And to the Coast! Blenheim to Nelson

Having spent more time in wine country drinking beer than drinking wine, we thought it best to stop and visit at least one winery before we headed up to Nelson (widely reputed to be one of New Zealand's havens for craft beer).  There are so many wineries in Marlborough it is hard to pick which to visit, so we went to Allan Scott, which is the winery owned by the father of the Moa brewer.  We had been impressed with Moa the day before, so were hoping that Allan Scott wouldn't disappoint.

Looking good so far...

As nice on the inside as it was on the outside.

It's not ideal to take a vehicle wine touring, but the Spaceship takes us in style.

Lucky us, the wine was delicious and the hostess in the cellar door was very friendly.  We ended up walking away with a bottle of their fantastic 2012 Sauvignon Blanc.  By this point, the Spaceship was getting weighty under the weight of beer and wine from the Allan Scott family, so we hightailed it out of Blenheim towards Nelson.  Some lovely views along the way:

Lovely despite the clearcut in the top centre of the shot.

Nelson is one of the bigger towns on the north of the south island, and we thought it was great.

This church sits atop the hill (yes, the one hill) in downtown Nelson.  It was supposed to be a lot taller, but the top wasn't ever constructed.  The view back to town from the top of the hill:

Nelson is also known for its coffee.  We stopped at a place called Kush, where Chad enjoyed a flat white and I had a hot chocolate to warm me up when it suddenly started raining!

After that we headed up into the hills to the campsite we had chosen for the night.  Only $6 each for a spot, and it had a kitchen, hot showers, and sounded promising.  Little did we know that you get what you pay for... to get to the bathrooms we had to climb over a sheep fence, ours were the ghetto bathrooms stocked with plastic toilet paper, and the place was rife with signs telling patrons how to behave (e.g., "Keep the kitchen!  Tidy!!!  Clean!!!").  All good for a laugh, but rather than sitting around reading signs ("$6 campers: Please cook in the kitchen and then take your food back to your [picnic-table-less] sites") we headed back downtown to the Nelson Freehouse, known for its craft beer selection.

It's in an old church - the perfect place for the worship of craft beer :)

A tasty pint beside the Nelson Craft Beer Trail pamphlet - not quite as set up as the Bend Ale Trail, but appreciated nonetheless!

Out front is an "event yurt".  Much fancier than the one we camped in earlier this summer.  They often have live music playing in there.

Doesn't this picture look like we hardly know each other?  Taken by a friendly Irish couple that we met and with whom we chatted away the evening.

In the McFrothys' opinion, Nelson is well worth the rave reviews!

To Blenheim

HAL's tent extension was tested the first night, as it started to rain in earnest.  While the tent kept the rain out, it also got wet & soaked the ends of our blankets.  OK, hard rain = no tent extension.

We headed north toward Kaikoura (departure point for whale watching, etc.) and then Blenheim (center of New Zealand's Marlborough wine region, famous for Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir).  It rained - hard - all day long with no letup at all until the late afternoon.

HAL performed admirably on the very windy secondary road back out to the ocean.  We had some sobering reminders to take it easy, though.  Not only rock fall on the road and numerous rock-sweeper trucks, but on one curve a small campervan much like ours (one of the older, less-sound vans from a different company) had lost control and flipped on its side.  Everyone appeared to be OK, but what a way to ruin your vacation.  We continued north on the main coastal road, following the windy, rainy snake path to Kaikoura.

Kaikoura didn't hold much for us, since we weren't doing any wildlife tours and it continued to pour.  But I did have the best seafood chowder of my life for lunch, so that's something.

Before continuing, we dropped by the seal colony, which was home to several sea lions.

Just north of town, we dropped by Nin's Bin to check out the crayfish ("Pacific" lobster) on offer.  But the crays were a bit pricey, and my better half doesn't eat meat anyway, so we had to give them a miss.

Sarah pretends to enjoy the rainstorm.

When we got to Blenheim, the rain let up and we parked HAL in a holiday park, then went across the street to the Dodson Street pub for some beer tasters.  They are the home of Renaissance Brewing, whose beers are available all over NZ.

The beer was fairly tasty - we both settled on a seasonal Belgian pale ale as our favourite.

The rain even let up enough for us to sit in the extensive beer gardens... for about 5 minutes.

Took a swing by the rugby field on the walk back to camp.  For a smallish town, it was quite an extensive facility and a popular rugby club.  While they still like cricket here, rugby is their hockey.