OK, so that was the dumb name we came up with for all the wine we bought. I mean, we rode bikes through the vineyards of Napier (Hawke’s Bay region) and the van following us to carry all the wine we bought had to know whose wine to ask for!

Logo for the city of Napier in the heart of north island wine country

The reunion. John and Lisa have been five weeks land cruising the south island and we managed to meet up here in Napier for a great weekend of wine tasting

We spent a great day with “On Yer Bike” riding hither and yon through beautiful vineyards. Add to that it was my birthday AND we were able to meet up with Lisa and John from Orcinius who were headed back from five weeks on the south island, and it was about the perfect day. Well, it became perfect after the amazing dinner they treated us to at “The Old Catholic Church”. As it sounds, it was a church built in the 1800’s but transferred to private hands when the parish outgrew it and built a newer, larger one closer to town. Amazing venue and food. I even got to confess my sins to “St John” in the confessional. Might have worked, but probably would have taken a couple days. Ann made up for the blasphemy with some Hail Mary’s and we headed home marveling at the great time we had.

It was a beautiful day for riding and tasting...

...tooling through the vineyards without a care...

...blue skies...

...gorgeous scenery...

...and our trusty bikes to convey us around the country.

A little tasting...

...a nice picnic...

...a little wine...(OK, quite a lot-but we weren't technically driving!)

It all added up to a great birthday! Thanks Ann, John and Lisa for a wonderful day!

Te Papa Tongarewa literally means; “container of treasures” and that’s what we found.

Te Papa is a museum on Wellington’s waterfront and as described in the tour book it’s; “an innovative and interactive national museum”. Like discovering a beautiful Easter Egg on Easter Sunday! We found it to be all that and more, containing really interesting exhibits on Maori culture, history and art heritage. Add to that the fact that it traces the Maori migration across the South Pacific and we were hooked.

The waterfront just outside the museum

"Now, where was that Hobbit exhibit?"

So much cool stuff and not enough pixels to show it to you.

Having sailed the opposite direction as the Maori’s migrated over the centuries, we found the exhibits to be a fantastic explanation of what we found during our journey. The carvings, arts and weaving as well as the descriptions of the people just added to the discovery of our year past.

Speaking of which, today (April 1st) is one year from the date we left Mexico to sail all this way across the Pacific. We’re still not really feeling like we’ve gone all that far, but as we meet people on this land tour and they ask where we’re from and we summarize our journey, you can just see their eyes getting bigger as they sense the distance we’ve travelled by sailboat. Maybe someday as we get further away, we’ll feel the same.

We also spent time walking about town visiting the old St Paul Cathedral, built entirely of beautiful carved wood. Today, before we left, we walked over to the historic cable car and took it up the mountain overlooking Wellington, which is a very hilly city.

We took the old time trolly up the steep hill to overlook Wellington

We’re now heading north from Wellington, which is the southern most point of the north island and of our land journey for this year. As of this moment we’re in Dannevirke, up near the wine region of Napier where we’ll end up tomorrow (look for NZ wines from Hawk’s Bay which is Napier). Dannevirke is a small town settled by Scandinavians in the late 1800’s for sheep farming. Today you can see little of that heritage beyond the town name and the giant Viking that stands over town hall. In fact given it’s the day after Easter and still a holiday weekend, the only restaurant open was a Chinese takeout place.

Dannevirk was once a scandinavian settlement. Not too much left from that, but this Viking over the tourist bureau

On the way back from breakfast, we came across these surprisingly "happy" sheep. Turns out in talking with the famer, they are all being sent to "stud". Each will mate with at least 100 ewes over the next week!

Tomorrow looks to be a fun day as our good friends John and Lisa have just taken the ferry back across from their trip on the south island and are meeting us in Napier for lunch and maybe some wine tasting! Yay! It will be great to catch up with them. Perfect way to spend Day Two of my Birth Month.