Hawke's Bay & Napier

We hoped to leave the rainy weather behind in Queenstown, but it followed our flight to Napier, in the north island. (BTW, we did have to go through security in Queenstown.  But they don't have a liquid limitation!  We saw people carrying cases of wine on board.  I was mildly jealous - most of our wine was at the wineries, waiting to be shipped to Japan.  Not that I'd pull out a cork and start drinking on the plane...wait - could you do that?) 

After staring at people with wine bottles all morning, we couldn't wait to visit our first wineries in Hawke's Bay.  Steve was especially excited, because this area is known for red wine, and not just pinot noir.  We happily walk in to Vidal for a tasting.  We enjoy a couple of wines enough to buy.  We pull out our paperwork from the wine exporter, and our pourer pauses....he says they (the exporter) only handles the Marlborough area wineries.  Eek!  We never turned in our paperwork.  However, it's a small wine world in New Zealand, and he calls the company for us and she confirms that they only pick up at the Marlborough wineries.  Luckily, Vidal is part of Villa Maria (in Marlborough), and he can ship down our Vidal wine, the few bottles we have with us, the bottles we anticipate buying within the next day, and our paperwork, all for $10.  We are very thankful for his help, and realize when we heard conflicting stories in the beginning about how the exporter works, we should have just called them ourselves to find out the story.

Rain, rain, go away

After our winery visits, we're happy to check in at our hotel, where we enjoy another ocean view (technically, Hawke's Bay).

We go back to Elephant Hill winery for dinner, and enjoy a drink in their lounge.  I also discover that Bluff oysters deserve their reputation as the best in the world.  We're lucky enough to be there just as the season opens.  Yum!

I gobbled them down so fast I forgot to take a picture before I ate them.

Fire, water, vines - nice!

Many quilting designs here!

The next morning we walk around the town of Napier.  There was an earthquake in 1931 that destroyed the city, but they rebuilt in the style of the time, so it's filled with gorgeous art deco details.  I wish we had a couple more hours to walk around here.  I took lots of photos, though, as I'm sure I'll get some quilting designs out of the architecture!
 

I could use this on a quilt I'm working on now!

Even the sewer grates are pretty!

From here we stop at a couple more wineries, then bring back our loot to Vidal for shipping.  The car feels pretty empty, since we're down to the six bottles we can bring back to Japan duty free.