Wines in Australia, wines in New Zealand

The last two days of the Victoria round trip we spent in Yarra Valley, we found an interesting hotel outside Healesville (Healesville Sanctuary Resort), which was creepily quiet (except for the silent bartender and twins living two rooms from us)… There was also a maze close by so we really had a Shining resemblance there… All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy...


Also on walking distance there was the Healesville Animal Sanctuary which was really fascinating place with Australian native animals. The main reason for going to Yarra Valley was the wines, we went around the wineries tasting and comparing wines. Already then there was some bushfires in the Victoria (we had seen some in Bright when riding) and the situation got worse all the time. We left to New Zealand on Friday, and from here we have followed the news about the bushfires from the news and it has been awful to follow the fires follow more or less the same roads we took…

But for those who care, we got to New Zealand safely and are enjoying the comfortable weather here, feels like Finnish summer (+25 and rain showers). The scenery is more rugged and impressive than what we saw in Australia, roads are smaller and more winding, and people drive slow… First we went to see the dolphins in Kaikoura (seems to be the must-do activity of that coast line), then tasted wines (again…) in Marlborough (there the Marlborough Sounds were so beautiful we decided we have to come back there someday…), then headed to the west coast, saw the Punakaiki rocks and now going to sleep in Franz Josef and planning to walk to the glaciers tomorrow. The nature here is really amazing, we are driving the winding roads and behind every corner there is completely different scenery waiting… Interestingly enough, it seems there is more tourists here than in Victoria (ok, the heat wave may have affected the tourist numbers there…), and the tourism is bit different (there are many backpacker places here and in Australia, most of the tourist things were directed to the families and the caravan/camping scene).

For us this feels like exponential holiday, like a holiday inside a holiday (isn’t it sad that for really relaxing we need to have a holiday from the holiday…) . Even though we have seen many things and are moving, the feeling is more relaxed (we know we are not going to see everything of NZ anyway on this trip, so we just look around with the open mind and curiosity, trying to identify places we would like to explore further…) . So let’s see how far we get on this trip. Somehow the place doesn’t seem so far away anymore, we've got here once so we can do it again!