Marlborough Museum – Day 249

Today we are opening the cellar doors to Marlborough’s past.

It’s another super stunning day here in Picton in the Marlborough region and we’re waking up in the Tombstone Backpackers, awesome because they do freshly baked scones for breakfast every morning. From there we are hitting the road and making our way to Blenheim.

So as you can see Laura’s upset right now because the weather said for the last three days that today would be a terrible weather day, terrible. So I didn’t plan for us to do anything in Marlborough Sounds. For our last full day here in the South Island I planned for us to go in a museum back in Blenheim just because it was supposed to be super super rainy and turns out that there is not a single cloud in the sky.

It’s a beautiful day.

It is absolutely stunning.

Every region in New Zealand has a regional museum to tell people what is this region special about and what is it famous for. And for Marlborough obviously it has to be about wine. It is the number one wine region in New Zealand and it is proud of it.

the first little exhibition that we’re checking out is all about the famous wine brands of the Marlborough region and showing a few memorabilia and the different wine bottles they’ve had over the years. There’s a little interactive display of the different parts of wine barrels and then we move onto the main exhibition which, guess what? It’s about wine.

The exhibition is incredibly comprehensive going through the whole history of the wine region as well as all the methods that have been used and all the mistakes that they’ve done in the past. It’s quite interesting to see a museum focusing on that as well.

Tomato stalk. Ooo I love tomato.

Plus, a few interactive spots is always helping to keep us entertained throughout the whole exhibition. Plus there is a place where you can learn about all the different types of soil.

So this is basically a backpacker’s museum. That is the different tools that backpackers use to do pruning which is number 1 backpacker job in New Zealand.

And we move onto the winermaker’s worst nightmare.

It is called phylloxera. Robin knows all about that being French.

What? What does it even mean, Laura?

The next section of the exhibition is all about the bottling process and of course there is a debate because it’s about finding the best way to conserve wine.

Where do you guys stand? Cork or screwcap?

Apparently the cork makes the wine smell bad and puts bad tastes into the wine. So you’ll find that most Marlborough wines with the screwcap and not a cork.

It’s amazing how in-depth this museum goes into the winemaking process and if you do want to learn anything about wine this definitely the place to come. But actually there is a lot more to the Marlborough Museum that we’re gonna be checking out right now as we enter the Maori exhibition.

This exhibition called Te Pokohiwi is full of amazing Maori artifacts that have been found around the Marlborough region including three huge waka which are canoes used to navigate the rivers. There’s also lots of tools and a lot of weapons as well which are really interesting.

What’s really special about this exhibition as well is that it covers the settlement of Wairau Bar which is the earliest settlement site in New Zealand dating back to 1300.

And after the Maori settlement in the Marlborough region, next came the Europeans with the British colonisation which happened around the 1800s they also brought with them lots of artifacts which are on display here at the Marlborough Museum as well.

And one thing that strikes me is always how short were people at the time. look at the size of that bed. For two people? I couldn’t even fit myself in it.

All in all we feel like we’ve found the perfect rainy day activity to do here in Marlborough. not that it was really raining today but we were still enjoying our time here nevertheless. There’s so much to see and learn here and it’s an awesome way to actually spend our final full day in the South Island.

So tomorrow is gonna be our last blast in the South Island. We are leaving the South Island already it feels like it was just yesterday that we arrived but man we have done a lot. So tomorrow we are hopping on a sunset cruise on the Interislander ferry making our way back to the North Island for the last leg for our adventure here in New Zealand. See you tomorrow.