A Rough Crossing And A Smooth Wine

Saturday 9 December

We were treated to a ‘late’ morning today, bags out at 08.00 and leaving at 09.00. The weather was heavy showers, and the forecast had prepared us for a top temperature of 13 degrees C – gosh what has happened to summer – we definitely weren’t expecting it to be as cold as this. As predicted we had a short tour around Wellington, stopping to see the Parliament buildings – the first a huge grey Georgian style edifice, built in South Island grey marble in 1908 to replace the wooden building that had become too small for the 96 MPs that represented country. When New Zealand became self-governing in 1852 two houses were set up as the Parliament, similar to England and Australia, but when they became totally self-governing in 1947 they decided to have just one house. In 1964 the system of voting changed to the people having two votes, one for the MP and one for the party, leading to a proposed increase in MPs from 96 to 120. A referendum was held and the people voted to keep the number of MPs to 96, but 120 were appointed and it is still the same today. The second building in the group was the Legislative – which holds the archives and parliamentary papers. The third was the Beehive – a round building built as offices for all the MPs – similar to the building Ken Livingstone occupies in London (this one was designed by Sir Basil Spence in the 1960’s). When the number of MPS increased to 120 and the administration increased, the MPs voted for bigger office accommodation, but the councils who would have had to pay for it said “no”, so they are all squeezed into the Beehive.

Party politics only came to New Zealand in 1889 when the Liberal Party was set up under the leadership of John Valence. He died in 1893, and Richard John Seddon took over – later to be known as “King Dick”. He introduced a host of new laws covering votes for women (this was one of the first countries to do so), an old age pension scheme, and arbitration for disputes between companies. The Governor General is no longer appointed by the Queen, but by Parliament here, and the current incumbent is a Fijian businessman.

We saw the new Catholic and Protestant cathedrals, the small house where one of the first traders lived – now some distance from the Quay as a strip of land, about half a mile wide, has been reclaimed - and the national library and theatre, before making our way up a steep twisty climb to the top of Victoria Hill, standing 196 metres above the city. From here we had a 360 degree view of the peninsula where Wellington now sprawls and over to the cliffs on the far side of the bay, where exclusive homes in the city are now being built. At the top there was also a triangular monument representing the southern lights, using paint splashed coloured tiles, a memorial to one of the first pioneers of the region, Sir Richard Byrd.

It was then a short ride to the Te Papa Museum, a new building on the Wellington sea front, with exhibitions on the volcanoes and earthquakes that frequent these islands, being part of the Pacific ring. Volcanoes take place when two tectonic plates - in this area the Australian and the Pacific – move apart, while earthquakes occur when the plates move together. The earthquake here in 1856 measured 7.9 on the Richter Scale, and raised the floor of the harbour by 1.5 metres. Other exhibitions covered Maori life and wildlife in New Zealand - how it has developed on the two islands from prehistoric times. After a quick sandwich we met the coach to take us to the ferry for our trip to South Island. Along the wharf we saw large containers of thirty foot pine trunks, all numbered on the cut surface, waiting to be transported to Australia, Korea, Thailand and China, to be sawn and made into furniture, fencing and the like (some probably being exported back here to New Zealand when processed), as New Zealand cannot afford to set up enough lumber depots and saw mills to deal with the amount of timber it produces. It is cheaper to export it to be processed and re-import it.

We were warned before we left port that the crossing would be bumpy and advised that if not a good traveler to move to the back of the boat where the motion would be less. We had not even left the shelter of the harbour before we were rolling up and down over the waves, with that queezy feeling in your stomach you get when you go over a steep hill too quickly! – needless to say, many were soon ill and then moved to the back of the boat. We saw albatross and skewers flying in front of the boat when the waves were at their roughest. We reached the safety of Queen Charlotte Sound about an hour before the boat was due to dock, and the sea became suddenly calm. The landscape was reminiscent of what we had seen in the Norwegian fjords, steep sided, thickly wooded mountains reaching right down to the water. The sun had come out and the water was a deep turquoise colour. It made a stunning entrance into South Island.

We landed at Picton – named after the officer who accompanied Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo who, riding beside Wellington, was hit by a cannon ball which severed his leg. On informing Wellington of this disaster, he was told he was dismissed from service – and promptly fell off his horse and died. The town today, is a small port, dependent on the ferry services to bring tourists to this town – there seem to be lots of backpacker establishments, as well as motels. It is slowly expanding – there is a new marina to one side of the ferry harbour, with lots of expensive yachts – and more hotels and visitor centres are being constructed to accommodate the travelers visiting the ever-expanding wineries in the area. We made our way to Blenheim (named after the Duke of Marlborough, who won a famous battle victory at Blenhiem) in the county of Marlborough, to our hotel for the night.

We only had time to grab our keys and clean our teeth, before being whisked off againto one of the largest wineries in New Zealand – Montana – we bought some of these wines at Sainsburys when we were home. We were greeted by our guide, Lesley, and after selecting our food from a table d’hote menu for our meal later, we went to see the very mechanized processes they use on this estate to produce a range of nine wines – Cabinet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir their signature grapes. The fruit is mostly picked by machines, and loaded into a crushing machine which separates the fruit, skins, and pips from the leaves, stalks and other debris – this waste is returned to the vine fields and used as mulch. The grape mix is piped to large stainless steel vats for pressing and fermenting before aging in oak casks. Each vat holds thousands of litres, and they have now made a version which empties the load into a hopper like a wheelie bin on a dust cart – upended by a grabber. This company makes still table wines as well as sparkling wines and is now owned by a French company Pierre Ricard – although we are assured that nothing has changed to alter the wines. After a short film showing work amongst the vines and in the processing plant, we were taken to the tasting area where we tasted two white wines (sauvignon blanc reserve and pinot gris, the latter being better), one red (pinot noir) and a sweet white wine (chardonnay/reisling). All the wines were OK – nothing you would rave over – but perhaps you need food to bring out the flavour. Many people on our tour are not wine drinkers and were throwing their tastings into the bin! What a waste!!!

It was then time for dinner. We had chosen our menu earlier and the food when served looked good as well as tasting good. As a group, some of us are now getting to know each other quite well, so the conversation flowed and the evening was extremely pleasant, with a few laughs and a lot of ’crack’. All too soon it was time to return to the hotel, as Darryl was running out of hours for driving – and it was too far to walk back to the hotel. We spent another frustrating time trying to connect to the internet, without success.

Tomorrow we are on the second of our train journeys, not leaving Blenhiem until 13.30. The coach is departing around 08.30, so we have a morning in this town to explore on our own after a leisurely breakfast – quite a novelty. The weather forecast is promising warmer weather – up in the twenties – fingers crossed.