Epic Natural Waterslide & Wine Tasting in Gisborne – Day 271, Part 2

Today we have an action packed day exploring an arboretum and finding out what the hell an arboretum is. We’re also going to be going on a natural waterslide, seeing some waterfalls and ending the day with Gisborne wine tasting.

Previously on Day 271 Part 1, we went to the Eastwoodhill Arboretum which is nearby Gisborne and one of the largest collections of Northern Hemisphere trees in the Southern Hemisphere. If you guys don’t want to miss any of New Zealand’s Biggest Gap Year make sure to subscribe to this video so you don’t skip a beat.

Next stop is Rere Falls… No, Rere Rockslide.

That’s right we’re not just seeing trees today we’re also going to one of the longest natural waterslides in the world. It’s the rere rockslide. It’s a little bit off the beaten track in the Gisborne region of the North Island so not many people get to go there but we’re gonna take you there right now.

It really doesn’t take much time at all for Laura and I to put our togs on and jump in the water. It’s probably one of the happiest places in New Zealand in my opinion. Everybody’s giggling and laughing it’s so much fun the whole length of the Rere Rockslide is over 60m making it for the drift of a lifetime. I mean, look at Laura sliding on the water right now. It’s so much fun and everybody is kind of running their way back up because you just can’t get enough of those Rere Rockslides.

So you may be asking how to get a bodyboard or something to ride on for the Rere Rockslide. So there is a few solutions. A lot of time people will leave some old body boards on the side of the falls so you are more than welcome to just pick it up from the bushes. You can also grab yourself an air mattress like some other people today have done. You can get one of those from a store called The Warehouse in New Zealand and they’re around $15 and they’re definitely worth destroying for an awesome afternoon on the slide.

The Rere Rockslide is a super fun place to be and we’re mingling with a huge mix of people between the Kiwi kids, and there’s a bunch of German backpackers here as well. We’re all racing each other down the waterslide making our way to huge plunge pool at the bottom which admittedly is super cold but we’re just moving so much that we don’t really get a chance to feel it.

After doing about 20 slides down the Rere Rockslide we decide it is a good time to call it a day and give our body board back to the guys from Gisbourne Tours who lent it to us. Also there is an awesome waterfall just around the corner.

On the way back to the Rere Rockslide we decided to stop at the Rere Falls look how majestic that is.

It’s so perfect.

The Rere Falls, not to be confused with the Rere Rockslide that we’ve just come from, is about 2km away from the Rere Rockslide. It’s a really cool area with a massive picnic area so if you guys are making your way toward the Rere Rockslide or the Eastwoodhill Arboretum it’s a great place to stop for a picnic.

There is heaps to do and to watch right here. There is tonne of wildife, a lot of ducks and lot of native birds and on top of that it’s beautiful.

So we’re heading back to Gisborne now. We’re going for some wine tasting, right?

Let’s do it.

From Rere Falls it’s just a 30 minute drive back into the city centre of Gisborne where we are going to be treating ourselves to some wine tasting at the Gisborne Wine Centre.

It’s got huge windows with awesome views of the Gisborne Harbour and we are meeting our guide, Bobby, who is going to go through the wine tasting with us.

The Gisborne Wine Centre is a great place to taste wine from wine brands all over the Gisborne region not just one wine brand like you would on a winery tour. And that great thing about this experience is that it’s super relaxed we’re just hanging out with a guy who knows a thing or two about wine.

Bobby is taking us through some tasting of Gisborne’s most famous wines produced here for instance we’re tasting Chardonnay, Gewurztraminer, Pinot Gris, Merlot and Malbec and we’re really learning about our own tasting palettes for wine which we don’t usually get to do on winery tours which is really awesome.

The Gisborne region is a really good region for making wine in New Zealand and for really good reasons in fact. It has really high ans hot sunshine hours it was fertile clay loam soil and that makes it the perfect environment to grow a lot of different type of wine not just one kind.

During this experience, Bobby also tells us how to taste wine but between laura and I we have zero experience in tasting wine we did not know what was the process for tasting wine to get the most out of the wine’s bouquet.

So it’s with our new expertise that we try our hand at red wine. Red wine is not something that neither Laura or I are really fond of but by tasting a lot of red wine and a different kind of bouquet and tastes are actually starting to appear because we are using Bobby’s technique. it’s a really good way to actually learn more about that and also getting a little bit tipsy because you know, that’s basically what wine tasting is all about isn’t it?

They have a guy or a girl I imagine sometimes who are going to tell you more about the Gisborne wine region let you taste some of the Gisborne wines from many different brands and many different varietals. See I know wine lingo now. I’m pretty good at this wine thing now.