Cloudy Bay

New Zealand is famous world-wide for its young wine industry, which started out just a generation ago with sauvignon blancs from the Marlborough region but which now is branching out all over and with most all the basic wine types. Cloudy Bay was the first New Zealand winery to garner world acclaim, and it is still very highly prized. ($38 a bottle at the supermercado). We drove across much of the region, nestled in around Blenheim and Renwick, and stopped for a look and a taste of Cloudy Bay.

There aren't too many chateaux in New Zealand (nor castles,
nor cathedrals), but most of the wineries have attractive
reception and visitor centers; here is Cloudy Bay's, perhaps
a bit on the understated side

Terrace and grounds

We found the accoutrements and furnishings
of most interest

Bottle made into hurricane lamp

Cheese board made from wine barrel

Next year's release

Up closer to show the scary sand fly wall ornaments (so
they seemed to me)

We tried the current 2013 sauvignon blanc, the 2010 Te
Koko (also an SB), and a 2011 chardonnay; I actually liked
the Te Koko--softness with complexity--was not all that
impressed with the chardonnay, and disliked the sauvignon
blanc, with its harsh tones of grapefruit [sic!] and lime [sic!!];
I left wondering what meal I'd pair the sauvignon blanc with
and glad I hadn't bought a bottle before tasting; I guess I'm
just an Old World wine guy who has drunk too much 2$
Chuck

French Pass

The next morning we decamped and drove off, as planned, in the direction of French Pass. All this is still on the mainland, so to speak, but it is towards the top of the Sounds area, before you get to some smaller islands. The roads beyond Elaine Bay are all gravel, pretty good gravel nonetheless, with relatively little traffic, and some great vistas.

Incipient traffic cone tree?

After Memorial Picnic Bench (!), the vistas open up...

Thus

At this, um, rural mailbox, we mailed a post card to our
grand-daughter Penelope; we've mailed 4 or 5 so far, only one
of which has gotten through, and it was held up for weeks
in Brunei...

From the hamlet of French Pass, looking toward neighboring
D'Urville Island

Its not quite the end of the road

We took a brief walk to see the Pass itself; saw this weka

French Pass

Up closer

A bit of a maelstrom, as we saw in Norway

Scenery on the way back to Elaine Bay

Grim reminder department: you really don't have a lot of
traction on gravel roads

They were very, very lucky

Fresh Mussels, 2; Or, Too Much Of A Good Thing

The good news is that the mussels stayed down. By about 10:30PM, however, as I was blowing up the air mattresses, I began feeling a bit queasy. This expanded, as it were, to full-scale intestinal discomfort, chills, malaise, which lasted three hours. Remembering an unfortunate incident in the tent, in Florence, back in the 80s, I wisely moved to the car, where Vicki as always fulfilled her roles as good wife and good nurse. At least this time it was not the wine. By 1:30, I had recovered enough to move back to the tent and slept the rest of the night. By morning I was pretty much OK. We carried on our program of driving on to French Pass, then back to Pelorus Bridge, and to Havelock, and beyond. But I had temporarily lost my appetite for mussels.

The Mussel Pot in Havelock is my favorite South Island restaurant; I had been
looking forward to eating there for weeks; but not this day; the people there
suggested my malady had been caused most likely by over-indulgence; I couldn't
disagree; it was way too much of a good thing that my land-loving gut was not
quite up to...

Anyhow I was just fine by the time we were at Pelorus
Bridge for lunch

Able to enjoy the fine scenery

Thus

Fresh Mussels, 1

Mussels are among my favorite foods, and I have been a fan of New Zealand Green Lip Mussels since the late 90s, when a seafood joint in Missoula, now long defunct, got them regularly from a Canadian supplier. Greenies are about three times larger and three times better than any other mussels of my acquaintance, especially the pathetic little black hobbit mussels one typically gets in the US and Europe. One more reason to like New Zealand, where greenies are plentiful, fresh, and--unlike most other edibles here--cheap. Imagine my delight in the following...

By the time I got back to the marina, two double-trailers were
off-loading the mussels in huge bags

Thus

Thus

And thus

Each truck, I later learned, carried 28-30 tons of mussels, so
each of these bags weighed about a ton

I timidly asked whether, if I brought my own bag, could they maybe spare just
a few?

And so I scored about a kilo, which was all I thought I could eat in one evening
(our fridge was full)

We set up camp at the Elaine Bay DOC campground

And I was a happy camper, New Zealand green lip mussels and a nice soft
Marlborough wine

First of three skillets steaming in butter, garlic, shallots, whitewine ...

Another, larger mussel boat pulls into the marina

Better than manna from heaven

As the fifth of the trucks whizzes by, 150 tons of greenies headed for the processing
plant in Christchurch...less a kilo for me

Elaine Bay, Arthur Track

Having rested up in Nelson, and endured as many sand flies as we could even there, we decided to drive further on up the coast into the Marlborough Sounds area, to Elaine Bay and then on to French Pass. We stopped at Elaine Bay to do the Archer Track day hike, which was said to be as scenic as the Queen Charlotte track.

The pavement ends at Elaine Bay

Thus

Elaine Bay's tiny commercial marina

A kilometer or so down the track, way beyond any homes or buildings, some
kind soul had left a couple of lawn chairs

And further down still, two nice wooden chairs; we took this as a good omen

The track goes on through the bush mostly with nice views of the coast and
islands

We walked as far as Deep Bay, 5km

And rested at a fisherman's hut there

Nice views on the way back too

Tall timber

Elaine Bay

We're sitting in the wooden chairs, enjoying the views, when we spot an
approaching fishing vessel, heavily laden, and it occurs to us both
simultaneously that this is a mussel boat, about to unload its harvest at Elaine
Bay; Vicki urges me to go on ahead and watch the unloading of the beloved
greenies