'More wine please!'

Gannet Cottage - the future for spinsters Gemma and Alison?!
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Alison:  Having sampled the more active side of New Zealand life Gemma and I decided it was high time we got to grips with another very important area of New Zealand life - wine tasting.

So off we headed to Napier and Hawkes Bay to take part in a wine tour and hopefully learn a little bit more about our favourite tipple. What we actually learnt is that when it comes to whites we have typically expensive tastes in Chardonnay. (Note to parents: please feel free to stock up for our return!) As it is the winter here we were lucky enough to get a private tour around four of the 32 wineries in Hawkes Bay and so we were able to take our time sampling a variety of reds, whites and rose. Of course we both refused to do the whole taste and spit thing so predictably after over 20 different tastings we were just a little bit tipsy and therefore had to go to bed as soon as we got back!

Even the coffee in Napier is artistic.
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However, Napier is not only known for its wine but also for its distinctive art deco architecture, the style in which the the city was built after an earthquake flattened most of its buildings in 1931.  This leads Napier to have the all important claim of having one of the only two art deco MacDonalds in the world (if you are wondering the other one is in Miami).

After a fascinating guided tour of Napier we decided to go it alone and headed to twin city Hastings to do our self guided tour of its spanish mission architecture.  Fascinating as it was doing it by ourselves, it got cold rather quickly, 'forcing' us to duck into the nearest cafe for some well deserved cake and a trawl through all of their gossip magazines. A few hours later we left Hastings having educated ourselves fully on art deco architecture as well as the ongoing saga of Brad and Angie's relationship.

As our Napier hostel was rather cold i.e. just above freezing (we have come to the conclusion that New Zealanders are not exactly au fait with the latest in central heating technology) Gemma and I decided to head to a tiny place between Napier and Hastings called Clive which promised heated rooms in a hostel called Gannet Cottage.  As it turned out we managed to get the whole cottage to ourselves (well, if you ignored all the cows surrounding it that is) and we spent a blissful two nights chilling out in our own little house on the prairie.  We have since decided that if our life plans don't quite pan out as we hope we will meet there in 50 years to happily live out our spinsterhood along with two rocking chairs, three cats and the obligatory shot gun!

Our final stop on the North Island was New Zealand's capital itself - wet and windy Welly - a nickname that it did its best to live up to in the three days that we were there.  Luckily it dried up a little bit which allowed us to try out Wellington's nightlife along with one of the All Blacks guys, Mike, we met in Rotorua. We also went to the Te Papa museum and travelled up the cable car to get not so great views over the then drizzly city.

Update on the car: we have now a parking ticket to add to our AA bill after nobody told us about the strange and illogical kiwi rule that you can't park at the side of the road facing the traffic. Any ideas why? We still haven't received a satisfactory answer....not impressed!

Having explored the North Island to the full we then booked ourselves onto the ferry to Picton where our South Island adventures begin.