Blenheim is the most populous town in the Marlborough District and seems relatively small and easy going (I stopped myself saying 'dull' there but I feel that way a lot regarding first impressions with most NZ towns. I think this is to do with some subliminal association of 'fun' with compact looking areas, like Cardiff or London. With their high and jagged skylines they look full of everything you could desire. NZ towns are quite large but are built out rather than up, which gives you a false sense of their size and they actually have everything that a British city could offer, if not more).

Marlborough is also a hub for NZ's booming wine trade, its sunny day count and optimal climate make it perfect for the hundreds of vineyards that marble the landscape. I was surprised to see that vineyards consist of line upon line of grape trees or almost bushes as opposed to the 'vines' which I pictured to be somewhat similar to the things that Tarzan swung about on. The poor bloke that goes around picking the grapes off them all must be on a suicide watch list, he'd have to be!

As a peppering of trivia, Winston Churchill was born in Blenheim Palace (1874) in Oxfordshire, England which was a home to Marlborough Dukes (another stamp the Empire left on NZ).

Churchill later married there and said that, 'At Blenheim I took two very important decision; to be born and to marry. I am content with the decision I made on both occasions.'

We also happened across a 'pour your own honey' which Chelsea had been pestering me to stop at since Christchurch. When we pulled in we walked into a huge abandoned barn which had a threatening undertone of imprisonment and torture. We were shortly met by a young bespectacled man who also had a threatening undertone of imprisonment and torture. He turned out to be alright actually and I abandoned the urge to shove Chelsea towards him and run back to the car.

He talked us through the wonders of honey and shared some pretty common facts but I'll spout them out just in case you're unaware of them. Honey is the only food on earth that doesn't 'go off', they found it inside the pyramids and it was perfectly edible! The white ominous stuff that you sometimes see on it is just where it's crystallised, heat it up slowly and it will go back to smooth honey. He also talked us through the honey making process which was surprisingly easy, I don't know why more people don't do it - I'm even considering giving it a go, wasp this space.