Tasting Martinborough

Waking to the sounds of bleating sheep is surely an experience us city slickers never really consider as a daily routine. Stuck up here in the wilderness with no internet, no phone access and (as we discovered) no car battery power it really did seem as if we active participants of the global society were marooned in a wilderness with no way out except to go bush Ricky Baker style. Luckily the owner of the joint (Ross -sans singlet revealling sunburnt neck) was happy to and thoroughly effective in getting the caboose going. Taking the advice of Ruth (the other half of our accomodators) we headed off to Martinborough via the local "shortcut". It's decisions and the subsequent consequences like this that make travelling so enjoyable. We wound our way over brook and dale, opening and closing gates, rounding up the sheep flashing their various coloured behinds at us as they raced along ahead.

The landscapes were a plethora of picture postcard craggy ridgetopped green hills with lush valleys creating leading lines of visual perspectives the type of which the professional photographers tend to wet themselves over. No stuffing around for us though, we didn't stop to capture every picturesque scene as we were on a mission. Martinborough beckoned. We just had find our way out of the maze of mountains that we'd managed to imbed ourselves in. It took a while, one instinctive wrong turn quickly overridden by the only other people seen all morning (which was lucky). Eventually the gravel turned to bitumen, the ground turned flat and the Taste of Martinborough Festival was duly consumed by us 5 Musketeers and 8000 others. It was a big day. The locale has a heap of vineyards, each of which sells their grappa, plus food, plus entertainment. Frequent shuttle buses move the happy crowd around the circuit. As the day goes on the crowd gets happier. Go figure. We managed to do half the circuit. Great fun. Pretty much a first world event with first world people being happily ensconced in their first world situation. If this is what our heroes in the wars fought for then good on them. Thanks guys.

There was plenty of merryment, lots of music (rhythm and melody), dancing, smiles on people's faces and a wonderful vibe permeating throughout. Suspect that the combined positive energy being created kept the threatening deluges away all day. We left on closing via one last hilarious bus trip and then thanks to our able driver Teresa we scampered out of there. Stopping at Greytown on the way (yes it is predominately grey and very likable) for a boost we then headed back up into the hilly, winding roads to eventually get back to the isolated, thoroughly welcoming abode that is our home for 2 nights. Your Blogger went for an exploration through the sheep track defined bush down to the river as the light faded away whilst the non bloggers cosied up on the couches in their PJs to watch an historically relevant DVD.

Everyone happy - except the disappointing ending. Unbeknownst there was a second disk lurking in the case. LOLs the next day when they figured that one out.