All through the night it rained and rained and I lay and listened and hoped that by morning it would be all rained out. No such luck, it was still tipping it down when we awoke. But we persevered with a swift get away and headed through the puddles along the north coast to Nelson. We couldn't really complain about the rain though because we'd avoided rain in all of the soggy hotspots such as Milford Sound and Arthur's Pass. It was still raining when we got there but we wanted to take a look at the town so we first stopped briefly at the docks. Unfortunately though we were too early for the cafes there so we then headed into town for a coffee and a few little jobs.
The rain did eventually start to ease as we completed the second drive from Nelson to Spring Creek (near Blenheim) and it stopped just as we pulled into our riverside campsite. The site is very quiet and small and picturesque, and with the damp setting today we could almost be in England. It was really good that the rain stopped for us to have one of our traditional scenic lunches.
The morning's journey had kept to time despite the weather which is lucky as we had a 1.30pm deadline. As we are now in the Marlborough region we had booked ourselves onto an afternoon wine tour to sample the finest Marlborough sauvignon blancs they have to offer plus their other regional varietals. I was very excited about this as Marlborough sauvignon blanc is my favourite. It is 80% of what they produce here because of the perfect growing condition for this grape. It was a really enjoyable afternoon. There were seven on us on the tour; the others were from Sweden and Norway and they were lots of fun.
We visited four vineyards with one clear favourite - the forrest vineyard which was started and owned by two doctors who love wine and like to experiment with trying different grapes and ensuring that they focus on producing quality not quantity. At this tasting they took us out to the vines and taught us about the pruning and picking techniques. We liked their Sauvignon Blanc best of the four and discovered that a very dry Marlborough reisling can sometimes be even better than their sauvignon blanc.
By the last of the wineries the group was decidedly more chatty and bottles of wine were bought. We restrained however as we want to return to our favourite tomorrow to pick up a bottle from them. Then the afternoon was suddenly over and we were back at our camp having a cuppa. It was a perfect afternoon to bring to life a rather rainy start and to put us in a laid back mode for the next few days.
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