The oft tread roads between Christchurch, Kaikoura and Hanmer Springs, are known to many a traveller; namely those en route to the whales, thermal pools or surf breaks that this triangle is famous for. But in 2008, local tourism marketers cooked up the concept of the North Canterbury Food & Wine Trail, linking the region’s three key destinations with a string of wine, food and accommodation providers and creating an enticing excuse for visitors to linger.

At The Brick Mill Café near Waikuku Beach, owners (and sisters-in-law) Kathie and Janet Scott divulge a pearl of local wisdom:  “This wine is so good, we call it Mother’s Milk,” they say, indicating a local chardonnay on the wine list. Converted to its cosy self from a once famous string and twine factory, the Brick Mill is an alluring roadside oasis of red brick and timber, with a flickering fire and a comfortable café buzz. It’s certainly no mystery why every table here is full; especially with those exquisite Moroccan mushrooms on the menu…

Turn off State Highway 1 just north of the Brick Mill Cafe and you’ll find yourself wending through rural heartland New Zealand, dotted with sheep-studded paddocks and roadside stalls selling free range eggs. If you’re lucky, you’ll happen across Karikaas – specialists in handcrafted Dutch cheeses (think Gouda and Leyden) made with milk supplied from nearby Oxford. Every year since first entering the New Zealand cheese awards in 2005, Karikaas has come out on top, and in the factory’s small, chilled ageing room are some clues as to why. Perfect rounds of waxy cheeses are stacked, row upon row on white pine boards. “We turn the young cheeses three times a week and the vintage twice a week,” explains Karikaas owner, Di. “I love it – looking after all these little babies.”

This is real get-lost country now. One wrong turn and you could find yourself in the Ashley Forest, or at some unsuspecting farmer’s house. One right turn, however, and you’ll discover Okuku Country Estate with its air of grandeur and a paddock of pet goats. “We used to travel around Europe and stay in Bed & Breakfasts and old country lodges,” recalls proprietor Lorraine Smith, as she serves tea and ginger muffins beside the roaring fire in the sitting room. “We would think to ourselves ‘we should start something like this in New Zealand!’” Eventually returning from overseas, Lorraine and husband Robert came across Okuku and spent a year renovating the six ensuite bedroom property - in keeping with its original 1920s style - before opening it to the public as an exclusive B&B operation.   

Looping back to the main road you may end up in Amberley where, nestled at the town’s southern entrance is something of a local treasure: The Brew Moon Café, home to not only a disarmingly chilled out café/restaurant but an onsite brewery as well. The townspeople won’t tell you what makes the beer taste so good, but they will tell you to enjoy an Amberley Pale Ale with a beef fillet, gourmet roast potatoes and a green peppercorn jus of an autumn evening. After that, you’ll trust them for life.

At nearby Purple Patch Lavender Farm and Bed & Breakfast, the main ingredients aren’t such a secret. Ann and Ken Chaney have been based just outside of Amberley for eight years, tending to their 8000 lavender plants and operating their home-based Bed & Breakfast right next door. The couple’s recipe of two parts lavender, one part good old fashioned hospitality goes down a treat. Especially when it’s raining out and there are lavender muffins before bed.

A spot of shopping and an early lunch at Waikari’s Rocking Frog Café will set you in good stead for the winsome winding hills of inland route 70 to Kaikoura. Autumn rain shrouds the road in an eerie, rolling mist which gauzes over paddocks of doleful looking sheep and jutting limestone outcrops.

Kaikoura Winery, perched on a hill above the highway south of the township, is where visitors come to drown their sorrows if they don’t see any of Kaikoura’s famous whales. That’s according to cellar door host Suzette Townsend, who guides guests through tastings against a backdrop of inebriating sea views. Suzette trained as a nurse in her homeland of The Philippines, but prefers working in tourism here in her adopted home. “It’s similar – still working with people,” she explains. “But everyone is happy!”

Although tourism is now the stronghold of Kaikoura’s economy, the seaside town has long been known for its abundance of edible marine life: a past that’s hard to ignore. At the end of the sweeping esplanade sits The Pier Hotel, built in 1885 during the height of Kaikoura’s whaling days. Now a contemporary seafood restaurant and bar, the hotel still retains a historic charm with its rusting anchor adorning the ceiling beams, an old life-saving ring on the wall and sepia photos of craggy-faced fishermen.

In a town that practically insists you order crayfish (after all, ‘Kaikoura’ translates from Maori as ‘meal of crayfish’), finding award winning beef and lamb dishes on the menu can be a tad perplexing. The White Morph Restaurant has won gold in the New Zealand beef and lamb awards for the past five years, but husband and wife team Garry and Kerry Ford, who have run the show for the past eight years, have put as much effort into every dish on the meticulous menu. Their ‘oven roasted orange roughy rubbed with walnut & parsley pesto on fennel & orange baked risotto cake with lemon pickle & beurre blanc’, for example, will pepper your dreams for days and nights to come.

After all the eating, even the most robust of glutton’s guilt can be salved with a night at Donegal House. On the northern outskirts of Kaikoura, the cosy ‘Little Irish Hotel in the Country’ is a comfortable slice of the Emerald Isle set amongst tranquil New Zealand farmland. Owner Murray will greet you with a genuine Irish “how’yer?” and point you to the alluring fireside bar that looks as if it could recount its fair share of late night houlies.  

Next day, autumn gold poplar trees cast zigzag shadows across the highway as Waipara approaches. New Zealand’s fastest growing wine region, Waipara has sprouted around 80 vineyards in its 30 year history and is now a green sea of soldier-straight vines marching off in all directions. Lunch at Waipara Springs – one of the region’s oldest vineyards – is a sensory affair. The scent of baking bread dances across the sun soaked lawn, shimmying up to diners beneath blue sun umbrellas. A hearty bowl of pasta and a glass of pinot noir are hungrily scoffed to a bass line of distant bird scarers.

Just up the road, The Mud House will beckon you in off State Highway One with its striking gabled exterior. Head through the voluminous cafe and out the back with cellar door host Jude to find the winery’s beating heart: Three mammoth silver presses loom above a concrete floor, crisscrossed by twisting steel pipes and overhead walkways. Forklifts carrying crates of bobbly red grapes roar back and forth past French oak wine barrels. Men in heavy boots stomp cheerily over the flotsam of winemaking that trickles somewhat morbidly across the ground.

“Try this,” suggests Jude, dipping a glass into a vat of muddy liquid extracted from one of the silver presses. “Chardonnay that’s just been pressed – straight off the vines.” The gritty brown juice tastes like liquid sugar.

Back inside, choose a window seat and you can sip a Mud House Riesling while looking out to the wind fluttered grape vines from whence your wine came.

Or perhaps you’ll gaze out to the softly lit Teviotdale hills, behind which lies a delectable trove of North Canterbury secrets, just waiting to be uncovered…
 

Amelia experienced the North Canterbury Food & Wine Trail courtesy of Alpine Pacific Tourism and  Four Corners