Hello and welcome to/back to our monthly newsletter,
Looking back at May we realised how busy it’s been!! I just read out all of the things we’ve been up to to Jess and her response was “damn!”.
We are loving life and have fully embraced the notion of slow travel: we are settled here in Saint Bathans for the time being and have become known in the local community, making great friends and enjoying life here. We are also managing to travel around- we are 2 hours away from so many exciting places!
We’ve been up to quite a few things in May 2024:
- Visited wineries in Bannockburn, Cromwell
- Cycled the Lake Dunstan Trail
- Saw the Aurora
- Had a huge snowfall in Saint Bathans
- Explored the local area
- Hosted a Seafood Night at The Vulcan Hotel
- Spent two nights in Dunedin
- Went on the Speight’s Brewery Tour
- Visited Sandymount Distillery on Otago Peninsula for a gin tasting session
Without further ado, let’s talk about our best experiences from the month!
We will begin at the start of May and work our way through in chronological order for the things we have been up to.
Visit Some of the Best Wineries in Cromwell
We can’t live near a world class wine region and not visit!! Cromwell is a fairly small town about 45 minutes from Queenstown. It is home to some exceptional wineries, and is only an hour and a half away from where we are living in Saint Bathans so we hopped in the car and had an amazing day out in a world class wine region.
Te Kano
Te Kano is a winery found on the famous Felton Road. It is a relatively new winery, but it is one of the most beautiful and aesthetically pleasing, boutique wineries in the area.
With a huge range of wines that are only available from the cellar door, we enjoyed tasting a range of their beautiful products.
Mt Difficulty
Out of the wineries that we visited on this day, Mt Difficulty is probably the most famous.
We walked into the restaurant area which overlooks Cromwell and the X range of mountains- it was stunning.
We indulged in lunch here, alongside our tasting paddle. We opted for the Premium Pinot Noir paddle, which had some fantastic wines such as the Ghost town 2021 Pinot Noir and the Long Gully 2016 Pinot Noir.
We cannot recommend the food here enough. Catering for all of Jess’s allergies and requirements, we had a delicious charcuterie platter that was simply heavenly! The combination of the platter, the Pinot Noir and the views made for such a lovely few hours.
Date day!!
Carrick
And finally, the most spontaneous of them all was Carrick. As we were driving in the general direction of home, we decided to take a turn up a road to see where it went.
And we ended up at Carrick Winery!
We luckily made the last tasting session, as we were reaching 4pm on a Thursday.
Cycling the Lake Dunstan Trail
The Lake Dunstan Trail was an epic, outdoor adventure day out.
We hired bikes from BikeItNow! in Clyde, who also provided the taxi service to Cromwell.
And from there, we cycled the 42km trail back!
Needless to say, Ben is not quite as fit as he thought he was but did a great job on the regular bike. Jess made a very smart move by using the e-bike and probably enjoying the experience more!
Witnessing The Aurora in Saint Bathans
The Aurora was a life experience that we didn’t know we needed but got anyway.
Driving to a gym class at 6am, Ben saw something weird and red in the sky. It eventually clicked what it actually was, but he initially thought that the aliens were finally coming.
Having ever so slightly boasted to everyone at work that he saw the Aurora in the morning, the news and social media started to say that the Aurora was going to be visible again later that night!
We were both working that evening, but we had a great time rushing in and out of the pub with all of the guests to see it.
It was a truly magical experience.
Snow in Saint Bathans!
Snow in Saint Bathans!! This is very much expected as we are at a high elevation and in a typically snowy area. However being from the south of England both of us haven’t seen much snow in our lifetime… Maybe 4 or 5 good snowfalls.
This snow was epic!
The Blue Lake was gorgeous the day after when the sky was blue and the snow settled.
Seafood Night at The Vulcan Hotel
As part of work, we helped organise a Seafood Night at The Vulcan Hotel.
This is pretty historical as it’s not been done here before! With a great team working together, we brought the ocean to Saint Bathans and it was such a fun night!
We had oysters, crayfish, mussels, and so much more. Ben used his favourite tool (a spreadsheet) to organise the tables and the pre orders for every person
We’re currently planning the next night now!
Two Nights in Dunedin
Dunedin is only a two hour drive from us and is a city that we have been to before, but not explored fully. So we used our days off to drive down and have a nice quick getaway.
We started our time here by going to Sandymount Distillery (more on that below), and then into the city.
We stayed at our favourite place to stay- On Top Backpackers- and visited our favourite cocktail bar- Mr Fox- and had a fun two nights away!
We went to the Speight’s Brewery Tour and learned so much about the history of the most successful and famous beer in New Zealand.
READ MORE: Speight’s vs Emerson’s: Which is Better?
Visited Sandymount Distillery
Partially for pleasure, partially for work, we visited Sandymount Distillery on the Otago Peninsula.
What an experience!
We found this amazing, carbon neutral brand through an Instagram ad and spoke to our bosses about having a local and green brand of gin on the shelves.
So we scheduled a meeting and went down to visit Richard, the owner-operator. A lovely guy who absolutely knew his stuff and had an obvious passion for distilling, he took us through a tasting session of all his favourite products.
We walked away with two bottles for The Vulcan Hotel and two bottles for ourselves!
Everyone else who tasted the gin back at work commented on how deliciously smooth and flavourful the gin was.
Safe to say it is now on the shelf at the pub available to purchase!
Website Achievements
We are extremely proud of the direction our little travel blog is heading in.
In May alone, we’ve had 15.5k impressions and 142 organic web clicks onto our content.
This topples our total impressions to over 50k since we started Jess & Ben Travel.
We absolutely love having a focus for our travels, and hopefully we are turning our experiences into useful information too… Apparently 142 people think so already!
Upcoming Adventures
June will be a fairly slow month as we are both embarking on our WSET Level 2 courses- Jess is going to study wines and Ben to study spirits. So that will be a few hours of study time around work.
Winter is really settling in here in Saint Bathans, so hopefully we’ll have more snow pictures to share with you all!
Cat Pictures
Sir Vulcan Tom Cat
We cannot wrap this up without sticking in a few pictures of the gorgeous and cute pub cat here at The Vulcan Hotel.
We have set him up an Instagram account which you can follow: @sirvulcantomcat
What would you like to see in our monthly newsletters from the best New Zealand travel blog around? Let us know in the comments!
Thank you to all of our friends, family and our online audience whom we don’t know yet for reading our monthly newsletters and for your continued support in our journey.
Stay safe,
Jess & Ben
A….mazing !! You certainly get around and enjoy life .. stay safe