After our kind of killer weekend last weekend (my knee still hurts just thinking about it!) and since this is our first 2 day weekend (how do people live with just 2 day long weekend!?! ;), we decided to do a little exploring in our area.
We started the weekend with a bit of wine-tasting in the town of Bannockburn, about 20 minutes away. We ended up having a kind of
Walla Walla day, but I think that we need to just admit to ourselves that maybe enjoying and then buying a little too much wine is just our style now! On one little, beautiful road we stopped at 4 wineries and each one was really fantastic-living in pinot noir county (again!) is just about the best thing ever! We started at the end of the road (it seems like all the best places we've been have been at the end of the road), with Bald Hills Winery. They have a slew of amazing wines and award winning pinot noirs (which will become a theme!). Next was Remarkable Winery, which wasn't officially open so we were there as 'guests'. Here we got a tour of the winery, which was tiny but cool. We also got to do a barrel tasting of two different barrels along with the regular wine tasting, which included (you guessed it!) more award winning pinots! Our next stop was Bannock Brae, which had great wines, an adorable yellow lab and great views.
Our last stop was Akarua, where their winemaker had just gotten back from spending a while in Oregon-wish we could have met him!
We can finally introduce you to our ruggedly handsome 'new' car, our 1997 Nissan Wingroad (I just kept forgetting to take its picture!), with over 300,000 kilometers, that sometimes doesn't want to start, but for the most part gets us around!
On Sunday we drove out to St. Bathans, an old, little gold-mining, now holiday retreat town. There are two reasons to come to this town: the pretty clay cliffs surrounding Blue Lake. The lake and cliffs are a result of the method of gold-mining used in the area.
The other is the Vulcan Hotel, which is haunted. The ghost is said to be that of a young woman, who is thought to have been a bar maid who died of a broken heart and now haunts the bar and her old room. The room that was believed to have been hers can be asked for, if you decide to spend the night in the haunted hotel...but of course this place is only 45 minutes away-which means I won't get to spend the night there!!
I'm guessing the wine isn't going to last us very long, so hopefully we'll be back soon!
It's interesting to me that gold mining, being so environmentally destructive, could result in such an awesome landscape. Your pictures are great.
ReplyDeleteThanks Charles! Sometimes I think you're the only person who reads this!
ReplyDeleteThe method of gold-mining is called sluicing-which seems kind of dangerous!
http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/gold-and-gold-mining/7