VictoriaFebruary 5
After a restless sleep in a hot, stuffy motel room, we had a quick breakfast and then headed to Omaka Aviation Heritage Center. The museum featured several original aircraft and artifacts from WWI and WWII. We took lots of pictures for our friend Jim, a Southwest Airlines pilot, who we’re sure would want to spend the entire day here someday. It was an impressive museum.
From there, we headed to Cloudy Bay Vineyard for a wine tasting and lunch. The wines we tasted were all Sauvignon blancs, and I liked them more than I thought I would (they are usually too dry for me). We had a light lunch at Jack’s Raw Bar; Mitch enjoyed the Marlborough oysters and I thought the Ora King Salmon was delicious. The grounds were beautiful and nicely shaded as we experienced another hot day here in Blenheim.
Heading to our next destination, Wither Hills Vineyard, Mitch realized he lost his sunglasses at Cloudy Bay when he took them off for a picture. Back we went to the grounds to look for them. Thankfully a nice family found them and turned them in to reception, so that crisis was quickly averted.
Mitch first enjoyed a glass of Bladen’s Pinot Gris when we dined at a restaurant in Picton. We knew we had to visit the winery when we were in Blenheim and we loved our tasting experience. Blair and Deni (hence the name of the winery) are siblings who have taken over the business from their parents, who started the vineyard in 1989 with a dream of producing their own wine. Deni gave an awesome talk to 50+ people who were there for the tasting of six of Bladen’s wines. She was personable, funny and down to earth. My favorite of the six I tasted was The Sum of Us, which is a co-fermentation of Pinot Gris, Riesling and Gewurztraminer. Sounds super sweet, but it’s nicely balanced, just like the Bladen family.
Mitch read an article about Harvest, a farm to table restaurant that was featured in Air NZ’s in flight magazine. We pulled up to beautiful grounds and were excited to be seated outside as it was a lovely evening. We passed on the wine since we had our fill during the day and placed our dinner order. Delicious, complimentary sourdough bread was brought over with local olive oil, butter and a sun dried tomato spread. Our charred zucchini and beet salad arrived and it was excellent. Off to a good start. We ordered snapper and roasted vegetables from the on site garden for our main. And then we waited. And waited. An hour went by and it was now approaching 9 p.m. The couple at the table next to us called the manager over asking where their food was. Clearly there was a problem in the kitchen. Our patience was thinning, waiting for the rest of our meal. We spoke with the manager and was assured our food was coming. After another 10 minutes of waiting, we’d had enough. We went to pay for what we ate, but they comped our salad. We came back to the hotel, I ate a chocolate covered mint and called it dinner.
