Our Region

Marlborough valley

The Marlborough region is one of New Zealand's most outstanding tourist destinations regions. The country's wine and seafood capital, it is also one of the country's most picturesque and provides a range of outdoor activities that is hard to beat anywhere in the world.

Whether you love wildlife or winemaking, skiing or extreme sports, kayaking or cruising, forest walks or formal garden rambles, Marlborough is a fantastic place to unwind. In town there is vibrant café scene and a range of restaurants, art galleries, museums, shopping, craft studios and food specialities to discover.

Marlborough Sounds breakfast in paradise

Marlborough is also a place of great history.

A place sacred to many Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, a place full of legends of early settlement, gold rushes (50 tonnes of gold were extracted in a valley near our main vineyard) and battles and war, a place that was the favoured base for Captain Cook when he first charted New Zealand 300 hundred years ago.

For the nature lover, this is heaven - seas full of crayfish, dolphin and great whales, forests with some of the world's most unique fauna, such as the flightless kiwi and the tuatara lizard - the last descendent of the dinosaurs which lives in underground holes, often sharing these with a species of bird.

Valley view

There are large nature reserves all around us. For the hunter, the valleys, rivers and inlets around us are full of wild boar, deer, trout, snapper, cod and groper. In most cases, these may be hunted for free or a nominal sum.

For sports-lovers, the place is hard to beat as well, with a state of the art recreation and sports centre, 2 international yacht marinas, 3 golf courses, horse racing, mountain biking and many other outdoor pursuits.

A recent 18 lb snapper caught by Hugo Nicholls near the vineyard - he caught 9 fish in one day!"

Basking seal