Wednesday started with a ride out of Wellington up though a magnificent mountain range called the Rimutakas, an alpine road with hairpin bends and magnificent views, the road taking us slowly away from Wellington. We stopped at a lookout on the top to enjoy the views across a couple of lakes and then drove onto turning left to visit Rivendell, yes there actually is a sign post to it. The tour manager got very excited.
The drive down a narrow road took us to a car park where we had to leave the car. We walked across a long suspension bridge, one person wide to some NZ scrub where we enjoyed a short walk around a loop. We then walked down to the river side and on to a clearing where the Lord of the Rings was filmed. There were some very good information boards which showed where the film had been shot and explained how the Elven Kingdom had been built and removed. The tour manager for very excited at pictures of Aragon and the elf prince. It was, I have to say, extremely interesting.
It was then onto Martinborough the centre of the wine industry in the area, Andy and Sally had arranged for us to do some wine tastings and after lunch we went to a winery where we tried five wines, buying two bottles. Onto another vineyard we tried another seven wines and bought two, before heading off to Johner's vineyard which had been recommended by one of Sally's friends.
On the way there we stopped at NZ's version of Stonehenge, yes someone has built out of concrete blocks a replica of Stonehenge in England. We refused to pay the eight dollar entry fee and spent sometime in recovery from our hilarity.
The drive to Johner's was to say the least interesting we had to drive several miles of dirt roads just to find it. The tour manager was not amused when we arrived to find the tasting area was shut but this was resolved by Andy sounding the car horn a few times. The tasting was the best of the three and we tried four whites,a Roseanne four reds before the coup de grace of three sweet wines. The Swiss lady who gave the talk was brilliant and we bought several wines to take home. The vines are grown in the middle of a river plain and whilst it was not the most beautiful of areas the river itself was very beautiful.
We found our motel and had a meal before retiring to bed exhausted.