Next stop on our New Zealand cruise was Picton on the north of the South Island and from here we planned to do a tour of the Marlborough wine areas around Blenheim. After our ship docked we arranged a hopon-hopoff bus tour which would take us to Blenheim and then around the main wine growing region of Marlborough.
Blenheim
Blenheim was a pleasant small rural town and we had a walk around the few streets which had some lovey cafes, nice art and colourful graffiti. The historic 1920’s art deco Public Trust building was renovated to create the beautiful boutique Hotel d’Urville. The Hotel d’Urville building was completed in 1923 for the Public Trust Office having been designed by Wellington based architect William Gray Young as one of his early commissions. It is now one of the few Heritage NZ listed buildings remaining in Blenheim.
Wither Hills Winery
We had booked lunch at our favourite winery, Wither Hills, which we had visited 16 years previously. We had a wine tasting session prior to lunch then a really excellent lunch with some of their wonderful wine.
Forrest Winery
After lunch we jumped back on the hopon-hopoff bus and then stopped at the Forrest Winery to sample some of their wines before heading back for our ship.
We returned to Picton and re-boarded our ship ready for departure. The sail out was beautiful as we headed out through the narrow channel on our way to our next port of Napier in the North Island.
Passionate Photographer …. Lost in Asia
Stuart Taylor of HighlanderImages Photography has been making images for over 40 years focusing on Asia with a documentary/photojournalistic style.
Stuart is available for a variety of assignments in subject areas of photojournalism, commercial, architectural, real estate, industrial, interior design, corporate, urbex, adventure, wilderness, and travel.
E-Mail : staylor@highlanderimages.com