{"id":235,"date":"2009-03-12T06:10:08","date_gmt":"2009-03-12T06:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/2009\/03\/12\/on_holiday\/"},"modified":"2009-03-12T06:10:08","modified_gmt":"2009-03-12T06:10:08","slug":"on_holiday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/2009\/03\/12\/on_holiday\/","title":{"rendered":"On holiday"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alom wanted me to write about the film<\/a> (you’ll remember a few<\/a> of us<\/a> wrote about this<\/a> previously): unfortunately the long, damp piece of internet string connecting NZ to the rest of the world is long, and, well, damp<\/em>, 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<\/a>, then so can I).<\/p>\n

\n\"Somewhere<\/a>
\nRandom beauty in NZ<\/em><\/p>\n

\nNew Zealand (‘Un Zud’) is full of random places of outstanding beauty. I’m fortunate that I have the chance to see them. <\/p>\n

\n\"Murchison<\/a>
\nMurchison Falls<\/em><\/p>\n

\nI’m staying with my sister- and brother-in-law, in a little place you’ve probably never even heard of1<\/a><\/sup>. It’s two blocks across from Wither Hills<\/a> winery, set in 11 acres of what until last year was farmland, but is now grapes. Like the rest of Marlborough.<\/p>\n

\n\"Wither<\/a>
\nWither Hills, from the farm<\/del> yet another vineyard<\/em><\/p>\n

\nThere are some chickens (bantams) still: I’ll be using their eggs to make tiramisu<\/a> at the weekend.<\/p>\n

\n\"Banta\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\nThe 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. <\/p>\n

\nGrowing grapes is quite an art\u2014or even a science\u2014at least if you want to be able to make money from it. <\/p>\n

\n\"Sauvvie\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

\nEach 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<\/del> 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.<\/p>\n

\nMassive six litre turbo diesel engines drive windmills\u2014about one for every ten hectares\u2014to invert the inversion layer on frosty days. In winter the entire valley thrums like the Iroquois in Apocalypse Now<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n\"Windmill\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\nSo 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<\/a> and hopefully work on my book.<\/p>\n

\nOh, and I’m sure I could manage a glass of wine at some point, too.<\/p>\n

\n\"Omaka<\/a>\"Sauv<\/a><\/p>\n


\nfn1. 173\u00b054’43.47″E, 41\u00b031’55.68″S<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}