It’s hard to imagine all the nouns in the title of this post could go together in a day, but that’s New Zealand. We started with a lecture about Māori culture and the t]Treaty of Waitangi. There is just nothing easy about colonization or its aftermath, even in New Zealand. From a distance, New Zealand seems to have a far better legacy of colonization and of recognizing the native population as having rights, than the United States. In truth, though, they still struggle. Some of the biggest conflict comes from the Treaty of Waitangi, which is considered a foundational document. It was written in both English and Waitangi and the two copies are not the same. It was signed in haste. It has been under interpretation and re-interpretation for 185 years.
From the lecture, we changed topics completely, and visited a collection of vintage airplanes, mostly from WWI and WWII. Many are on loan from film director Lord Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings) and the Wētā Workshop, one of the finest in the world (Lord of the Rings!) designed the scenes to set the planes in. To put is bluntly, an airplane museum would not have been of native interest to me, but between the lifelike scens and the stories our tour guides told, I was pretty interested.
We drove into the country, passing miles and miles of vineyards. Marlborough District is the largest grape growing region in New Zealand, with about 100,000 acres under cultivation. Our first stop in wine country, though, was at a sheep and cattle farm, named Kaituna Ridges.
The farmer met with us, and to our delight, gave us an exhibition of how his herding dogs are trained to work. The five dogs we watched were very, very keen to work. Their training was impeccable. These dogs are trained to respond to a vocabulary of whistles, and each dog has their own whistles so that if two dogs are working the same flock, they can be commanded separately. I can’t even do a single whistle, so the idea of having a range of them, and then remembering which goes with which dog had me impressed before I witnessed a single command.
We lived with a beloved corgi for seventeen years, so I. had a little idea of how herding dogs work. Getting to watch them was a joy. They are just so thrilled to be given a job! And they loved to run. In New Zealand, the herding dogs have long legs and shorter hair than the corgis or border collies from the UK. The landscape and heat demand it.
Kaituna Ridge is mostly a lamb producing farm, but they have some cattle, and also produce a small amount of romney wool. Luck for me, they also produce some apparel and I now own a romney + merino tunic. It’s two ply with the merino fashioned on the inside and rougher but more weatherproof romney on the outside. It’s done the trick in its first 24 hours, of keeping me warm.
One of the herding dogs had puppies a few weeks old, and these three frolicked around our group while we drank tea, ate a picnic lunch in the barn, and watched a sheep shearing (except for me…I was buying a sweater during the shearing!). The whole farm visit was just one delight after another.
And then we were off to a vineyard, Bladen Wines. I’ve been to many vineyards, but this was the first time I was invited to carry my glass into the rows of grapevines, while the owner carried the bottles in a backpack cooler. We tasted the grapes on the vine, and the wines, all while being able to ask as many questions about cultivation as we wanted. These wines were cool, crisp, and a little sweet and fruity. In short, extremely drinkable in the sunshine after being charmed by well trained dogs and completely untrained puppies.
After the tasting we strolled to a private home, owned by a couple who were the former owners of the sheep farmer we had visited, and now owned a vineyard adjacent to the winery we had visited. It’s a pretty friendly neighborhood! This couple invites some Road Scholar groups to dine, and they had prepared a wonderful meal on the patio with produce from their garden.
