Wining in the Martinborough

Hello friends! I have made it to my new home university in Wellington and had fallen in love with this little cafe city. For starters, my single dorm room is twice the size of my previous one ( if you're reading this, hi Nicole! I miss having you sleeping on the other side of the room and the heating actually works here). After settling in and going book shopping and room shopping(  also fun facts: you can't rent textbooks here and the closest thing to a target is called the Warehouse) I decided to plan a weekend to Nelson on the South Island with some new friends. We booked flights and showed up with our travel packs ready to jump into the spa that our airbnb hostess heated up for us....to have our flight cancelled 30 minutes before takeoff and the next available flight a few hours before our flight home. Four sad students headed back to our dorms and grieved the loss of our weekend outside of the city. Luckily, 2 of our other friends were going wine tasting the next day ( Saturday) and invited us along to Martinborough with them! Martinborough is known for its vineyards, with a whooping 20 vineyards within the small town area. Although a true tourist would bike the whole trail and drink up with the $5 for 5 tastes offered by most vineyards, we opted to walk it after taking a train and a bus to get to the small town. We ate at the Village Cafe for some brunch, to prep for our wine time.

First pin on our map was Muirlea Rise which appeared to be a little family owned vineyard, with an amazing owner who made us laugh between sips. He was kind enough to waive our tasting fee and give us the down-low on grocery store wines and details on his special ones! He was definitely our favorite stop, as he was funny and seemed less like a worker and more passionate about his vineyard than making it seem like a posh wine.

Featuring the beautiful doggy Bella

Next stop was Martinborough vineyard, which was more than 5 tastings and very clean cut. We had a lot of fun here asking questions and talking to our server, as well as taking some photos! We had 7 tastings if I remember correctly. They have two locations of vineyards and a couple of prestigious awards under their belts, so they had a little more variety than our previous stop. 

 The last and final stop on our wine adventure was a cafe with a winery, but we skipped out on the tasting and went straight for the food. At this point we were all feeling the wine as the last tasting was borderline 1/2 glasses and we were hungry hippos. Our first vineyard owner had told us "eating is cheating" in New Zealand when it comes to wine tasting, so we went for a post meal instead. Let me tell you- it was glorious. 

This was a triple ice cream something-or-other. It was good, I would eat again. After this, ya girl slept on the train home, making it onto my friends snapchats as I slumped over on a train chair. It was a beautiful day out, and I am very happy to have met some new friends who knock on my door at 9 am and tell me I have 20 minutes to get ready for wine tasting (thanks Sammi and Ellie, you guys rock (also explains why my hair looks like crap but whatever)). Thanks for reading if you even made it this far!