So the big question mark hanging over Blenheim was how do you tour multiple vineyards, sampling copious wines when one of you always needs to drive? Our question was answered on arrival to the campsite when we spotted mountain bikes for hire! So bright and early we reported to the office and collected our bikes, helmets and wine trail map and were on our way. Now looking at the map all the vineyards appeared to be in close proximity to each other however on closer inspection they were all spread out over around a 50km radius with the first vineyard being a grueling 10km away. Not one to moan when it comes to exercise… it was heads down and off we went in search of Villa Maria. Whilst the previous day the sun had been shining today didn't have the same promise with some threatening rain clouds over the hills and a vicious wind which unfortunately we had to cycle into. The wind was making the cycling at least 3 times as hard and whilst Michael kept reminding me that it would be behind us on the road home I wasn't convinced. Cycling 10km with a relentless strong wind displacing your lips and cheeks is not the "biking round Marlborough" I had in mind! After what felt like an age Michael suddenly spotted Villa Maria in the distance and we both found a fifth gear and eventually we were at our first winery. We chained up our bikes and went into the tasting room. We were the only ones there however we were greeted by a lovely, smiley American girl and were instantly ready to try some wine. The wines were all delicious, we were able to taste six wines and by the time we left we were feeling restored and ready to take on more Hurricaine Marlborough in search of vineyard number 2 Matua. It took us about another 10 minutes on the bikes to arrive at Matua and once we had chained up the bikes we had a quick look around the shop and then went to the tasting table. Unfortunately there was a very strange man also at the tasting table who was asking lots of bizarre questions and making both me and the lady doing the tasting feel a bit wary! He was behaving very strangely and the woman doing the tastings was in the shop alone so I discretely offered to stay with her until he left. The plus side of waiting for him to leave was that we got to try loads and found some delicious wines which we put aside to collect the following day. Eventually the weirdo left and so did we with the next stop being a grueling 6km away at Grove Hill. Now this was a bit out of the way (far longer than we anticipated if the truth be told) we were going out this way because there was another vineyard nearby called Spy Valley who make wine that we have previously tried. I never thought Grove Hill was ever going to arrive, by this point we had cycled 18km which was an achievement for me in itself! Again we chained up the bikes and by the time we entered the tasting room the rain was starting to fall. The lady doing the tastings was pretty surprised to see us on bikes however you could have picked her off the floor when we told her we had come 18km (you could have picked me off the floor too but for very different reasons)! As anticipated the wines were delicious and we also had an aroma demonstration where they soak pieces of fruit, red pepper and grass in wine to let you smell the different elements commonly found in wine. When we were ready to leave Grove Hill we asked about Spy Valley and were disconcertingly told that sometimes if business is slow Spy Valley is closed. If you are in a car a 3km drive for nothing isn't such a big deal however if your on a bike with plenty of kms still to come a 6km round trip for nothing isn't worth the gamble. We had to turn around and head back to Renwich where there were plenty of vineyards in much closer proximity. The next one on the list was a recommendation from Villa Maria and it was a winery called Mahi. We were not so impressed with this one, the man was pretty unfriendly and clearly couldn't be bothered. The wines didn't really taste that great either but I suppose wine is wine so we drank up and moved on. Our next winery was another recommendation because I love Pinot Grigio and at Gibson Bridge that is their speciality. Gibson Bridge was what you would call a boutique winery, much smaller with an even smaller vineyard and tasting room. They specialise in Pinot Grigio and the owners were in Sydney collecting a gold medal won by their most recent production. The wines were delicious and the wine that won the award was to die for and I could have stayed there all afternoon drinking it. We had both agreed when we left in the morning that if we found a really nice bottle we would buy it and keep it for after our sky dive and this was the one! We put a bottle aside and could hardly believe we had been on the go for 4 hours and had cycled 23km. The next winery on the list was Forrest and by the time we set off from Gibson Bridge the rain was really starting to come down. Its funny how you think you cant go any faster but when its starting to rain heavily you soon speed up in search of cover. Feeling pretty tipsy by now we arrived at Forrest and for the first time had to pay for the wines we wanted to try. Until this point we had tried around 6 wines at every vineyard and had spent nothing, however it was raining outside so we paid our $5 and sampled some of Forrest's finest offerings. By the time we left the rain was coming down in buckets and we had resigned ourselves to getting totally soaked however having tried so many wines we were having a ball and getting wet didn't seem to matter. The next vineyard on the list was Nautilus which was about 2km away. When we arrived at the road that the vineyard was on we could barely hear each other talk so when Mike said "there is the vineyard there" I thought he said where is the vineyard? So I then said "lets try cycling for a while up here" to see if we could find it! To cut a long story short we cycled for about 5 minutes in the pissing rain for nothing because when we got to a bend in the road I told Mike Nautilus obviously wasn't here to which he replied "what are you talking about its back where we just were"! Not that the copious amounts of wine had anything to do with the misunderstanding but we were soon back on the right track and arrived at the door of Nautilus soaking wet. When we walked into the tasting room we were greeted by an American couple who were laughing their heads of at us. As it turned out they were staying at the same camp and had also hired bikes to cycle the vineyards in the rain. We had a real giggle with them trying the different wines which again were all lovely and going down a treat. It was already 4pm and with only an hour left to taste we suggested a vineyard called The Vines Village which do tastings of wines and liqueurs called Prenzels after all what better way to end a entire day of wine tasting than with yet more alcohol. It took about 10 minutes for the 4 of us to arrive and by this point we couldn't be any wetter so the rain really didn't matter. We tried about 6 of their signature range and whilst we had tried in excess of 40 different wines so far I am sure these 6 were just as delicious as the others. After the tasting room we had about 30 minutes left to try the various Prenzels of which there must have been around 50! Prenzels are basically flavored liqueurs and schnapps which can either be drunk alone or combined with others in either a tall drink or as we sampled them as a shot. We were like kids in a sweet shop when the lady told the four of us we could try anything we wanted in any combination. We sampled everything from a gin and lemon shot to a chocolate peppermint one and a staggering 10 shots later we were all kicked out as the place was closing. So if you can picture the scene we stumble back to our bikes with an unfortunate 8km cycle back to camp to find that the lock on our bikes won't open and both of our bikes are stuck together and stuck to the bike stand. Maybe if we hadn't consumed an unbelievable 48 samples of wine and 10 shots of Prenzel we may have been able to come up with a solution however the best we could manage was to stretch the bike cable as far as we could between the four of us and lift the bikes free (thankfully we hadn't secured them properly in the first place)! Finally we were on our way home and I am pleased to say the whole journey was a blur we could have cycled 20km and I doubt I would have noticed. As we turned the corner for home we were greeted by the smell of fish and chips, so with dinner sorted we returned our bikes (minus one lock) and got the biggest and most well deserved chippy you have ever seen! By the end of the tour we had cycled at staggering 35km and I never thought in a million years that I could do it, we were totally exhausted and whilst our legs felt ok we knew our bums were gonna be sore in the morning but what an amazing experience!We were pretty worried that there would be a couple of boozy heads in the morning however having collapsed into a coma at about 9pm the 12 hour sleep had done the trick and we both felt surprisingly fresh. After checking out of the campsite the first job was to collect the wines we had purchased before heading on to Kaikoura. The first collection was at Matua where we had waited with the lady the previous day until the strange man left. When we collected the wine the lady had also given us a couple of free Matua wine glasses to thank us for waiting around so we were pretty happy with that. Although I have no idea how they will fare in out backpacks around Australia! After Matua it was back to Gibson Bridge to collect our delicious Pinot Grigio and then onwards to Kaikoura for a couple of nights.