We left Martinborough and headed back to Greytown to buy more chocolate for Greg and then off to Wellington. (Before we left we grabbed a quick shot of the whole group – notice the similarities between Michael and Roland). Wellington is a lot like San Francisco, with high hills overlooking the bay and quaint little houses tucked all around. One of Michael’s old friends, Faith Taylor (she was at our wedding to Montana) owns a beautiful apartment down town overlooking oriental bay and hosted a cocktail party in honor of our arrival. Her apartment is amazing, a new york loft with great views and lots of fabulous art (some of the art was by Tom Sladden – somehow distantly related to us – 3 cousin?) here we are with Scott, Faith and Jane (Jane is Faith’s daughter who was over from Sydney)

It was a great party – towards the end of the night Hamish Gibbons began to convince Greg and then Chloe that we needed to go out to experience the New Zealand night life. We tried to play the old married couple card – but eventually we caved and off we went. Mark and I made it till midnight, Chloe till 1 am, and greg till 2 am, we aren’t sure when Hamish went home.

We stayed in a lovely Bed and Breakfast and in the morning we dined with a family from the UK who informed us that right behind our house was they tree where all the hobbits hid as the scary man on the horse (nasgul?) passed by in Lord of the Rings. Sadly we were running to catch the Ferry and it was pouring rain so we didn’t get to check it out. The ferry was great – we drove our car on and headed up stairs to get settled for the 3 hour tour. The Ferry is an Inter-Islander Ferry and it carries passengers from Wellington to Picton, it also carries a train. The train drives onto the ferry rides across the Cook strait and then gets off in Picton to head around the south island – crazy!! here is a view of Wellington from the bay as we left.

Once off the Ferry we headed for Marlborough beautiful wine country. Michaels old “university” drinking buddy owns Spy Valley – the largest privately owned winery in New Zealand producing 1% of all New Zealand Wine – had arranged to give us a tour off the area and the vineyard. On the way to meet him, we stopped at Cloudy Bay for a quick taste and then off to Highfield winery for lunch.(the mountains in the back of this photo are the mountains on the Cloudy bay label – I think we served the Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc “Sauvy” at our wedding).

We met Bryan and Jan (Johnson – close to Johnston) at Highfield Winery and then headed over to their “Lodge” which is really a manor on many acres of beautifully manicured English gardens (they have, over the years, planted 200,000 tulip bulbs!). Bryan had us jump in his car and we drove over to the winery – spy valley is named for the CIA Echelon base located just down the road. Bryan walked us through the entire process (with a glass of bubbles in our hand)– from how the grapes are collected, de-stemmed, squeezed and put into the tanks. We tasted unfermented Sauvignon blanc grape juice (which was delicious) and half fermented juice (not so delicious). Here is Bryan showing us the primary fermentation for the Spy Valley Pinot – the skins float to the top and are stirred every so often. We quickly tasted all of the Spy Valley wines, my favorite was the Echelon Bubbles!! Bryan gave us some Spy Valley gear (shirts, hats and wine) and we were off. We headed to Nelson which is located on the water and considered one of the sunniest areas in New Zealand. Michael’s big event was on Saturday night so during the day Chloe, Greg, Mark and I had headed out wine tasting around Nelson. [insert 8] We tasted at Te Mania, Richmond, Khurangi Estate and Neudorf (our favorite) – I have had more white wine in the past week than I have had all last year. We have collected about 3 cases of wine to bring home – so everyone will get to have a taste.

The Nelson College Jubilee was a huge event – lots of “Old Boys” with family and friends.
Twice Mark was asked if he was Michael Sladden’s son (and he wasn’t even wearing a name tag). 🙂

We have one more day in Nelson and then we are off for adventuring (kayaking in Abel Tasman, Underworld Rafting in Westport, Heli-Hiking on the Franz Joseph Glacier and an air tour over the fjords in Queenstown) – I am crossing my fingers for good weather all the way.