Vines, seals and automobiles

The road south from Nelson takes you through Marlborough country. Maybe that conjures up an image of a bloke in a hat smoking a fag on a horse, and maybe I did see one on the way... this is the wine-growing Marlborough, probably the biggest wine region in NZ. Vineyards line the roads all the way down through Canterbury & some of the Marlborough ones are distinctively posh, not at all like the Spanish ones I'm used to. The vines are manicured to the point of topiary, forming perfect maze-like rows with a rose bush in full bloom at the end of each one. Very impressive, very English, really. This is how they'd do it in Surbiton if it wasn't so cold and wet and like, full of houses.

We're going to be missing the best of the South Island scenery in this trip. It's just not possible to get round it all in one go without having a month to do it in, and we have to remember it's more a business trip than a holiday, a mission to find somewhere decent to live. Hints of what we're missing are around every corner; from the expected snow-capped mountains to quite unexpected golden straw covered hills, then vertical forests lining mysterious valleys, huge, sweeping coastlines of craggy volcanic rock, and we just sweep by them all, ever onward.

We did stop for three things: crayfish (for lunch, cos it was for sale at the side of the road) seals (cos they were practically in the road; dozens of them lolling round the rocks in the sun) and a supermarket just off the SH1 highway, where I took the pic above.

It's really hard to say where it all reminds me of; if I was in Spain (and I think a part of us still is) I'd say it was as if Andalucia had shifted north to the Costa Brava with the Sierra Nevada in tow. We'll definitely be back, either to live or to spend time more frivolously, when I'm sure we'll find out it's like no place on Earth.