riverECHO

We have been hearing about Fluer’s Place, a seafood restaurant in the town of Moeraki on the East Coast, over and over again from our friend Brendan, who I work with at the winery. So we waited for a rainy weekend in Queenstown to drive the three hours each way to the coast just to go to dinner. We woke up on Sunday morning to a fresh blanket of snow in the mountains but the roads were all open so we optimistically packed the car with our tent and bikes. Only a half hour out of town in Cromwell, BJ spotted a sign that said “Motorcross Race.” He quickly flipped the car around and said “we gotta check it out.” For those of you who don’t know BJ spent his entire childhood professionally racing motor-cross and I had yet to experience a race. We pulled up and BJ was immediately taken back to his early years . . . there was a distant humming (what I kept referring to as a swarm of bees) and a distinct smell of exhaust hovering at nose level. We watched a few races, all kids under 13 years old and even a 6 and under class. It was so exciting and even though we didn’t know anyone there we began to root for some of the riders. It might possibly be the highlight of our weekend.

We hopped back in the car and drove another hour to Naseby where we hoped to go on a bike ride. The last time we were in Naseby the forest was closed due to fire danger. With so much snow over the last couple weeks we knew we wouldn’t face the same problem. We waited out the rain, and the decision making, in the only café in town over a few coffees and finally talked ourselves into a short ride. Had the trails been dry the riding would have been amazing. It reminded me a lot like riding in Utah, without the slickrock. But the wet clay that we encountered seemed to eat us up, bikes and all. To top it all off, it started to snow half way through our ride and we started joking about how we should have packed our ski goggles. Although slightly frozen, we continued along the more stable fire roads until it was time to return our muddy selves to the car and head through more snow country to dinner.

Despite having packed the tent, once we were in Moeraki we were both easily persuaded to step it up and pay a little extra for a one room cabin. It was perfect, equipped with an oil heater which we instantly turned on high, and had views overlooking the Moeraki harbor. We arrived at Fleur’s Place later that evening to a packed house and immediately remember it was Mother’s Day in New Zealand. We tried to pace ourselves so we could enjoy the experience for as long as possible. Our appetizer, a huge pot of green lip mussels, was delicious and my entrée, John Dory with caper lime sauce was perfectly flaky and flavorful. BJ’s baked sole melt entrée was a bit of a letdown but maybe that’s what we should have expected ordering fish covered in cheese. He got over it, scrapped off the cheese, and helped me finish my meal and a scrumptious berry crème brule for dessert.

The following morning we drove a little further up the coast to the historic port town of Omaru where we gave ourselves a tour of a Whiskey storage house and watched an Antarctic blast throw giant waves over the harbor’s retaining wall. We encountered enough snow on the way back to Queenstown that we are on the lookout for a set of chains. Once we move north, and even if it means skiing in our jeans and rented alpine gear, we will only be a couple hours from a handful of ski areas.