Post #160 - March 20, 2013 - Napier, New Zealand

What we did: wine tour
Budget: NZ$150/$125; Spent: NZ$204/$171

• Woke up again around 9am for free breakfast
• Went back to room again to rest before our pickup time of around 12:45pm for the wine tour
• After we slept we chatted a bit and contemplated eating lunch, but we knew we were able to buy some snacks along the tour so we decided to skip lunch
• A van came to pick us up from just a couple minutes away from our hostel around 1pm; we hopped in with a girl from our hostel and another guy
• We stopped in a couple other places to pick more people up; in the end there was seven of us
• The drive to the first winery took about 30 minutes; our driver was extremely outgoing and friendly
• Our first stop was a very nice place; wines were pretty good, but what we really liked was their dessert wine; it was awesome
• Our next stop was just a couple minutes down the road from the first place; here we had some great wines and a cheese and meats platter that we really enjoyed; they also gave us a taste of a wine slurpie that was pretty good
• Our third stop was about a 20 minutes ride away; the ride was beautiful and the countryside was very enjoyable to watch; this was a smaller winery but that had won some awards in the past couple years, including a certain wine of the year; this seemed like a pretty big deal
• Our last stop was a winery called Mission; it was a very large place that was once a nunnery, I believe; it had some amazing views out the back and the building itself was quite grand; the wines here were very nice, including one of their dessert wines; we were served by a very charismatic and likeable fellow who made it a nice experience
• That was our last stop; and it was time for the drive home
• We had consumed quite a bit of wine in the afternoon, so we promptly went to bed when we got back
• We woke up around 8pm feeling pretty groggy, but hungry; we went to make a pretty simple meal of eggs and toast, with some leftover potato salad from the night before
• We drank what was left of our bottle of wine that night and later the girl from our hostel, who was from German (NAME?), invited us over to talk to her; she was with a group of people who were mostly from France, but they left shortly after we joined them
• We spoke with her until quite late; she is an interesting person, though she complained a lot, she even complained about how much Germans complain; she would be staying in NZ for an entire year by October and then she thought that maybe she would come to Canada for a year; she seems to really enjoy traveling and working abroad
• Went to bed a little late considering we're off on a bus to Wellington early tomorrow morning