riverECHO

It was a nice surprise last night when we were joined at dinner by the whole crew from Mt. Edward winery. We had planned to just meet Brendan and Jess at Mantra, an Indian restaurant in Arrowtown, for dinner but in walked Duncan and his wife Helen as well as Yoshi and his wife Keoko. It made me realize how much time I actually had spent at the winery over the last four months. It’s been a great experience and after chatting some more with Brendan about his connections in California and Oregon, it might not be the last vintage I work.

We’ve spent the better part of this week cranking out work hours while also preparing to leave Queenstown. Our car has even been packed full since Tuesday . . . I’m really not sure how we came down here with a backpack each and now have a full car. We are ready to move on and can’t wait to get up the west coast. The weather has been cold and sunny all week but, not surprisingly, we’ve been warned of a “Severe Snow Storm” that is supposed to hit the entire South Island tomorrow morning, just as we leave town. So in preparation, we bought ourselves some good ‘ol fashion snow chains today for our 2 wheel drive family wagon. What’s amazing is that chains are a way of life down here. No one really has snow tires because it doesn’t snow down low. If you want to ski you have to drive up to winter, which doesn’t start until half way up most mountains. I suppose we’re just spoiled at home. So we’ll do it the Kiwi way and use chains if we have to. And if we do have to stop and put chains on tomorrow it will be slow going . . . because according to the fine print we are only allowed to drive 20kph with chains on . . . by the way that’s 12.5 mph!