After recovering from the amazing but muscle destroying Tongariro Crossing we drove from Taupo to Napier - Hawkes Bay wine region!!!

We checked in to the best campsite in new Zealand!! It was huge and had a Huge Screen cinema room, swimming pool and best of all a Jumping Pillow - basically like a trampoline but a huge inflated pillow on the ground. We had some fun on that!!

The area around Napier, hastings and Havelock North is famous for it`s wine - so we went down to the tourist information office and got a map of ever winery that was open for tasting and set about working out how we could get to them all!! There were almost 30 in total I think, so we decided to split them in half and Rachael would drive the first day and Steve the second day. It also just so happened that the first day of our wine tour coincided with St Paddy`s day!! and it was Rachael`s turn to drive. We visited about 10 wineries that day all before about 3pm by which time steve was plastered! In one of the wineries the "tasting guides" were obviously bored and proceeded to pour big glasses of every single one of their wines and got steve well on his way to drunks-ville. From what I remember there were some great wines - especially the Chardonnays. So once back in Napier we went to the supermarket and picked up a bottle of one of the wines we had tried for a lot cheaper that they were selling it at the cellar door!!! how does that work?!?!

by about 5 we were both ready to party so went to the only place in town to go on St Paddys day - Rosie o`gradys!! The place was packed!! we thought we were pissed!!! nothing in camparison to the people that had been in the irish bar all day! It didn`t take too many Guinness to catch up with them and the rest of the night was a blur!

needless to say that the next day`s wine tour was a write-off!! We filled the day by completely cleaning roger head-to-toe inside-out and then had a big Fish BBQ in the evening.

next day was Rachael`s turn to "taste" the wines! The first place we get to though the guy is a massive wine snob and takes it upon himself to "teach" us how to really taste wine.... by spitting it out and not swallowing?!?!?! WHAT!!! We didn`t stay there long! Another 10 wineries this day and Rachael was staggering in and out of the van!

We went into Havelock North and tiny town with loads of cafes, and then drove to Hastings and stayed there a night. Before our long drive to Wellington.... for the Easter Bank Holiday!! big mistake.... nothing was open!!