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A day tour to Martinborough 

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Whilst in Wellington, my friend Jane booked us a day tour to Martinborough to visit several wineries.  She chose Martinborough as it’s only an hour or so on the train from Wellington.  The day we chose to go, was the only day in the year in Wellington where the trains are free to ride, (grr but we didn’t know!!), so when we arrived at the station, there were hundreds of people trying to get on our 10am train so we missed out and had no idea what to do.

Customer Service at the station was fabulous and told us they were putting on a free coach for people who had purchased train tickets to get to the wineries.  Amazing!!

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We finally arrived in Martinborough and were driven around the town along with our extremely friendly tour guide.  There was probably about fifteen of us on the tour so nice and small.

Our first stop was to Murdoch James winery where we enjoyed a wine tasting (I actually didn’t taste many wines as the wines were mostly red in Martinborough and I don’t drink red wine – but it was worth the trip to see the lovely countryside).

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The grounds were green and lush and I took a quick look around before we were back on the bus to check out another winery.

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After our next winery we stopped at a lovely little town and enjoyed a ploughman’s lunch with glass of wine.  Jane and I also took the opportunity to peruse the sweet little shops selling all sorts of items from candles to clothes.  Completely over-priced but nice to browse for a few minutes.

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Our next stop was to Muirlea Wines which is a small winery handed down from father to son.  We were given a history lesson on the winery and how to make wine…boy does this sound tough work – I think I will stick to just drinking!

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Our next winery was a larger one, with a beautiful white clad home, a gorgeous cellar door and fabulous flowering wisteria and roses.

img_1433img_1444img_1445img_1446Again all red wines at this winery, so I took my usual walk around the grounds looking at the lovely mountains and olive trees.

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I loved seeing the chickens roaming free with the world’s biggest chicken coup in the corner of the property.  The chickens were pretty tame too; on occasions to their detriment (read on).

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img_1435Our tour guide had told us that the owner had a lovely and friendly big dog who usually roamed the property and always came up to the coach to see if there were any unsuspecting tourists with snacks on board.  On this occasion, he was tied up in his kennel and the owner told us this was because he had been chasing the chickens that morning and killed one.  Bad dog!!

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This winery had lovely sparking wine which I enjoyed tasting, but a bit expensive so I didn’t buy any and the thought of lugging it back to Canberra didn’t appeal to me either.

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Then to the train station to see if the train was full (again due to the free train travel); and as expected it was, so we were taken back to Wellington on our coach.

A wonderful day out!!