First, some background on the Bay of Islands and the Paihia (pie-hee-ah) and Kerikeri (keri-keri) locales. This is an area of vacations, second homes, retreats, and quick getaways for a lot of New Zealanders as well as a draw for many visitors to NZ.
The two wineries we visited were Ake Ake at the top and Marsden Estaste on the bottom. You can see where we anchored (the red star) and the town of Paihia.
The port we are anchored off is Paihia. It is a small town reminiscent of the Cape Cod area. One of the major draws is the Waitaingi House. Waitangi House is where the Waitangi Treaty was signed and is one of NZ’s major hhistoric sights. Remember, Waitangi day is to NZ what July Fourth is to the USA.
I took this shot from our veranda on the ship (with a 30 X zoom). That is One Tree Hill, the site of the signing of the Waitanga Treaty. It was signed in the small stone building. The white tent-like structure off to the side is the entrancer to the Waitangi Museum that just opened this weekend. That Norfolk Pine is not the original “one tree.” The original was knocked down many years aog and this one is a re-plant.
Our tour began with a short visit to a hill on a golf course next to the Waitangi Reserve, a national park. We had good views of the bay and the surrounding area.
The view from the golf course. On the left is the Artania, formerly the Pacific Princess – not the Love Boat, but the ship that replaced the Love Boat. Our SIlver Whisper is to the right. What’s intersting is that while the Artania is about 20,000 tons larger than the Whisper, it holds almost four times as many passengers.
A short ride later, we pulled into the first winery on our tour: Ake Ake Vineyards. In Maori, “Ake” means “more” or “many.” Therefore, Ake Ake means quite a few, or a whole big bunch, or words to that effect. The winery owner is a transplanted Channel Islander and wanted to be known for being a part of his new home.
Ake Ake vineyard, restaurant, and winery is a small, bio-dynamic, organic vineyard making only several hundred cases of wine annually. Most of his wines are sold in the restaurant and at the “cellar door’’, the NZ and Aussie term for the tasting room. As I said above, unfortunately, although the owner, John, was delightful in his descriptions of his history and his winemaking, the wines were only passable. The best was a Sauvignon Blanc. The rest were, well, less than memorable. Although we tasted six wines, we had no desire to take a bottle with us.
The winery owner getting ready to explain his wines to us.
The view from the tasting room out to the vineyards, through the restaurant at Ake Ake Vineyards.
We then moved on to our next winery, Marsden Estate. Marsden is a well-known and respected name in NZ history – but not so much when it comes to wines (our personal opinion). We again tasted our way through about six or eight wines and none of them were very good. The good news is that Marsden put out a nice place of nibbles. Since we had not had any lunch (due to tender issues and timing of the tour), we eagerly went at it. The food was the best part of the tasting.
Our platter of “nibbles” at Marsden WInery that became our lunch.
The view from the tasting room at Marsden out to the vineyartds. That white covering over the vines is to protect the vines from the birds. They will eat all the ripe grapes if not covered.
I think that it is important to explain here that while NZ is known for some very fine wines – particularly Sauvignaon Blancs, none of them come from this far north on the North Island. It is just too hot and wet here to grow the quality of grapes that are required for fine wines. I believe that the locals enjoy it since it is, indeed, local wine. However, it is simply not wine that is worth traveling for or bringing halfway around the world. Having said that, we have had many really wonderful wines from the Hawkes Bay area and further south. Geographically, the difference is only a few hundred miles, but its like the difference between growing grapes in Napa Valley, CA and Anywhere, Florida.
After our tasting we made a stop at a honey factory – yes… This was just not any old honey, but it was Manuka honey. Manuka honey is said to have medicinal propertiers and several of our tour members wanted to stop and pick up some. OK, a honey stop.
We then drove through the town of Kerikeri (“keri” means “big” in Maori, but Kerikeri was not all that large…). In Kerikeri we stopped to visit the oldest stone building in NZ.
On the way back to the tender dock in Paihia, we stopped at a chocolate shop. Funny, we get all the sweets and really rich European chocolate you could ask for on the ship, but some people cannot pass a chocolate shop without stopping…you can usually pick therm out from behind quite easily…
Finally, back to the tender dock and catch the last tender out to the ship.
We now have a few sea days to get ready for Sydney and Australia. Stay tuned…
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