Alom wanted me to write about the film (you’ll remember a few of us wrote about this previously): unfortunately the long, damp piece of internet string connecting NZ to the rest of the world is long, and, well, damp, so that might have to wait until I get back to civilization. Don’t think my brother-in-law will be too impressed if I knacker his download limit in the first two days. So, instead, I’m going to show off my holiday pics (if Jenny can, then so can I).
Random beauty in NZ
New Zealand (‘Un Zud’) is full of random places of outstanding beauty. I’m fortunate that I have the chance to see them.
Murchison Falls
I’m staying with my sister- and brother-in-law, in a little place you’ve probably never even heard of1. It’s two blocks across from Wither Hills winery, set in 11 acres of what until last year was farmland, but is now grapes. Like the rest of Marlborough.
Wither Hills, from the farm yet another vineyard
There are some chickens (bantams) still: I’ll be using their eggs to make tiramisu at the weekend.
The Wairau Valley is a floodplain, with fertile yet well-drained soil. It gives Marlborough wine its classic flavour and wine-making has really taken off since I started visiting here about eighteen years ago. It was popular even back then, but now you can’t move for sauvignon and chardonnay and pinot noir. Farmers complain about the loss of some of the best grazing land in the country, the olive groves are long gone and I worry about the long term consequences of such a monoculture (one virus, and the whole valley drowns…), but apparently people think it’s worth it.
Growing grapes is quite an art—or even a science—at least if you want to be able to make money from it.
Each vine has to be pruned so that only one shoot grows vertically, and each year you allow an extra, fruit-bearing, horizontal branch to grow. This hopefully gives you healthy plants that produce good quality fruit: let them grow wild and you’ll get lots of fruit for sure, but it’ll make Australian poor wine. My outlaws have four hectares of vines, which is a drop in the ocean of Marlborough’s wine-making industry, but they figure it will pay off.
Massive six litre turbo diesel engines drive windmills—about one for every ten hectares—to invert the inversion layer on frosty days. In winter the entire valley thrums like the Iroquois in Apocalypse Now.
So that’s where I am for the next eleven days. Tomorrow, hopefully, I’ll take the Legacy and drive up one of the mountains on the north side of the valley. Mike might take me pig-hunting at the weekend. I aim to do some work for the new gig and hopefully work on my book.
Oh, and I’m sure I could manage a glass of wine at some point, too.
fn1. 173°54’43.47″E, 41°31’55.68″S
Hee, the title is in the “on [topic]” (ha, “on topic”) format, but not really, but it works! I can’t explain in words what I like about those words, but you know what I mean…
You are a geek, Eva.
I’ll suggest the title for an upcoming post, then, for Eva’s delectation: “On hold”. Or “On the plane”. Or “On the money”. The possibilities are dizzying.
Massive six litre turbo diesel engines
And there you are getting me all excited. Attached to windmills? Gah.
Glad to hear you’re having a chance to decompress at bit. I’ve now added Murchison Falls to the long list of places I’d like to visit.
How am I a geek? I just noticed it, I didn’t write it =P
It takes one to know one.
Now I wish I was on holiday, drinking wine. But for now I will return to reality and go to lab meeting instead. Have fun Richard!
There’s nothing wrong with being a geek, Eva. The first step is admitting it to yourself.
I’m just “different”.
No… we’re all the same, here.
{bangs tambourine} Come and join us, come and join us
Are you chanting from a vineyard? Because I’d love to join you there. In fact, this entire post reminded me that I live 90 minutes away from a wine area, and have never really explored that. But wine tours are not really suitable for doing alone, so I’d need to corral friends and arrange a whole day. Pfft, too much work.
Plus, you want someone to drive and bring you canapés.
Basically, I just want wine and not be in the city.
Eva: Oh, I hear you. (Or should it be “on hearing you” 😉 )
Richard> Enjoy the vacation and the sunny wheather. I will keep on thinking that you get more cold rain in London than in fair Australia…. or at least more vacation at the moment.
We have a stop for spring here in Memphis, freezing rain and 34F/1C today. It’s ok for me thinking it is March and it is snow “back in the mother country” but Tuesday was 75F/20C!! I’m still not used to the changes… .very confusing indeed.
*off to drink wine in poster session at work * 🙂
There is mist on the hills this morning but the barometer is rising and the forecast is for low 20s, sunshine, slight breeze.
And a mountain with a 4WD track up it. Hmm…
There’s also tulips and snowdrops in London. Which you don’t get in Australia. And long, light evenings.
Richard> there is that of course. Snowdrops… *sniffles * love them.
I tend to miss the twilight/dawn moment the most. There aren’t really long dusky times here (compared to up north). On the other hand though, there are no superlong winter nights with [almost] no light either. Good and bad things, mixed. If nothing else, it can be fun with change every once in awhile, right?!
Must say the wheather forecast sounds like a fab day ahead. (ehhh… so it is Friday morning now? Never will get that time zone diff with dates)
Eva- you’re not a geek. You just have the ability to appreciate geeky things.
It is Friday morning, yes. Which is confusing because it’s my sister’s birthday here but not where she is…
Frank: Eva is most certainly a geek.
I have friends who are not geeks at all, and they always make fun of me for being not just one but TWO kinds of geek: science and computer. They are neither. And then, at Christmas, for some reason we were having a conversation in which I had to bring up (in context) the most geekiest thing I had ever done, shocking everyone in that I was even geekier than they thought: I had to admit that I had on multiple occasions played competitive Trivial Pursuit at a national sports event for chemistry students in Holland, held yearly in a long weekend in May, and that our university’s chemistry department was made fun of by the other universities’ chemistry departments for being so geeky that we always sent two Trivial Pursuit teams that both made the finals. Trivial Pursuit was not the geekiest sport at the event – that was chess, which my friend won for our department every year.
So, yeah, I guess I’m kind of a geek…
ah… The truth will out.
Even if that is bordering on nerd, to be honest.
[sniff]
gasps vinyards!
I remember getting nice and tipsy after doing a little wine tasting at random vinyards on trip to Auckland once. Lucky you have family on an NZ vinyard!
How’s the wine?
…i guess it’s slightly sad that it’s become a monoculture of vines. but then it’s like that in so many places. BC’s a monoculture of Jack Pines, great for logging and, um, pine beetle infestations.
New Zealand sauvignon blancs are pretty spectacular. I especially like Secret Stone and Stoneleigh, but I don’t know exactly which area they’re from. Pick me up a bottle or two will ya, Richard?
p.s. Linda, there’s lots of grapes in BC too…
Heh, sure thing Cath. But you’ll have to come and get them. I’m already being stung for excess baggage.
Not managed a wine tasting yet, although I noticed that one of the roads we drove past yesterday was ‘Gee Street’ and that Stoneleigh have a new vineyard just off the Nelson road before the Wairau bridge. Photos will follow.
oh that’s right *smacks head. and I went on a bachelorette wine tour around Langley BC too, not long ago. Somehow the wine and view didn’t come across nearly as spectacular as it was in New Zealand. But I guess you have to go to the Okanagan for decent wine in BC.
oh… Okanagan wines!!! Do not remind me of the lovely lovely lovely wine tasting tip I took with two friends when I was an undergrad at UBC. Absolutely WONDERFUL time! May in BC….. (there was also some kind of “almost driving across the border with a rental car and no passports but who is remembering small stuff?!?!)
Not to mention, ice wine! all soooooo good. Ok, I need to calm down now 🙂
Yes, Åsa, you do.
I’ve just got back from visiting two vineyards: Fairhall and a boutique (6 or 7 acres only, specializing in Pino Gris) one whose name escapes me right now. hic
Richard> hey, you are in wine country now… me? I’m in some kind of “supposedly tropical climate” with BBQ and beer. Not that I have seen any warm weather so far….
Sounds like a lovely holiday. ‘Gris’ is Swedish for pig ya’ know 🙂
‘Pinot Pig’ sounds so much nicer, dontchathink?
Meh. Pinots. Not my
cuppa teaglassa wine.Up at Fairhall Downs we tried their second tier pinot noir, which had the most marvelous strawberry nose… but I couldn’t drink it. It had ‘headache’ written all over the palate. Which is strange—I can usually detect that on the nose, but I just wanted to take this one home and smell it all day long.
I sometimes smell coffee beans for a while when I’m making coffee. I grind fresh and the beans smell so good I keep thinking about maybe taking some along with me in my bag in a little Tupperware container and just smelling them once in a while during the day. But that would be weird.
Oh, I just realized this is the same thread in which I made my ultimate geek confession. I hope this comment thread is nobody’s first impression of me. I’ll go down in history as some coffee-smelling nerd with a language-fetish.
That’s a problem for you?
I like to spread my quirkiness out more evenly, and not have it all exposed on the same page.
How do you think we feel?
I think we should try to guess the titles of Richard’s next posts.
Onomatopoeia?
Ontario?
Oncogenic.
Good one
Um, onions?
Onomatopoiea?
I probably spelled that wrong.
Onanism?
Sorry.
Onus?
I’ll stop now.
Bloody hell, I’ve really got to start reading the comments more closely.
Why start now?
Onager. That’s what you are.
‘onestly.
That’s cheating.
Ono it isn’t.
And again.
On yer bike, pal.
On topic?
On time?
Onyx?
I challenge you:
Ondes Martenot
Anything but on topic