Not swimming with dolphins, Part 2

27th March 2011

Oh dear.

So it seems that we are doomed not to swim with dolphins. Maureen fears it may be her foot odour scaring them off*, but as far as I’m aware smell doesn’t work underwater.

We went out onto Queen Charlotte’s Sound, a beautiful waterway with hundreds of bays and inlets surrounded by green hills. The sun was shining and the sea was as flat and smooth as a mirror. We saw seals, seabirds including the Fluttering Shearwater (nice name) and after a while we did actually see dolphins. A whole pod of Hector’s Dolphins, the smallest oceanic dolphins in the world and unique to New Zealand, came splashing across the bay straight to the boat and played around it for half an hour. They were absolutely beautiful and even managed a couple of leaps out of the water. The trouble is they are critically endangered and so swimming with them is a no-no.

So we went on into the sound, searching for either Bottlenose or Dusky dolphins. Both species would be fine to swim with, and both are very commonly seen here. Just not today. Two and a bit hours later we returned to Picton Harbour for a partial refund; our dolphin-swimming trip downgraded to a dolphin-watching trip. I don’t actually mind, the Hector’s were really lovely.

And anyway, we went back to the Marlborough wineries in the afternoon and cheered ourselves up with another good lunch and some more tasting! Rather than enthuse about particular wines which I’ll probably never see again, it might be more useful to summarise the winemakers based on all their wines that we tasted. That might actually come in handy some time when presented with a wine menu back home. Of the five sampled:

• Lawson’s Dry Hills – all the wines we tried were faultless examples of the variety, and their Reisling is perhaps the only New World Reisling I’ve ever actually liked
• Fromm – really taking a European approach to making their wines, all the ones we tried were faultless and I could drink a bottle of their Pinot Noir any time, anywhere
• Huia – apart from a gaspingly dry Gewurztraminer, all their wines were excellent and interesting, carrying some quite challenging flavours
• Wairau River – some great, some not so exciting, these wines didn’t measure up to the three other makers we liked. All drinkable though, so I’d pick them off a menu (though not their Sauv Blanc or Reisling, obviously)
• Hunters – same as my comments for Wairau River really

* – Yes, I have been punished for this joke. Ouch.

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