Activity Summary
Thursday 22nd December - Day 112
Drive to Martinborough
Carter Scenic Reserve walk
Failed Stonehenge Aotearoa
Putangirua Pinnacles (aka - the passage to the land of the dead)
Friday 23rd December - Day 113
Rapaki hillside walk - many cows & Luke leg rash
Second trip to the doc for Luke
Cellar door afternoon
Nga Waka
Palliser estate
Absolute monsoon rains & tent flooding
Saturday 24th December - Day 114
Cellar door morning
Poppies
Moy Hall
Drive to Wellington
Summary
Martinborough
The wine is incredible. The town is very small so there isn’t a need to have a wonderful chauffeur such as Nicola if kitted out with bikes. Luke loved the wineries he went to and came away with far more bottles than intended.
In terms of other things to do in Martinborough however it is pretty limited but the town was very nice (and probably posh and snooty),
Accommodation
Martinborough - Top10
Number of nights - 2
Price per night per person - £13
Not a great Top10 in our opinion. Mozzies & sandflies were everywhere and the rain in the unpowered pitch site meant it turned into a bog. We couldn’t get much solace and comfort from all this as there wasn’t a TV room outside of the kitchen so we couldn’t hide away either.
There were little other options but felt a little robbed paying more for less comparatively to other campsites we’ve been at.
Diary
After 6 days we finally departed Himatangi and took off down to Martinborough. If we didn’t have so much time as a result of going through the north island quicker than we expected, Christmas being round the corner and struggling to book the ferry we likely would not have made the stop in Martinborough but Luke was certainly happy we did. All it was really was wine country.
On the way we stopped off for a very short walk around the Carter Scenic Reserve and spot of car park lunch.
Another of Luke’s initial plans was to head to the critically acclaimed (lol jk) Stonehenge Aotearoa but given they were going to charge us money for it and we can see the real one for free off the A303 we binned that plan pretty quickly.
A much better idea however was drawn up by Nicola and visiting the Putangirua Pinnacles which is better known for its role in the LOTR as the the passage to the land of the dead (Dimholt road).
This. Was. Fucking. Epic.
The walk in itself was pretty good fun anyway; walking across the river at many points (although it turns out we didn’t need to do this and just cocked up) and up a decent incline to the pinnacles movie shot. We did go slightly wrong chasing a cool looking pinnacle but regretted our decision and turned back.
The pinnacles however were incredible and well worth the drive and visit even if not fangirling over LOTR like we were. Definitely seemed to be better done from the bottom rather than walking to the higher viewpoint.
We arrived at the Martinborough Top10 fairly late into the afternoon which has the added problem that sandflies and mozzies tend to make a pretty strong appearance if not baking hot. Today was that day, and in getting the tent set up we were both running around getting it done as quickly as possible while trying to bat away tiny things. This meant we would be running in and out of the tent to avoid them a lot.
Luke had been suffering from pretty bad chest & back pain every day since randomly waking up in the Auckland hostel and in agony. It had dissipated quite a lot since day 0 but it was a regular occurance that he would wake up between 7-8am and be completely unable to lie horizontally anymore due to the pain, once or twice having to sleep in the camp chair when it was far too early to get up. Once upright however the pain simply went away.
Until now he had decided to put off going to see anyone about it because he could breathe absolutely fine and his heart & lungs could keep up with him doing a 27km walk without being much of a challenge at all (he’s come a long long way since going part time at BDO…). It also only seemed to be happening when sleeping on the air bed in the tent rather than at hostels, hence there wasn’t too much drama about this in Himatangi.
This morning however, in waking up in pain again we both decided it was best to finally get some peace of mind. Luke begrudgingly called a doctor in Martinborough who referred him to the ‘undocumented’ friendly clinic in Featherston. Before we knew it, he had an appointment at 2pm to see someone. This was actually baffling having come from the UK and the NHS where getting a same day appointment at a GP is fucking nigh on impossible. New Zealand is doing something right - Tories go fuck yourselves then maybe try learn something.
What made the doctor more unappealing was that this was going to take away from Luke’s day of wine drinking, seeing as he thought it was probably best he turned up to an examination of his heart & lungs sober. He was very dissapointed but Nicola did a great job in cheering him up by agreeing to take him wineing afterwards and also in the morning. Again, what a gem.
Nicola made up a quick alternative plan and a walk nearby to Martinborough called the Rapaki hillside walk. This was honestly the worst walk we have done in New Zealand by a country mile. The walk itself was completely uninspiring, as we walked through cow and sheep fields much akin to those in the UK (although we did laugh this would be considered a good walk if back home). Luke was getting ransacked by hay fever and the long grass was unbelievably vicious on Luke’s poor mangey legs. By the end of it, he was more rash than leg and it was surprising the doc later didn’t ask whether that was his reason for visiting.
The walk however did top out onto a nice spot over the countryside, so we set up shop for lunch and scared some sheep away who decided to edge to us slowly until Nicola moved. She also makes Luke jump as well.
The afternoon was Luke’s second time in our 4 months of travelling to some sort of doctor. They were all incredibly nice, even apologising when they had to charge him for the appointment. The doc listened to his breathing, found no issues and then said if he’d been doing this much exercise there is absolutely nothing wrong with his heart but for peace and mind / fun Luke got an ECG.
Nothing found, the best guess was that Luke had gotten too fit too quickly for his tiny little unfit working-too-much chest, and had muscle strain in his rib cage. So he was prescribed anti-inflammatories and even had a consultation about his hay fever which since Himatangi had been aggressively beating him up. Lovely guy.
Nicola was waiting at the car, playing her nintendo switch of course, where the good news was that nothing drastic was wrong was shared but also that travelling was making Luke’s chest hurt but there was absolutely nothing to do to recover apart from rest. Kind of difficult when travelling the world, so this was a problem that wasn’t going away anytime soon. Short term fix was to stop doing his daily ab and body weight exercises to see what would happen.
Just like a child getting a sweet for going to the doctor/dentist, Luke was given the opportunity to consume as much wine as he could in the next few hours as a ‘well done for being brave little boy’.
Martinborough is a great wine area because there are plenty of cellar door experiences, do not seem so angsty about booking and they are all so close to each other. We managed to fit in 3 wineries around the Martinborough area that Luke had already picked out days before:
Nga Waka
Palliser estate
The first winery was B.wine and was a very small producer with an intimate outdoor setting and hosted by one of the owners. She was engaging but seemed far more interested in other guests who had better chat and also looked more likely to buy bottles rather than a snively Luke rocking up in a car (rather than cycling like most) and in flip flops. He didn’t scream out high end customer.
Sauvignon Blanc 2021 - 7/10
Pinot Gris 2022 - 5/10
Rose 2021 - 4/10
Chardonnay 2021 - 7/10 *** was actually the best wine here surprisingly
Pinot Noir 2021 - 8/10
This one also turned out to be free as they didn’t serve food. This made Luke feel incredibly guilty and pushed his British sensibilities quite far but not enough to part with his money for any bottles as they weren’t amazing wines. We did speak to a UK expat couple about some of the nearby wineries and their favourites so this helped steer out next visits.
Next we went to Nga Waka which had a slightly different set up for wine tasting. Each wine was priced at $3 a tasting so Luke only chose 3 of them, partly because he didn’t look best please we had rocked up before there were going to close soon. He was however still very happy to give Luke the spiel he wanted about the winery and the region.
Sauvignon Blanc 2021 - 8/10
Honestly not sure, wrote this up far too late but think it was a Riesling
Pinot Noir 2021 - 9/10 *** outstanding
The pinot noir was recommended by the couple we spoke to and they did not lie. It was incredible so Luke ended up forking out the $40 for the bottle. He’s getting pricier and pricier with his wine purchases and now pays over what ASDA will stock. Does this make him classy now?
The last winery we frequented was Palliser Estate, a larger player in the area hence the cellar door closing last and there was no problem not booking. They sat us at the bar where we were tended to by a young looking girl who wasn’t overly engaged with the experience but we couldn’t blame her when it was nearly shut up shop time. The service was so bad that it took Luke an absolute age to buy the bottle he wanted but because it was so good he couldn’t walk away.
Sauvignon Blanc 2022 - 9/10 *** Absolutely great. Beautiful flavour, great smell and taste with no twang. Great memory in Christchurch of sitting in a camping chair, sun out and typing away on the ipad with this delicious bottle being quaffed.
Rose 2022 - 4/10
Pinot Gris 2022 - 5/10
Chardonnay 2021 - 7/10
Pinot Noir 2021 - 8/10
Two bottles of wine poorer, and we were back at the campsite to eat, hiding away from biting things until hitting the tent hay.
It was an incredibly wet night.
What made this time more challenging was the surrounding flooding that was waiting for Nicola both outside and inside the tent porch. She managed to navigate her way around this using one of the side doors which didn’t have any flooding, but by the time morning came around the tent had almost been overrun. Turns out, after discussing the problems with the Top10 lady when she asked whether there were problems after we had already put the tent away, the unpowered pitches down our end are not all that appropriate for tents as when it rains it turns into a swamp. We had faired a lot better than a young family who ended up having to move pitches to escape. Best part, it didn’t even rain that much.
The morning was fairly sunny so we were able to drag our tent over to a dry patch of gravel and Luke patiently wiped, brushed and sunned the tent until it was completely dry. Patience of a saint, and hence why it’s his job and not Nicola’s. The sandflies were of course there the entire time taking chunks out of him. We could not wait to get moving from this campsite.
As Nicola promised, we drove to two further wineries on our way down to Wellington:
Poppies
Moy Hall
The first stop off was at Poppies which was on a smaller scale in terms of wineries. The owner was running around looking after people, but the place was still beautiful. The hostess was a French woman who had married a Kiwi guy and not been in NZ all that long but she was lovely and very engaging so we had plenty of fun at this wine tasting.
Luke has little evidence to support what wines he drank here as he was too busy drinking and socialising he forgot to take a picture of it, bar taking a screenshot of the website at the date. In summary, all the wines at Poppies are very expensive and from memory were very nice.
The standout and absolute winner of a bottle to date - the Sauvignon Semillon. The blend was to pull out some of the twang that is traditionally there with Sauvignon and by god it was beautiful. So Luke, now the proud owner of 3 bottles of expensive wine from his wine tastings now owned a fourth that cost $45.
Running around with him for 4 weeks:
Linden Estate - Alborino 2021 - $28
Palliser Estate - Sauvignon Blanc 2022 - $30
Nga Waka - Pinot Noir 2021 - $40
Poppies - Sauvignon Semillon - $45
The hardest part was that the car and tent get incredibly warm, so in order to try keep them cool Luke would put the bottles in the ground in the porch and covered by the heat reflective car windshield, now repurposed.
The last winery we went to was Moy Hall which had a great seating area out front for the wine tasting and away from the chaos of the lunchtime rush on Christmas Eve. The hostess didn’t engage much but gave great portion sizes and it was enough for Luke to sit and drink his wine in peace in the sun. What. A. Life.
Luke got some great shots of Nicola looking bored of course.
Finally done with wine tasting, Nicola got us back on the road and over to Wellington.
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