Epic Hiking and Wine Tasting Adventures

Well I've finally gotten out of Wellington!  And I picked the perfect day to go do it: it was beautiful on Saturday.  I went along on an organized trip for the International students at Massey, there were about 35 of us on the trip, so not the total population of international students here, but a good chunk of them.  The trip was two parts: a wine tasting at Alana Estate and then off to Patuna Farm for either horseback riding or a chasm walk.  I chose to go on the chasm walk.  It was epic.  Before that, however, they thought it might be a good idea to loosen us up with a wine tasting--so on to the wine tasting!

Does this look like a hill?

We arrived at Alana Estate around 10, and the drive there was ridiculous.  It took us through these small mountains that our bus driver playfully called "hills."  Essentially these roads were insanely large, with windy roads and tiny guard rails.  There was even a section of gravel uphill, with other cars whipping around the corners, craziness.  Anywho, once we got past the hill country it was really flat and full of vineyards.  The day was perfect and sunny, practically cloudless sky!  Before we actually got into the tasting part of the venture the manager took us on a short tour of the vineyard.  We walked up to rows and rows of grapevines, and he told us about how the soil needs to be rocky, with little rain.  They don't even spray for pests because it gets soaked into the soil and then into the grapes, so it destroys the flavors.  The best kind of soils for wine making are the ones with mineral rich soils.  They grow three different grapes for wine at Alana: Sauvignen Blanc, Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir.

Chardonnay

Pinot Noir

All the grapes we tried were still four months from being ready to pick, but they were still pretty tasty.  They don't get huge because the flavor in the wine actually comes from skins of the grape, so the smaller the grape, the more skin there is and the richer the wine will be.

I won't bore you too much with the distillery, mostly because I can't remember all of the technical jargon.  The cool thing I do recall is that they don't have any pumps to move the alcohol from one step to another; the distillery is on three different levels so they use the supreme force of gravity to move the wine from one tank to another.  It finally ends up in these huge barrels in the cellar.  Seriously, they're bigger than I am.  I could fit comfortably in one.  We the got to taste the wines they make (Chardonnay, Sauvant Blanc, and Pinot Noir)  I definitely liked the Chardonnay the best out of the three.  The other two were pretty dry wines, very strong.

After they'd gotten all of us foreign students loosened up they gave us a bit of lunch, and then they sent us to go hiking.  Ah the hike.  It was crazy.  So first off, I had the impression that we'd be walking through caves and stuff for most of the hike but nope.  The first half of the hike was really just getting to the beginning of the chasm.  It was strangely a lot like Wisconsin for the first part: pine trees, steep hills, and cow pasture.  Yes.  We hiked through a cow pasture; the chasm is part of the Patuna Farm's adventure walk, so they have a guide that takes you to the chasm in the first place.  The trail takes you through one of their pastures, through a small stream, and then through sheep pasture but all on this trail that's more like an obstacle course.

 It's like that story "going for a bear hunt": can't go over it, can't go around it--we have to go through it!  So we go through this stream, and then all along this ridiculously narrow path there are fallen trees, branches, and plants that you have to almost crawl under.  I was pretty excited, I kept telling people that this path was made for short people like me!  I made a lot of friends on the trip, the one in the purple shirt crawling under the branch is Miriam.  She's in my Media Script Writing class as well, and she's from Boston.  We ended walking up most of the trek together, so you'll see her quite a bit.

 At parts of the trek the trail was literally only wide enough for your shoe.  It was like they had to cut into this little hillock to make a path, so there was a wall of dirt and grass up to your waist as your walking one foot in front of another.  Finally, after we'd gotten through this crazy path we came to the steep, slippery end of the path to the chasm.  It ended with a sort of rope fence you gripped as you shifted onto a ladder and climbed down to the stream at the bottom.  Once you got down to the bottom you're actually in the chasm!  Woohoo! We made it--but then the real hike begins.
Enter into Part 2-Stream of Death.

Which is a little over dramatic, but what can I say?  That's what I do.  So after we climbed down the slippery ladder of doom (it really wasn't that bad, just a little mud), we got to walk in the stream to one end of the chasm.  The water, first off, wasn't that bad.  It was clear and fast moving in some areas, but after standing in it for a while you just couldn't feel your feet.

The river wasn't deep at this point, it only went half way up your calf.  The high walls of rock that made up the banks of the river were limestone, and stained green from all the moss and vegetation growing around them.  

Then we come to this waterfall at the end; it's really pretty with the sun reflecting off the spray, water falling into a deep pool.  We stand and admire it for a little while before our guide calls all of us on.  So we walk back, past the ladder, and continue down the river.  And we keep going.  And going.  And going.  We try to walk along the bank for as long as we can because, like I said, the water is pretty cold if you're in there for too long.  All of us keep looking out for the spot in the river where the guide said would be up to your waist, but we're walking for so long that I'm pretty sure he's bluffing.  There's a couple spots that get up to your thighs, and the bottom of my shorts get wet, but nothing too deep thus far.  There's a couple times where the whole group stops at the wider banks to let the rest of the group catch up, but other than that we just keep mindlessly plodding through the water.  It was ridiculously fun.  Tramping through the water, stopping to take pictures of the surreal scenery; the greens of the walls, over hanging trees, the clarity of the water--it was just indescribable.  Just being there and looking around was a crazy rush.  It's so hard to describe the feeling of looking around, tripping over unseen rocks, as we take pictures of EVERYTHING.  It was almost every five feet we'd stop and take a picture.  So great, here's the link to the full album.
Anyway, I don't have any photos of the end of the trek because the end we actually ended up having to swim the last leg.  Legitimately.  I could not touch the bottom.  So no other fun photos to share from that, but it was such a fun great experience, I made so many new friends and had such a great time.  Can't wait to travel more!