Motueka area

Every night we looked at the weather forecast for the west coast, and we could see another band of bad weather heading their way so we opted to head north, primarily to visit relatives in the area. Judy’s aunty lives in Motueka and she lost her husband just 4 months before she lost her only brother (Judy’s dad). We felt it was important to spend a bit of time with her and her driveway proved to be a lovely place to park the motorhome.

We spent the mornings and evenings with aunty, but in between time we went exploring. One of the places we visited was Seifreid’s winery. Judy in particular is a fan of their sauvignon blanc but it was interesting to hear the story of the winery and to sample some of the other wines they produce. We came away with a bottle of chardonnay to take to dinner with Judy’s cousin, and a bottle of Sweet Agnes Riesling which we especially liked and are saving for our birthday celebrations.

Next on the list was a place called The Corner, which is a collective of  local businesses, mainly food producers. We had a lovely lunch at the cafe and brought some beautiful fresh blueberries, and some delicious cheeses.

The following day we had booked a tour of the Pic’s peanut butter factory. The making of the peanut butter itself was not a surprise to us, but the story of the growth of the brand was fascinating. What was also interesting were the unusual uses of peanut butter that we learnt. Some examples are below:

There were also the following interesting facts:

As expected the production line is efficient, clean and modern, producing one pallet of peanut butter every 45 minutes.

Our next visit was to McCashin’s Brewery in Stoke, who make a great dark beer that Bruce really likes. I did not realise that they also make a range of ciders, so we had a try of the lime and ginger variety which proved to be really nice so we came away with some of that as well as beer for Bruce.

On our way back to Aunty’s, we had a short explore around Mapua. It is a very scenic area, albeit with a reputation for being very expensive. There are lovely walks and cycle trails in this area, but we confined our visit to the local wharf.

We also enjoyed our daily swims at the salt water pools in Motueka, although surprisingly Oscar and Hunter did not share our enthusiasm. The whole area is lovely with the sea vistas, the vineyards, the hop plantations, the low mountains surrounding the fertile plains, the walks and the cycle trails. It would be easy to spend more time here.