind the ropes. We could hear low creaking and occasionally small pieces of rock and ice would crash to the valley floor from high above. It began to rain again as we finished lunch, and I crept laterally to a spot nearer to the ice cave from which the river of runoff flowed. Just as I turned towards Brianne to take her picture, the largest piece of ice yet fell from the cave’s ceiling and crashed into the water below. I only heard and felt it, but Brianne actually saw it happen.
The rain began to fall much harder as we made our way back up the hill, down the ladder, and out of the valley. We felt fortunate that the weather had held the whole time we had been there- and sorry for everyone stuck on an overpriced, foggy, wet and chilling glacier tour, and even those on their way to the rope barriers. The clouds continued to descend and by early afternoon the glacier was barely visible at all.
Back at our hostel, there was little to do but watch movies, read, and make arrangements for our next destination. At its best, a hostel enviroment is something resembling a family of strangers. We began noticing this that afternoon while watching the Ron Howard thriller Ransom (our antidote to Patch Adams, inarguably the worst film ever made). When we began the movie the only people present were me, Brianne, and Eric, an older gentlemen from California who looked like every social studies teacher you’ve ever had. As time went on more and more people came in and sat down, eventually including two Germans, two Italians, a French woman and an Chinese girl. During the tense climax of the film Eric had fallen asleep and was snoring loudly, causing the Chinese girl to giggle affectionately and Brianne to note how much the scene reminded her of a strange family reunion. This feeling only intesifies during dinnertime, when everyone is preparing meals in the shared kitchen, chatting and laughing like good friends.
After dinner we chatted with a young Irish couple and a 24-year-old French girl named Chrystelle and then headed to bed, and fell asleep hoping that the weather predictions calling for clear skies would hold true as we headed south to Fox Glacier.
Click Here For All The Franz Josef Glacier Pics!
Our morning bus to Franz Joseph Glacier left Nelson at 7:45 in the morning and did not arrive to our hostel until shortly after 5. Strangely, the full day on the bus seemed to pass faster than many 10 hour fights we’ve been on. Brianne listened to music and slept while I blew through Gold Rush, the surprisingly informative story of a young wagon driver and gold prospector in 1850’s Australia who also, according to the back cover, “beds shielas from Melbourne to Brisbane”.
Although we packed along many great works of literature by big names like James Joyce and Henry James, something about our transient lifestyle has prevented me from digging into them. Instead I’ve has ended up reading trashy romance novels and the lesser works of Dan Brown, which are much more suitable to the pick up and drop nature of traveling. I’m currently reading a collection of short stories by Joseph Conrad as a way to kind of ramp up to actual literature.
When we arrived in Franz Joseph the rain and fog was waiting for us, and the sun was already fading as we walked around the two road village and got our bearings. We stopped into the visitor’s center and read the weather report:
Today: Rain.
Wednesday: Light rain in the morning, heavy rain in the afternoon.
Thursday: Clear in the morning, with rain starting by early evening.
Friday: Rain.
We were planning to visit the Franz Joseph Glacier (barely visible from outside the visitor’s center) the following morning and then move on to Fox Glacier on Thursday morning, so at least the weather would be good for one of them.
Click Here For All The Marlborough Pics!
11.01.06
It was dinnertime when the ferry arrived in Picton, but since we didn’t want to assume that our hosts in Marlborough would be feeding us we picked up some fish and chips at one of several nearby shops and sat down to eat at a park overlooking the harbor. The mountains across from the bay were just starting to fade to hazy blue as we got back in our rental car and drove to the home of Willie and Linda Crosse, Marlborough vineyard owners who Chris had contacted on our behalf two weeks earlier. Because we were eager to reach Abel Tasman, we only ended up with one day to spend in Marlborough. Our inability to find work in the area was another reason that it turned out to be such a quick visit.
We were welcomed into the Crosse’s home with the same warm hospitality that has been shown to us throughout our time in New Zealand. Linda runs a Bed and Breakfast on their property, and the bright elegant bedroom overlooking the vineyard we were shown to was among the nicest places we’ve stayed so far on the trip.
Of the Crosse’s three sons only the youngest, Hugo, was home, and before dinner me and Hugo played touch rugby against Brianne and Willie (our American Football raised brains found the “no forward passes” rule extremely difficult to comply with). During dinner we chatted about wine and winemaking while sharing a very nice bottle of Churton Pinot Noir. Willie and Linda are growers only- like Chris and other vineyard owners we’ve met, they seem better attuned to the land and the methods they use than, say, a “hired gun” winemaker who prefers to spend as little time out as possible. After some discussion of sports in general and Cricket in particular, we said goodnight, again marvelling at the opportunities that present themselves when one is willing to simply ask.
11.02.06
We slept soundly in silence (a welcome change from hostels) and awoke the next morning to bright Marlborough sunshine. We assisted Linda and Willie with a couple of chores, and then headed off with a winery map of the region and a full itinerary. In other regions we’d visited time was less of a luxury and we could afford to visit only a couple of places each afternoon, but being in Marlborough for only one day created more of a checklist strategy in our tasting. We had been given many suggestions from Chris, Charles, Stephen and Willie so we started with those and went from there.
We should probably mention Marlborough’s significance in New Zealand wine. Marlborough is thr country’s largest and best known wine region- with it’s Sauvignon Blanc acting as the foundation of the export industry. There is a bit of a love/hate relationship towards Marlborough by the rest of New Zealand’s wine producers. On one hand it is Marlborough’s noteriety that has opened up the market for New Zealand wine, and on the other that same noteriety is overshadowing a lot of great (non-Sauv Blanc) wine that is being made in other places.
All in all we visited eight different wineries and tasted 45 different wines over the course of that marathon day. I was driving so I made use of the spittoon in all but our favorite places. Our conclusion? The Sauvignon Blancs that we tried at many of the larger places were all nearly indistinguishable - high citrus, high mineral, and suprisingly lacking in the richer passionfruit flavors that made “Martinborough Savignon Blanc” a marketing phrase. However, we found the places that deviated from the apparent standard were among the best wines we’ve had in all of New Zealand. Our favorites in no particular order:
Cloudy Bay
Our first stop of the day and one of the names we heard over and over when asking about Marlborough, their wines tended to be just a cut above some of the other big name wineries we visited.
Nautilus Wines
When we first tried their 2005 Pinot Noir we agreed that it was good, but also extremely familiar. We discovered why a few minutes later after the tasting room manager told us that Clive Jones, Nautilus’ winemaker also works of Willakenzie Estate in Oregon’s Willamette Valley- we love Willakenzie’s (and apparently Clive’s) wine, and it was cool that we were able to pick up on the style so readily.
Huia Vineyards
While chatting with the pleasant Czech girl tasting room hostess we were consistently impressed by Huia’s originality. Their wines were all of high quality, and there was something really special about several of their white wines, our notes on their 2002 Chardonnay, for instance, read:
Mealy coconut palate, best chard yet. Delicious!
Even when the Huia’s wines displayed uncommon characteristics for the variety, they remained wines that we’d love to drink.
Johannesoff Cellars
Good Pinot Gris, Awesome Gerwurtztraminer. It was our last stop of the day, so our notes are a bit sparse, but their whites were also among our favorites.
Herzog Winery
Maybe it’s strange that one tiny winery ended up producing four of our most memorable wines in all of New Zealand, but considering how seriously Herzog seems to take their quality over quantity approach, maybe it isn’t. We ended up talking at length with the marketing director there, Simon Kelly, but no sales pitches were ever necessary. If you happen see a bottle of any Herzog in the States or elsewhere, buy it. It will NOT dissapoint.
That evening we arrived back in Picton to return our rental car and check in to the nearest hostel. In the morning we would head out to Abel Tasman National Park, and leave the wine focus of our trip for at least for a week or so. We didn’t mind, though, we expected the natural surroundings to be equally intoxicating.
Click Here For All The Post Pics!
Part 1: Professor Zeman and His Amazing Trippermap
Pulling into Wellington in the late afternoon, we crossed the street from the train station to Downtown Backpackers, checked in and placed a call to Mark Zeman, Lecturer of Digital Media at Massey University and inventor of Trippermap, a Flickr application that creates a flash world map showing the pictures in the locations that they were taken. You can click the map icon in the sidebar for an example, but we’re really behind in updating our Trippermap, we simply haven’t found the time yet.
In any case, C.J. noticed that Mark lived in Wellington and invited him out for a beer a few weeks before leaving for New Zealand. Mark said sure, and to call him once we arrived. We caught Mark still at his office on the night we arrived in Wellington, and he offered to pick us up a few minutes later.
Even after our marriage of six and a half years arising from an internet friendship and many subsequent meetings with people online, there remains a certain strangeness of first contact with another person occurring “out there”. Having said that, every contact we’ve made for vineyard work has begun via email, so that strangeness is quickly evaporating. As with hitchhiking, a certain base level of trust needs to exist between everyone involved- and that requires recognizing that the world does not consist solely of criminals and victims despite what the evening news encourages people to believe.
So Mark, neither a criminal nor a victim, picked us up soon after and headed right to the neighborhood we’d been walking around a few nights before, on Cuba street. Mark parked, and we then followed him directly the the wine bar and restaurant we’d also already visited, The Matterhorn. There was no thought of complaining or going somewhere else, we really liked it there. We asked if it was a favorite haunt of his and Mark explained that he knew a couple of the owners pretty well, but that his evenings out had been greatly reduced since becoming a father last year.
Part 2: Stephen Wong - Terroiriste
We had greeted Adan, our waiter from the other night and part-owner of The Matterhorn when we arrived, and after everyone ordered a beer and found a quiet place to chat Adan stopped by our table to tell us that Stephen Wong, the sommelier who we had asked about was upstairs, and did want him to ask Stephen to say hello? Sure, we said, we’d love to talk to him.
A few minutes later Stephen joined us, and soon after we were all enthusiastically chatting about New Zealand wine. With a glance across the table at our glasses of beer, Stephen turned to us and asked, almost apologetticaly, “You wouldn’t want to taste some wine, would you?” Silly question, OF COURSE we did, and soon Stephen was off to gather bottles of wine we simply must try.
With our attention now focused away from Mark, C.J. felt a little as though we were holding him hostage and said so while Stephen was away from the table, but he assured us that we was having a wonderful time. As Brianne said later in the night, it’s not like we had a lot of catching up to do or anything.
Stephen began our private, impromptu tasting an incredible Herzog Viognier that was completely different from the other Viogniers we’d tried so far- with focused, crystal clear flavors and… well, when we saw a $40 bottle of the stuff in a wine shop a few days later we both agreed it was totally worth it.
Hearing that we had recently come from Hawke’s Bay, Stephen then poured a couple of wines that “we shouldn’t have missed”, including a delicious Stonecroft “Serine” Syrah. We had tried to visit Stonecroft with Chris Howell but had missed their tasting room being open by a day. It too was among the best wines we’d tried, and it was duly noted in the black notepad we carry to document every wine we try. Obviously, when venturing into the gigantic and complicated world of wine, it helps to have an experienced guide.
It would soon become clear just how experienced Stephen is- in addition to providing an interesting history or facts about every winery we could name, we also discussed the history of wine in New Zealand in general, the history of Marlborough in particular, “the cult of the winemaker”, ratings driven winemaking, the demand for new oak barrels leading to deforestation in Eastern Europe, and more.
Like kids on a field trip to a nuclear powerplant, we asked a lot of questions and then did our best to keep up with Stephen’s answers. It was a privilege to meet with Stephen and for him to give of his time (an wine) so freely- he, like Charles Simons and others we’ve met represent the next generation of people responsible for steering the wine industry for many years to come, and though not every person of that next generation will agree on what direction the industry should go, the passion displayed by all of them and their focus on quality will never do them wrong.
After Stephen said goodbye Mark took us to a great Malaysian restaurant where we discussed Trippermap and travel. When Mark was 11 his parents took him out of school to visit locations across the world including Egypt, Thailand, and India. He credits this experience as shaping his worldview dramatically, and we agreed that it would, and figured that around the same time we were spending our vacations at Disneyworld and Disneyland, respectively.
During dinner Mark explained that Trippermap may have come from that early trip, because while traveling he was expected to trace their path on a map that he carried along. Then C.J. revealed the reason that Trippermap had appealed to him so much (despite the fact that we have yet to update it):
“When I was very young, I can remember thinking about the globe, and imagining a red line tracing a path everywhere you went. I tried to figure out what mine would look like, and realized that it would begin at my birthplace (Burlington, Vermont), trace a path to every house I’d ever lived in and place that I’d been, and end wherever I was. In my mind I saw that ther would also be some lines that we thicker than others, because the path was traced every day from home to school to home again, while for an adult it would be a circuit of home, work, store, home. Finally I would think of the paths of every person who had ever lived being illuminated, and that you’d be able to easily see all the places on earth that no one had ever been, and wanting to go there.”
We ended the evening at a swanky restaurant nearby that had an actual aquarium inlaid into the full length of the bar. As we sipped our drinks we watched small fish swim by and crayfish battle each other beneath a cloud cover of napkins and coasters. The Mark drove us back to our hostel and we said our goodbyes, no victims, no criminals, just friends.
Part 3: Te Papa, Cook’s Strait, and Picton
The following morning we stored our bags in lockers and spent a few hours walking through Wellington, visiting the excellent Te Papa National Museum, and picking up lunch for our ferry to the south island.
At the ferry terminal we watched as railroad cars were used to load baggage and shipping containers into the ferry and then climbed a long ramp onto the ship. We found an empty row of seats at the bow (front) of the ship and after a interminable wait were moving out of Wellington Harbor and out to sea towards Picton. The sea was calm and the sky was clear, which was a relief considering the horror story we had heard while staying with the Howells- crossings typically take three hours, but one a few weeks ago took OVER TEN HOURS, and for almost the whole time the ship was battered by twenty-five foot waves. Understandably and disgustingly, everyone aboard got sick.
After watching Wellington shrink from view and looking out over Cook’s Strait, we settled into our threadbare seats and were soon dozing in the sunshine like two lazy housecats. We woke just as the ferry entered the channel leading to Picton, a small town that is unremarkable save for its stunning natural harbor. After arriving in Picton we gathered our bags and rented a car. From there we headed to Marlborough to spend the evening with friends of Chris’ and spend the following day tasting wine all around Marlborough, New Zealand’s largest and arguably most famous wine region.
