Sun’s up, uh huh, looks okay
The world survives into another day…

Waking up and seeing the sun shining again after a couple of cloudy and rainy days here gets me humming that old Bruce Cockburn song. This morning Robyn (our host) stopped by and we visited for a while. We discussed the “Three Men in a Raft” book that Sue just read — she’s now onto another book she borrowed from Robyn, “Goodbye Sarajevo”. And I’m still working on a web project. 

Right after lunch we got in the car and headed to the Hawke’s Bay golf course. Not very busy there! Sue and I had a very good time — the sun was shining but the temperature was a little cooler than it has been here for the past couple of weeks — just right for short sleeves and shorts, but not too hot. I parred a few holes,  but had a couple of disastrous holes just to keep me humble, while Sue tried to see how many 7’s in a row she could get. We took a couple of photos, but I can’t post them today — not that you want to see more photos of Rudy and Sue golfing, but today’s “action” photos don’t flatter us in the least!

We were done golfing at shortly after 4. Sue noticed on the drive in that the road that our course is on is named Ngatarawa — and her favorite wine here in New Zealand so far has been ‘Stables’, a cabernet-merlot from the Ngatarawa Winery. Ever since Graeme (our host) introduced us to it, we’ve been buying it at the Countdown (big grocery store). Could it be that the winery is so-named because of its location? A quick search on Google Maps told us it was only 3kms from where we were. Worth a visit? Absolutely!

We knew we were in a wine region — the drive down to Hastings, and the vineyards bordering the golf courses told us that. The GPS told us to make a right turn out of the golf course driveway, the opposite direction from how we got here. And sure enough, 2 minutes down the road we found the gate and driveway leading to the Ngatarawa Winery. Could we have a tasting? Sure. So after a lovely afternoon of golf, there we were drinking samples of local wines. Fantastic! The lady pouring for us was kind enough (actually, I think she really enjoyed it) to answer our many questions about the local economy and especially the wine and fruit business. We bought a few bottles and continued our drive back home via the wine route. Wow! We had no idea how many vineyards and wineries and fancy restaurants were so near our place.

We had a little happy hour and then walked across the road to the Milk and Honey restaurant to have our Friday Night pizza. Back at the apartment, we watched the movie “Florence Foster Jenkins” (2 Oscar nominations) on my computer. (Slowly but surely, we are checking the movies off our list.) Then the ‘At Issue’ panel on the CBC National, and to bed.