Martinborough

In what is becoming a tradition, we headed over the Rimutaka Hill Road to Martinborough to pick up some of the new season wines, taste some new wines, and generally see what’s changed since we were last there. Our original intention was to stop at the top of the hill, where there’s a scenic lookout, but as we ascended the hills we encountered a layer of thick cloud, so the view would have been invisible. We pushed straight on and descended to the Wairarapa side, leaving sunny Wellington behind for Schiffer* weather.

First stop, as always, is at the i-site, to pick up a map of the vineyards. We used to hang on to these, thinking we could use the same one again next year, but soon learnt that with the changing seasons comes changing ownership, with different opening times.

We decided to try some new vineyards that we’d not been to before, and formulated a plan to go to Luna Estate, Poppies, Cambridge Road and Palliser Estate.

First on the list: Luna Estate. As we drive towards it, we see the sign: cellar door open from 12-5pm. It’s 11am. The best-laid plans of mice and men, etc. No problem, we’ll go back there later once they’re open – it’s not like we have to go a long way out of our way! The cellar doors around Martinborough are all within a very small area, even if some of them are sourcing grapes from vineyards further afield.

Next stop is Poppies, which we visit every year, and Poppy (who conducts the tastings in the tasting room) recognises me from my chats from previous years. I am slowly building up a vertical selection of pinot noir, and added two bottles of the 2016 vintage, as well as some pinot gris and rosé for immediate consumption.

It’s still only 11:30 by the time we leave, so we head round the corner to Cambridge Road. This is a vineyard that’s been around since 1986, but acquired by its current owner in 2008. Only in the last couple of years has it opened is cellar door to the public, which is why we hadn’t been there before. We tried a variety of wines there, including an “orange” wine (not made from oranges, but the colour being orange rather than pink), which is a rosé style of wine made from white grapes. It also has a characteristic sour taste, as it ferments in much the same style as kombucha. Interesting, but I’m not parting with cash for it. They also make some more traditional wines, and, like the people we found at Riwaka River Estate in Nelson, hold their wine back before selling it; so we were able to get hold of some 2013 pinot noir and syrah.

Finally, it’s midday, so we headed back the way we’d come and drove into Luna Estate. Whilst the name is unfamiliar, it is in fact on the site of the old Alana vineyard, which went bust a few years ago. When they did so I was able to pick up some of their pinot noir at a bargain price, and that is still in my cellar. We chatted to the wine taster, Joan, and she told us that it had now been bought out by the same company that owns Murdoch James. Not only that, but Murdoch James itself is disappearing at the end of the month, to be replaced by the Blue Rock name. As part of this, they’re selling off all the old Murdoch James wine at bargain prices, so we decided we’d pop in there on our way home for some bobby bargains.   

We stopped for lunch at Luna, then skipped our final visit to Palliser in favour of a quick drop-in to the Martinborough Brewery to pick up some beer, and on to Murdoch James, which is 7km outside town in a small cluster of vineyards that also includes Hamden Estate and Coney Vineyards. We told them that we’d just been at Luna and had heard about their bargains, and quickly tasted some wines, before departing with half a dozen each of the viognier and riesling at $10 a bottle.

A successful trip all round, and I’m looking forward to tasting some of these wines in the next decade!

* i.e. Claudia.

The Trouble With Tribbles

This was the fifth, and apparently final, instalment in Summer Star Trek’s five-year mission to perform an episode of Star Trek, in the open air in Aro Park. Regrettably, we only found out about this last year…but this year we were determined to get to it again.

The production is notably ramshackle, with cardboard sets and nothing in the way of special effects – to simulate the doors on the Enterprise opening, for example, two crew members stand side by side, take a step away from each other, and say “whoosh”. Despite this, no liberties are taken with the script, and it is reproduced word for word.

Our original plan was to go on Wednesday 18^th, but as we arrived, the rain that had been promised for the evening turned up several hours early, and we decided that a picnic in the open air, in the rain, was slightly beyond the call of duty. We packed up and went home, and had our picnic indoors for dinner.

Take two was organised for Wednesday 25^th. We were a little late getting there this time, so didn’t have the prime location front and centre that we’d managed to bag last time. No matter, we settled in for the customary pre-show entertainment from the Space Babes, singing space-y type songs, before the obligatory rendition of The Firm’s Star Trekkin’, with full audience participation.

The Trouble With Tribbles is a classic episode, in which small, furry creatures that reproduce at an alarming rate infest the Enterprise. At the same time, a diplomatic incident is brewing between the Federation and the Klingons. (Spoiler alert) after many high jinks and a bar brawl of epic proportions, the plot to sabotage the colonisation of a disputed planet is thwarted, Klingon agents uncovered, and the tribble problem exported to the Klingons.

It’s a shame that they’ve called it a day. Maybe they’ll be back next year with The Next Generation?

Rain Day

Monday turned out to be a bit grey and rainy. We were prepared for this, as Lyin’ Dan the mendacious weatherman had told us about it in advance, so we decided to take a look at a few vineyards around the Nelson region, and also to go to the WOW museum.

Most vineyards arrange their public openings for the weekend, which is when most people visit. This being a Monday, many of them were shut, or “open by appointment only”. We dropped into the i-site in Motueka to pick up a map which detailed which ones were open, and set off north to Riwaka River Estate, a small vineyard just north of where we were staying. They make three varietals – sauvignon blanc, chardonnay and pinot noir. The owner told us about their philosophy of only releasing wines once they had sufficiently matured – for example, we were tasting the most recent pinot noir, the 2014. As we chatted she brought out a 2017 sauvignon blanc for us to taste as a comparison to the 2016 – a very cool, cucumber, minty tasting wine, which reflected the conditions from last summer, which was a very poor one for grape growers. The chardonnay was, I thought, a very good combination of oak and fruit (a 2015 I think).

Next on the list was old favourites Neudorf Vineyards. We tried a number of their wines including their rosé, a pinot noir with no time on the skins, so the very faint blush colour comes purely from the time being pressed; and an albariño, a Spanish grape which very few New Zealand vineyards have grown.

The final stop was at Moutere Hills vineyard, which has a unique tasting proposition: instead of the usual $5 fee, or free if you buy something, they charge $1 per wine tasted, so you can select which wines you want to try, and how many (a couple of the premium ones are $2). After trying the chardonnay and Riesling, I moved onto the reds – syrah, pinot noir and merlot. They threw in a free taste of their premium merlot as well, for comparison.

We drove into Nelson for some lunch, and decided to try the Cod & Lobster brasserie – a venue which was just about to open last time we were in Nelson. As you might expect, they specialise in seafood, and we had cured salmon and seared tuna for lunch. We then walked around the corner to Penguino’s for an ice cream.

In the afternoon, we drove back down to Stoke, and found the WOW museum. WOW, or World Of WearableArt, is an annual show of weird and wonderful…I hesitate to call them dresses, maybe costumes is a better word. The show and awards ceremony started in Nelson in 1993, but quickly outgrew the town and transferred to Wellington, where it takes place each year at the TSB arena – we went in 2015. They are currently exhibiting costumes from the 2017 show. Combined with the museum, bizarrely, is the Nelson Classic Car collection. As the name suggests, this is a selection of random old cars – not as extensive as the one in Paraparaumu that we visited in 2014, but still pretty impressive.

We made our final stop of the day at the McCashin’s brewery and distillery. I’d hoped for a tour, but these have to be booked in advance and take place at 11:00, so no chance of fitting one in on this trip. Instead we bought some feijoa liqueur, to be incorporated into Nicola’s favourite cocktail, the Old Feijoan.

Motueka

Monday 22^nd January is Wellington Anniversary day, a public holiday in the Wellington region. We decided to make a long weekend of it and take a short break to Nelson for a few days. We hadn’t been to Nelson since October 2015, when we concentrated on the Nelson lakes area. This time we decided to re-visit the Abel Tasman track in the Abel Tasman National Park, which we’d not visited since – blimey! – 2012.

To this end, we decided to base ourselves in Motueka instead of Nelson town. This is a small town on the opposite side of Tasman Bay, a short drive from Nelson. We took a Sounds Air flight into Nelson – for which you fly due west, even though it’s on the South Island. This part of the South Island is in fact on the same parallel as Wellington.

We collected a rental car and decided to drive into Nelson first, as we wouldn’t be checking in until the afternoon. We re-familiarised ourselves with the town, and had a light lunch at Ford’s Restaurant. In the afternoon we walked up the river track and watched ducks shooting the rapids with some success, and some backpackers attempting to do so with rather less. (They had to get out and walk – too shallow!) After taking a quick turn around the Queen’s Gardens, we headed back and took the short drive round to Motueka (or MotchOOka, as the car’s Australian-accented satnav insisted on calling it). We checked into our accommodation, and then went out to New World to stock up on provisions for our stay.

In the evening we went out to what TripAdvisor reckons is probably the best restaurant in Motueka. We later learnt that this wasn’t due to fierce competition. Precinct Dining Co provide good, fresh, well-cooked food, presented and served well. It’s nothing fancy, but otherwise you can’t really fault it.

The following morning, we made our leisurely way to Kaiteriteri, to pick up our ride to the Abel Tasman track. We’d booked ahead with Abel Tasman Sea Shuttles (I had to check this, as there are four different companies, all with very similar names) to take us to Tonga Quarry, with a pick-up at Medlands Beach. This is a more northerly section of the track than we’d done last time, but still takes about the same time to walk. On the way we passed Split Apple Rock, and also had a quick tour around Adele Island, where we saw a baby seal and her mum. The baby was only about a week old, and had yet to venture into the water, apparently.

The boat dropped us at Tonga Quarry and, after a quick stop to take some pics of a weka which was scrounging around the campers on the beach, we set off on the track. It was a hot day so we took it easy, with frequent stops especially on the uphill stretches. A fantail (a juvenile I think) posed for some pictures for us on the way. We also saw bellbirds, but too far away to photograph (I’d left my big lens behind as it’s too heavy to lug about). You realise how spoilt we are in Wellington with Zealandia, and how tame the birds there are compared to in the wild.

Despite taking it easy, we were in fact at the pick-up beach in time for the 1:30pm return trip – we’d originally planned for the 3:30pm return. No point hanging around an empty beach for two hours, we thought…let’s get back and explore Motueka further.

In the late afternoon we went out looking for Motueka beach. This turned out to be a schoolboy error – it doesn’t have one. What it has instead is the saltwater baths – i.e. a swimming pool which fills up from the sea with every high tide; and a sandspit, which is home to various seabirds. We saw oystercatchers both pied and variable, bar-tailed godwits, white-faced herons and pied stilts.

We got some dinner later at Elevation Café in Motueka. We liked it so much we went back there for breakfast the next day.

  

Black Caps vs. Pakistan

The Black Caps have hit a bit of a purple patch this summer. They saw off the West Indies in three test matches, three ODIs and two T20 matches (one cancelled due to rain), winning them all in an emphatic matter. But Pakistan would be a bit more of a challenge, surely?

It appears not. In the ODI 5 match series, they were bossed by New Zealand all the way. By the time they came back to Wellington, it was 4-0 down in the series. Whilst a dead rubber, both sides had something to play for: Pakistan to try to salvage some dignity with a win, and New Zealand to continue their winning streak (now up to 10). We went down to the Basin Reserve to watch the match on Friday.

The weather was fine - sun in the sky, a few clouds about but certainly no rain threatening, and the winds light. As an international match, the NZ cricket authorities have finally got the message that not everyone is happy with hot dogs and chips, and there was a good range of food and beverages available to suit all tastes. We noted the Greek Food Truck in residence and decided to pay them a visit later on. The beer choice was also better than the usual Steinlager or Tui (depending on who sponsors), with Black Dog Brewery ales available.

We settled into the revamped seats in the shade of the R A Vance Stand. New Zealand won the toss and decided to bat, and piled on the runs from the word go, reaching fifty without loss in less than six overs. The loss of Munro at 52 and Williamson at 101 slowed things down and in the middle of the innings the Pakistan team managed to stem the flow of runs, but without taking wickets. Guptill carried on to reach his 100, and promptly holed out going for 6; at which point De Grandhomme was promoted up the order to try and get some quick runs in the last 10 overs, as he has done on several occasions recently. However this time he was restrained by the bowling and was unable to find the boundary with the regularity that we’d come to expect from him. Other batsmen came and went, and at the end the Black Caps had amassed 271. At the beginning of the innings passing 300 looked a probable result, but the fielding and bowling restricted them.

Still, 272 is a respectable target to defend. But New Zealand, even without Trent Boult in this match, have a powerful bowling attack and the wickets soon started tumbling. They lost three in the first 10 overs, and, in the immortal words of cricket commentators the world over, they were letting the required run rate get away from them, scoring at around 3 an over when they needed 5.5. The middle batsmen settled things down a bit and managed to put on a decent partnership of 105 in the middle of the innings, but too slowly, way too slowly. When they were both out in quick succession, it was left to the tail-end batsmen to try and salvage the match. A big ask, to get 100 runs in 10 overs with three wickets remaining. To their credit, they all came out and gave it a go – in fact the final batsmen all scored at well over 100% to try to rescue the match. But it was all too little too late, and whilst 23 from 2 overs at the end is very gettable, they were down to their last wicket at this point. One mistake was all it took for the Pakistanis to be bowled out in 49 overs, still 15 runs short of the target.

The Black Caps extend their winning streak to a record-equalling 11 matches on the trot, with three T20 matches to be played against Pakistan over the coming week.