I’m leaving Martinborough again, and I’ll miss this town
The first time I moved away from Martinborough it was 1982. I was 29 with three children, and pregnant with a fourth who would not live beyond 20 weeks of pregnancy. At our eccentric historic Wairarapa property Waiura, I’d planted the first commercial grapevines in 1978, but they didn’t survive, and that land is now the hugely successful Te Kairanga. It was a miserable departure: tarred and feathered out of town to waitress and cook in Russell hotels, drowning in debt, and humiliated beyond shame. I’d been smug. I was told I had no
friends. I had little choice but to hide away, knuckle down, and start over.
The dogs bark but the caravan moves on. Seventeen years ago I slunk back to live in Martinborough, coincidentally about two kilometres away from Waiura, again growing grapes and producing wine. Viticulture has turned the economy around in this formerly sleepy rural village, despite setbacks.
Now, aged 71, I’m leaving again, but this time it’s on a happy note. I’m not being dunned out of town.
Rural Martinborough the second time around has been a privilege – horses, dogs, pigs, chooks, ducks, cats, geese, kārearea – they’ve been my focus of the good life on Te Muna Road, though there’s also been heartbreak. We outlive our pets. Four small boxes of cremated labradors will accompany me to my new Waikato home, and I’ve buried, through vales of tears, five horses on neighbouring farms.
Animal rights protesters would have us abandon the use of horses for pleasure or sport, but they don’t share the agonising decision to call the vet when an old horse we’ve loved and cared for over decades gives you that look which says, “I’ve had enough, end my suffering”. Like when my gelding Flick’s shoulders were so munted he couldn’t make it through a small ditch, and I fed him his favourite ginger-nuts while a lethal injection brought instant death. A peaceful end for the best horse I’ve ever owned, yet I remember no greater grief.
But adversity offers the chance to examine your life, for positive change. I opened a bookshop, Martinborough’s first, leasing space in a century-old former garage and, frightened as a kitten, began business. After shaky starts, success followed, and three years later my friend Brenda Gale (Yay, I now have friends) bought it, sailing the venture into prosperous seas, and I’ve now established a publishing house, making books for new writers.
I’ll miss this town, especially Scotty the butcher; not only his premier quality meats and appalling political comment, but his misspelled blackboard signs: beef mice, Schizel stakes, Crummed schinzel, Lamb lion chops, Crumed hoggel chep. In 2015, when funds were raised to refurbish the town hall, I took photos of his signs, published a calendar, and contributed $5000. But now Scotty’s signs offend and some people complain to authorities they’re “tacky”. Why don’t they avert their eyes?
I’ll miss the true service from business owners – the Kitchener Street garage, family-owned, where real people fill your car with fuel. A proper service station. PGG Wrightson, where cheerful young women slighter than gymnasts hoist 25kg sacks of stock feed over their shoulders and chuck them in the boot of my car. I’ll miss the hills – Nga Waka o Kupe to the east, and behind me where generous farmers let me graze my horses and ride all over their land.
And I’ll miss the vineyard workers, ignorantly labelled by some as ‘unskilled’, when in fact their knowledge of pruning, bud rubbing, shoot thinning and picking is vitally important to the crop quality.
Before I’m burdened with age, I’m leaving our large vineyard for new – smaller - adventures. Kia kaha to the winemakers of Martinborough; caretakers of the vines. When I was on the Constitutional Advisory Panel in 2011 with the late Dr Ranginui Walker he teased me when I mentioned “my vineyard”.
“Whose land?” he’d twinkle. Soon, new owners will take over. I’m excited for them.
Toitū te whenua, whatu ngarongaro te tangata. The land remains, but the people pass on.