Soaking up the sun (and wine) in the Wine Country

We have found another area of New Zealand that we love. Having never visited the North Island south of Rotorua, we were very pleasantly surprised to find the Hawkes Bay wine area to be like an undiscovered Napa Valley. It is beautiful weather (warm and sunny) combined with gorgeous scenery (vineyards, rolling hills and the most magnificent beach anywhere) and wonderful New Zealand hospitality. We stayed for two nights in a little village called Havelock North near Napier. We can't stop raving about this village. Set up in a spoke and wheel configuration, the center of town is a memorial to WI veterans and a surrounding traffic circle(more on that later). Around the traffic circle are little streets with small shops. About a block off the traffic circle are the motels and larger shops like the grocery store and the cinema. We were in a motel right off the circle within walking distance to everything. We loved walking to dinner and had a wonderful meal at the hip place in town, Diva.

So, to explain traffic circles. Everyone in Europe and Australia New Zealand drives them and we are not quite sure why they don't exist in the US. They are a very efficient method for getting traffic through an intersection. You pull up to the traffic circle, look to your right, and if it is clear, you pull out into the circle and make your way to the first street if you are turning left, the second if you are going straight, the third if you are making a right and all the way to the fourth if you are doing a U turn. It works remarkably well.

The beach that we loved is called by the original name of Ocean Beach. You drive to it from town through the vineyards, with the last mile on a gravel road. When you get in sight of the ocean you see a one lane road down a major hill to get to the beach. The view from the top of the hill is amazing, which you will be able to see as soon as I can post my photos. The beach is white sand and aquamarine colored water with no buildings for miles. There is one small village of cottages, but it is being torn down. It is gorgeous. We were there with perfect weather and shared this amazing beach with a few middle aged surfers, one family and a few straggler sunbathers.

After two days in paradise we left this morning and headed down the coast to the next stop, also a wine area called Martinborough. We rented a three bedroom home (great photos to come) right off the town square for less per night than our motel room in the last town. Even though the kiwi dollar has increase3d in value relative to our dollar we are still finding housing for substantial savings over our 100 euro per night budget that we set when we left for Europe in July.

We know that it is Thanksgiving at home, so we called all five of the children today. We missed "the boys" which everyone in the family knows is Matt and Jonny. Michael and Dana were having a nice dinner at home and were making up a leftover plate for Matt who was busy working at the casino today. We hope that means he gets Christmas off. Jonny is in Whistler for the week on a vacation with his girlfriend, Megan's family. Megan is coking dinner for nine people and we caught her alone during the time she had allocated for stuffing the turkey which she delayed to talk to us. Caitie reported that turkey dinner in the dorms was a major disappointment but that she and one of her roommates were spending the weekend close to the dorms to nurse her friend back to health.

So, for all of our friends, have a wonderful Thanksgiving. We are very grateful to have such wonderful friends and family and count our blessings daily.

With love, Deanne