The weather was stunning today, sunny and warm. We spent a leisurely morning enjoying beautiful Edenhouse and our delightful cottage. After a delicious breakfast in the main lodge we had a long walk round the grounds enjoying the spectacular views. As we walked on the lower levels we spotted four ducks in the distance grubbing around under the trees. It seems that at about the same moment they also spied us! They came waddling towards us as fast as their legs cou...

We left Blenheim in beautiful sunshine and were soon back on the open and, as usual, almost deserted roads. We passed through Havelock and shortly after that we were climbing through twisting and turning roads and many steep bends as we crossed the beautiful mountains of the Richmond Range on our journey to Nelson. As we decended into Nelson the road took us right next to the sea which was flat calm and sparkling in the sunshine. In the distance you could see th...

In case we had possibly forgotten, the view from our window, vineyards as far as the eye can see, would soon remind us that we are right in the middle of wine making country. At 10 am our guide and driver for the day, Ryan, collected us in a Mercedes 7 series car. Ready to do wine tasting in style!! Our first stop was at TerraVin, a lovely boutique winery up in the hills. After inspecting the vines and hearing about the loving care that goes into production we g...

During the night the wind which had already been quite brisk became stronger and stronger. Amanda woke at about 3 am and the wind was so fierce that it was frightening. We live in Hong Kong and are used to typhoons, but this was really up too close and personal for my liking. Not the best weather to be staying in a tree house!! Luckily the wind had died right down by morning. However, we were not at all surprised to discover that our whale watching trip (our sec...

After a very late night we were faced with a very early morning! We were feeling less than ready to get up at 6.30 am but were up, packed and even had breakfast in plenty of time to get a cab to the airport for our flight to Christchurch. We landed on time and went to pick up our hire car. Of course, if it hadn't been for the devastating earthquake we would have been in Christchurch already as that was where quarter finals 2 and 4 were due to be held. Unfortunat...