Prado Dutch Oven

Last Sunday, a bunch of us girls went on a big winery tour in Blenhiem, on the east coast. First we drove to Picton to pick up Nick (Stacy's fun Aussie friend) from the ferry terminal. Hello's and welcome's done with, we scouted the teeny town for a cool coffee shop. My suggestion was the hip place with cool wooden seats (can't go wrong with a coffee shop with cool seats, or I'll also accept any coffee shop that's got "Coffee Shoppe" in the title). As we searched, we were passed by a bunch of school children tugging an army truck up the main street. Picton is weird, but this was definitely not expected. During our discussions, Nick gave us a great idea for our Stitch and Bitch: we can call it a Crafternoon so anyone who doesn't know how to crochet or knit can feel welcome by doing some paper mache or gluing random animal stickers to a large sheet of plywood. You know, crafty things. And whenever we say "crafternoon", we have to make these fun and stressful looking movements with our fingers as though we're repeatedly grabbing onto something the size of a hot cross bun. Stacy was determined to finish the scarf she has been knitting for weeks now, and did so during the drive through the mountains. How she didn't puke is beyond our comprehension. Here's the finished product:

On our way back to the car, I spotted this sign that makes it appear as if the local chicken joint has a transvestite rooster as their mascot. I told you Picton was weird.

Our posse for the day likely resembled some cold-climate gang because we were all dressed in jeans and our black puffy down jackets. Lisa donned the brown khaki pants (which I think made her the leader), but other than that, we probably looked a bit more ridiculous than scary.

We hopped into Dana's Toyota Prado, and headed for wine land: the Blenheim area has 50 different wineries within in a five-kilometre radius. Perfect for sampling the good stuff.

The first stop landed us some great wine samples, plus a free map of the wineries in the area, and the guy behind the counter was kind enough to circle for us the best wineries that were open that day, in addition to directions to a stone oven pizzeria and the local chocolate factory. This day was shaping up to be a good one!

Winery number two was pleasant. The wine was good. I bought a Pino Gris for Brian (who, by the way, was back in Nelson working his shift at Kathmandu - ouch).

I was the designated driver, so took small sips from everyone else's glasses... Dana and Stacy came up with some good descriptive words for the wines like "nutty" or "buttery smooth", which made them appear to be some kind of experts - but in reality, they are probably better experts regarding nutty smooth peanut butter.

My favourite hip shot of the day came from the third winery we attended. Sometimes not looking through the viewfinder creates magic (it's the spit bowl thingie):

After three wineries, we figured chocolate was in order, so we booked it over to the chocolate factory, which was identical to the chocolate factory Beth and I saw in Keri Keri on the north island months and months ago, and to be brutally honest, the chocolate wasn't that good back then either. We took some free samples and then snuck out without spending money on their overpriced, nowhere-near-Purdy's-quality chocolate.

We had to figure out something to do for a while because Nick's friend Alex was coming on the ferry to Picton later than expected. Pizza and beer seemed logical, so we found the stone oven pizzeria and planted ourselves down for almost three hours.

At one point, Nick discovered a cut on his hand and *poof!* the two health care workers in the group (both Lisa and Stacy) piped up and said, "I've got a band aid!"... They had the cutest little first aid kits in their hand bags. I feel a bit safer knowing that now.

One round of orders included the fanciest and prettiest coffee + Bailey's:

Then came the pizza. Oh boy, it was good, but oh dear oh dear, the middle one was ALL GARLIC and a few olives, three mushrooms, and a tad of cheese. Hello, I will be smelly.

Dessert came and went too quickly to be captured by my camera: Fudge brownie with raspberries and ice cream.

After the third hour struck, we figured we needed a change in venue, so we drove to the ferry terminal in Picton and came up with a number of strange yet fun things to do to keep occupied for about an hour. First up was a bathroom photo shoot of me and Stacy in our black puffies and jeans getup. Please note the ungodly colour of the soap on the wall (that's a pet peeve of mine - the chemicals can't be good for us all, and really, does bright pink soap make people more likely to wash their hands after a pee? I think not.).

The picture below shows the venue we had to deal with: pretty lame, pretty spacious, and was decorated with crap-blue carpet and an expensive pop machine.

A piggy back to get our creativity juices flowing:

A group shot in unique format:

Oh, here's the kicker: everyone doing floppy face shots. Shaking your head with your facial muscles relaxed and taking a picture at the most inopportune moments is always fun, with the exception of the guaranteed headache afterwards.

We got some videos of fun kicking games (wait for the video for explanation), and a relay race involving half-cartwheels, crab walking, and knee-knocker silly walks. The videos are on Stacy's camera. I'll try and put those on the blog soon. Before we knew it, the hour was up and Alex had arrived, and we could all go home.

Normally the story would end there, but I have to explain the title of this blog entry. I drove us all back to Nelson in Dana's Prado (it seats eight!), and on the way, I guess that garlic pizza worked its way through my system pretty quickly (I blame it on the relay race) and I let out a few of THE SMELLIEST and most raunchy farts I think have ever ventured out of my bottom. Being unfamiliar with the car, and driving down a windy mountain road, I couldn't find the automatic window button, so we all had to suffer in the Prado Dutch Oven. Plenty of "Ewe! Gross!" and "God, Dee!" and "It's a Toyota Dutch Oven!!" End of story.