Today we woke up to lots and lots of rain! Luckily we knew that in advance so we decided to sleep in and have a relaxing morning. We still wanted to get out and explore so we booked a tour with Bay Tours to drive us around the area and show us some local wineries, restaurants and other interesting places.

Owen and Sue picked us up from our house late morning and we were off. We stopped at the smallest winery in New Zealand first, Riwaka River Estate. They only have about 2.5 acres planted to grapes! There we sampled three wines which were all pretty tasty. The owner walked us out into the vineyard where we also sampled some of the sauvignon blanc grapes, most of which had been harvested the previous weekend. Because they are small they harvest by hand and only harvest what is truly ripe at the time. The owner was very nice and explained how they also grow hops and olives for olive oil on their farm. Sheep graze under the olive trees and after the hops and grapes are harvested they will graze under those crops as well.

On our way to lunch we stopped at a small pottery shop that was owned by an ex-pat from LA. He had some interesting pieces, but it wasn't quite the taste of the group. Next we were off to Mapua Wharf for a delicious lunch at The Apple Shed Café. We all got seafood, and it did not disappoint. Kevin had some green lipped mussels as the region is known for their mussels - they were delicious! We walked around the shops at the wharf a bit and got back in the van for our next stop. We were off to the largest winery in the Nelson region, Seifried Estate winery. There they had a little toy basket for Liam, which he was very happy about. We tasted 5 different wines of the region, a couple were more of an Austrian variety, so that was interesting!

After leaving the winery Owen and Sue informed us that they had just the stop for Liam, who was getting pretty tired. We went to a gift shop that had an entire village just for guinea pigs! Each guinea pig seemed to have its own house that was a replica of an old fashioned building (e.g. a schoolhouse, etc.). There were also tiny baby guinea pigs which were quite cute! Liam got a little cup of chopped up carrots to feed to the guinea pigs and he was extremely excited to see them all jump up at the fence to grab their snack. He was giggling and smiling and really enjoyed this stop the most!

Finally, we headed to the oldest pub in New Zealand that is still operating. It was started in the 1800's and has been going strong ever since. We had a little while to sit down and talk with our tour guides, which was very informative.

On our way home it started raining again, as it had held off most of the day. So that was good timing! We all got home and relaxed, and started to prepare for our departure tomorrow. This is our last night in Kaiteriteri and it is a little sad that we never got to see the sun while we were here, but the views and the ocean were still quite beautiful!

Keely