WoW & Wine

This trip is bringing out my my inner Willie Nelson and I hum "On the Road Again," in my head. Back to business!

The next stop on Moose and Mosquito go Kiwi is Nelson and the Marlborough wine country. However, Wow was the first stop -thankyou Carol Levin- and it is a must see for those traveling in the area. Wow is the World of Wearable Art and Classic Cars Museum. Vintage autos from the early 1900's to one-of-a-kind models from the 2000's. Interspersed among the cars are pieces of art some made from old car parts.The car museum is a car museum and really needs no more explanation. The World of Wearable Art displays garments(?) created by artists representing many different countries. These inventions are are mind bending, amusing, beautiful,and awesome. Geeze I wish that I could borrow one just once and be the Belle of the ball at a costume party. Ok, it's a pipe dream not to mention the boat load of plastic surgery I would need to get the total look. The gallery itself is small but uses a rotating platform to maximize the number of featured pieces. Each "garment" emerges from backstage and then slowly moves across the stage while patrons sit in folding chairs on the floor below. There are works suspended from the ceiling and one room has glow in the dark items. It was a great adventure and worth a second visit in the event that I return. WoW is my kind of museum experience.

we were then off for a leisurely drive through the wine country. The experience was much like going to the Yakima Valley without the tumbleweeds. We sampled from four places and bought from two. The area is known for its white wines.Both Lovebird Laura and I enjoyed the Pinot Gris BUT we had a yummy Pinot Noir that I could not resist buying even with the hefty $40 price tag. We will have it one night with steak, baked spuds and a big salad. Something to look forward to eh?

After four wineries the old taste buds don't work as well, and we bid adeiu and headed to the east coast and Kaikoura. It was a good day to travel as it was clouding up. Once again, driving was California Hwy 1 on steroids with many one lane brideges (we figure that the hwy department here saves one ton of money with these one lane bridges). There is a system set up for yielding. If your side has the red arrow you stop or as they say hear,give way.. Once traffic on coming traffic clears you are free to go. On one occasion the big fella went a bit too far before he stopped -we needed to give way and several cars were headed toward us- he clipped a sign which did not do too much damage. This makes his second mulligan but we gave it to him. He did feel pretty bad. But the mood uplifted when I spied seals, we got out and looked, took pictures and enjoyed. A beachside holiday park (campground) was our lodging for the night. The crash of the waves hitting the beach lulled us to sleep and we awoke to a beautiful sunny day. We walked the beach and watched folks surf fishing.

Before leaving Kaikoura we found the seal colony and stopped for some up close and personal encounters with the local denizens. Seals are big and do have some nasty looking lower teeth. While we were there, a child got a bit too close to a resting brown blob and a growl and fangs were shown. The kid got the message as did the rest of us. I forgot to say these seals haul themselves up on curbs and bulkheads which are at street level. After about 30 minutes of seal gazing, one can never have enough seal gazing, we piled into Fuso our trusty RV and took off for Arthurs Pass and the west coast.