Thursday, March 26, 2009

Wine, sand and fish


Thursday 26 Mar Warm and sunny 22C drove 100km

After an excellent nights sleep, soothed by the sound of the waves gently breaking on the sandy beach just outside our motel room, we had a leisurely start to the day. OK, I know that sounds sickenly nice, but it really was, and doubtless still is, a great place to stay.

Down at Manganui harbour, the Tourist Information office was promising wifi internet access and , "Skype here now"! We were sold a card with 40 minutes access to wifi by the very hassled person in the office. There were some comfortable chairs to sit in and we got logged on quickly. What the person in the office hadn't said was that we couldn't log off once we'd logged on, so we wasted quite a lot of our 40 minutes. We had been hoping to hear that we could get some upgrades to premium economy class on our flight from Auckland to Hong Kong or from Hong Kong to London, it wasn't to be though.

The Karikari peninsular just to the west of Manganui, is a pretty rural place, but has lots of nice beaches and a winery on it. We first drove out to Matai bay at the northern end of the peninsular where sand dunes protected a pretty beach and then headed to the Karikari Estate winery. This winery is the most northerly in New Zealand and looks like it is still being planted. The winery covers more than 100 acres is planted with 8 different varieties of grape. Situated in a large 'mock' spanish hacienda style building on a hillside, it is surrounded by fields of vines on the northern facing slopes. It is all part of Carrington Farms, a leisure, golf and wine drinking venture.

A wine tasting tray of 5 wines set us back $NZ12, but there was enough wine for both of to try. We tried a '08 Cabinet Sauvignon first, after a while we could taste passionfruit in the wine, but struggled with the advertised taste of 'green peas'. Second was a '07 Chardonnay, made with grapes from Nelson in the South Island. This was quite smooth, but with a slightly peppery finish. Third up was a '06 Syrah which we initially thought smelled of bonfires, but later changed to caramel. It tasted of berries too. We next tried a '05 Merlot/Cabinet/Malbec which had a sort of creosote smell, but was plummy with a dry finish and finally a '05 Cabinet/Merlot/Franc which was smooth, but didn't really taste of anything. My favourite was the Syrah, whilst Lynn whent for the Sauvignon. Later we will try a bottle of '08 Chardonnay/Viognier that we have lurking in our fridge.

We headed into what was described as the commercial heart of Whatuwhiwhi. You can attempt to pronounce that 'what a wee wee', but it is apparently Fatoo-fee-fee. The commercial heart was fairly compact and the only food outlet sold us some sandwiches to take down to the beach at Puwheke. The drive there took us on a dirt road that meandered around in the scrubby bush, round two lagoons, and finally dumped us on a near deserted beach. In fact, shortly after we arrived, it was deserted apart from us. We had lunch on the beach and had a swim before anyone else arrived. The sandy beach stretched for miles, a very beautiful and peaceful place.

We returned to our wonderful beachfront motel (have you got the idea that I really like this place yet?) for a spot more sunbathing and relaxing.

Dinner in Manganui seemed like a good option again, but this time the Manganui 'Fish Shop' was fairly empty, so it would be fish and chips for dinner again. The fish shop serves fresh and smoked fish straight from the boats that come into the quay at Manganui, but also also serves fish and chips in a restaurant on decking over the water. Nothing flash here though, order your fish or whatever seafood they have, grab a beer from the bar and sit down at a bench until your freshly cooked meal arrives wrapped in paper at your table. This is slightly upmarket from the Fresh and Tasty of last night; it gives you plastic knives and forks to eat with rather than fingers. Delicious!

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