Learning our little town

So we have been here in Blenheim for about 1 year now. It is an awesome little spot.

Lots of cafes, lots of sunshine and LOTS of wine about....My kind of place!!



We are learning a lot about our little town...Weird things...but interesting...

1) Blenheim is the sunniest place in New Zealand. That is great, right? But New Zealand happens to be in the Southern Hemisphere very close to the wonderful hole we have burned in our ozone layer that lets all the bad sunshine rays in...That means everyone is at risk of sun damage. You laugh but we have burned here...twice now. Bruce was out walking around downtown and later that evening we could have fried an egg on his head it was so hot and red. We now have several tubes of SPF 50-100 right next to the front door as a reminder before you go out to get baked

2) Blenheim is the Honeycomb Hideout for people with lots of cash
We lived in New Zealand almost two years before. I can count on my fingertips the number of "high end" cars like BMW and Mercedes that I saw in that two years. I have been here a year and I have seen a Maserati, a Jaguar and several Porsches a Ferrari and even a Rolls!....I was told that most of the money around here comes from the wineries directly...it is very obvious. Lots of nice houses and many nice cars...






3) There are a lot of people here from random Pacific Islands
Mostly Vanuatu. Vanuatu is a chain of islands in the South Pacific. The people of Vanuatu are Melanesian which means they are very brown. So as you can imagine, when they saw us they were shocked as we were to see them.

boys on the beach in Vanuatu

When Bruce told them we were from the USA they didn't believe us. They thought that the USA only had rich Caucasian people  and we were making up stories.
They still seemed very amused by us. After chatting with them for several minutes we parted ways but they still had not decided where we were really from. It was clear they didn't think we were Americans...
There are also a host of people from random little islands that I have NEVER heard of. Kiribati, Niue, Tuvalu, Tokelau, Nauru, Solomon Islands and the list goes on. All I can tell you is that most of them look like THIS:

4) Nelson is the big "sister" city

Nelson is the town over the hill. Nelson is touted as the big city, where everyone goes to shop and do business. It is about 1.5 hours through a windy, mountains road. We traveled to Nelson several times and we were a little confused about the title of a "big" city. To us, Nelson seemed only a tad bigger than Blenheim. They have a couple more shops and a slightly bigger airport but that was about it...Not sure who decided that it was a bigger or better city. It is beautiful, right on the water and very close to some of the best beaches on the South Island. I guess that is where we go when we need a taste of a big city..but alas, its not really a "city". It's more like a slightly bigger Blenheim with more shops.

The true city near us is our beautiful capital city of Wellington. Many of you don't know this but Wellington, not Auckland, is the capital of New Zealand.  Almost ALL international flights terminate in Auckland, it is bigger, more populous and more popular that lil ol' Wellington. Kinda like Sacramento and Los Angeles….(no one realizes LA is only the capital of weirdness and avocado lovers :)

Anyway, we LOVE Wellington. It is a walkable, hip, urban, cool, awesome city. Great people, great restaurants and a really great vibe. Its known as "Windy Welly" because its usually got horrific weather but every time we've been there we are blessed with sunshine and calm skies.

Unlike our last little town of Invercargill, Blenheim is definitely got the ease of travel. We can get to Wellington on a quick 20 min flight on a puddle jumper or we can even take the ferry across the Cook Strait! We have been to Wellington bunches of times and it hasn't gotten old!

We are looking forward to exploring the beauty of the top of the sunny South Island!

Will keep you posted!