It’s 12 months since our last overseas sojourn; then it was to New Caledonia to allow us to converse in our broken and rusty French, while enjoying the treats of the French overseas territory located a stone’s throw from Brisbane (well ok, a 2-hour flight).

This time, we are going to explore more of what New Zealand has to offer.

We last visited Wellington (NZ) with our friends Derek and Helen in March 2017 for a 3-day long weekend where we visited wineries in and around Martinborough, the so-called “winery hub of the Wairarapa region”. At that point in our wine-tasting experiences, neither Mick nor I were too keen on trying Pinot Noir. What idiots!!

This time, we plan to taste everything that is on offer.

During that trip, we made a big mistake by buying way too much wine for us to carry home with us on the plane. The second mistake was that on our last night, we went out for dinner and bought some more wine to enjoy with our meal, and then we had to come back to our apartment and try to finish off some excess purchases.

The laughing however did stop around 9.30pm when we had a visitor (actually the hotel security) telling us (actually, Derek and Mick) to keep the noise down.

Mick and I are going to be a bit more sensible this time.

We fly out tomorrow from Brisbane to Auckland, where we will base ourselves for a few days.

We are not hiring a car while we are in New Zealand on this trip, instead we plan to access the wine regions using trains, buses and ferries. This takes the pressure off me a bit, as I am usually the driver. I have instead booked us on a number of guided, wine-focused tours in different locations across both the north and south islands.

We have packed some winter woollies as the temperatures look much colder than they are here at home in Brisbane.