Sunday, 2 December 2012

Day 3 - visit to the South Island (Marlborough)

We had a great day planned, wine tasting in the Marlborough wine region which apparently produces 70% of the wine in New Zealand. We had a 9:25 flight down to the South Island with Air New Zealand and after a wet and windy night their was some apprehension about flying in a small aircraft to the South Island on our 25 minute flight.

We were late departing as we were waiting on 6 passengers on a flight down from Auckland and their plane missed the runway on its first approach due to the wind and had to go around and try again. They finally got on board and we were away and the take off was very bumpy and it was like being in a roller coaster with lots of dips. Once above the clouds it became smooth until our descent into Blenheim on the South Island.

We had a great day traveling around visiting a number of wineries and mostly boutique wineries which was nice and we picked up a few good drops to bring back with us as a memento of our travels.

We also had a lovely lunch at Wither Hills and it was very relaxing and great food. The service was a bit slow but it was Sunday and it was busy.

On returning to the airport at 5:00pm we discovered that flights from Wellington had been cancelled because of the weather in Wellington and Air New Zealand deciding that flights using the Beechcraft aircraft was too dangerous. So we were rebooked to fly back tomorrow afternoon so we had to find somewhere to stay on the South Island overnight and wait our flight.

There are no photos to publish as they are on my camera and all the cables are back in Wellington.

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