After a night of drinking boxed wine in the woods, a distant part of my brain thinks it's weird that I'm brushing my teeth and washing my face in a gas station bathroom. I ignore it, and fill up some water bottles for the road.
Blenheim is a lovely town. My relatives settled here years ago, and with that in mind, I look around with a sense of curiosity. There are cobbled sidewalks, bright cafes, and gardens full of summer flowers. I tell myself to take pictures, but I'm too lazy (read: hungover). We pick up John from the airport without a hitch, though, and by mid-morning we crawl into a greasy spoon diner, where I gorge myself on fried eggs, hot buttered toast, a pot of tea, hashbrowns, and about two litres of cold water. Nothing fixes me like food and drink on a morning like this.
At 11:00 a.m. we pull into the first vineyard of our Marlborough Wine Region tour. The day is sunny and mild; in the distance, brooding indigo hills surround the crisp greenery of the orchard valley.
The vineyard lives up to its reputation: it's an unpretentious introduction to the art of wine tasting, and, as the Lonely Planet points out, it also has the laziest dog in existence, whose job it is to lay on the front porch and look cute and exhausted. The friendly woman behind the counter tells us about the grapes and varieties we're tasting, but doesn't get too caught up in lingo. She walks us through each glass with easy-to-understand descriptions like, "Doesn't this one smell floral? But you'll notice, it's going to taste sort of spicey in the back of your mouth with the finish." She is invariably completely right. Best of all, the tasting is free, and she cheerfully waves goodbye without expecting us to buy anything. We feel we've pulled something off, and enthusiastically visit two more vineyards over the course of the afternoon-- also free. The last vineyard even throws in a tour of the place, explaining all about the oak vessels and the bottling. In the end, we cave, and purchase a $15 bottle of Sauvingon Blanc (which the region is most famous for). We figure a little extra wine never hurt anybody.
By the time we weave our way from Blenheim to Nelson, the euphoric effects of the wine have worn off, though, and I'm feeling extremely sleepy. I've only had about two hours' sleep for the second time in three nights, and the early buzz from the wine has turned into a headache, as well as a stupid, wooly weight behind my eyes. I start to get extremely cranky, to say the least. I may actually have the worst meltdown of my entire trip so far, triggered by nothing more than sleep deprivation, some sarcastic remarks, heat, and a crowded car. Luckily, when we pull into Nelson to meet with Anna, she assesses the situation and kindly takes me under her wing. She brings me to her hostel bunk, where I crash for two hours while the others drink beer.
How do they do it?
****
We spend Christmas in a bach (pronounced like a batch of cookies) in the middle of an orchard near Motueka. Clare has been living here for about a month now, picking cherries, along with a few other fruit pickers, all also young adults travelling through New Zealand on working holiday visas. Some sleep in their vans, which have customized beds, curtains, and names like "Wally" painted on them. John and I somehow score the only double bed in the place, and Clare's friends actually cook dinner for us when we arrive.
The next day, Christmas Eve, Clare and her friends have to work, so the rest of us drive back to Nelson to pick up Anna and go to the beach. The drive seems much prettier to me this time. The ocean crashes up against the levvies beside the highway; it's a luminous, chalky tourquoise, very choppy; and there are islands very much like home out in the water, with lonely-looking pine trees and tall grass, and further out, purple mountain slopes.
In remenisence of my last beach day with Anna, we buy vodka, ice, cups, and cranberry juice, and head to a gorgeous beach with sandwiches and chips. It's the kind of beach that takes five minutes to walk all the way down to the water's edge, and the sand is soft and white. It's pretty windy, though, so John P and Medellee construct a shelter out of driftwood to screen us from the worst of the sandstorm. We don bathing suits and Santa hats and lay in the sun, listening to John's little iHome, mixing drinks, taking walks, and talking, until the beach is empty and we've run out of supplies. At the last minute Anna decides to join us for Christmas, so we spend the rest of the afternoon shopping for two days' worth of food and drink to last us all through the weekend.
John makes curry, and we drink beer, listen to music while we eat, and then gather around Clare's laptop to watch A Muppet's Christmas Carol. I go to sleep early, almost unaware that it's Christmas Eve.
****
Christmas morning and it's another gorgeous, sunny day. I snap some photos of the orchard. In the kitchen, Santa has left us socks full of chocolate, with cards and a note indicating that she would like her socks back. We set to work on the best breakfast we can imagine. I make thick blueberry pancakes, with fruit salad and real maple syrup; Clare fries two packages of streaky bacon (the good kind); Medellee scrambles two dozen eggs; someone fries up the most delicious lamb sausages ever; there are hot pots of tea, coffee, and mamosas with champage and orange juice. Everyone has something to unwrap under the tree, and we snap Christmas crackers, wearing the silly hats and asking each other the stupid jokes.
We leave a mess and head back to the beach for a picnic. I lay dozing in the sun all afternoon, and when we get hungry, it's back to the bach for a barbeque. We have steaks, potato salad, green salad, chicken skewers, baked beans, and lots of beer. Everyone sits on a big blanket with their plates in their lap.
Back home, it's still Christmas Eve. We plan to leave town tomorrow, "Real Christmas," as I think of it, and I hope I'm able to call my family. I'm on the other side of the world in the middle of summer, and I've had a great day, but it's not really been Christmas.
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