Our Wellington family goes to Marlborough

by Anthony Haas

Our Wellington family first visited, then lived in Marlborough. The first locals we met in our isolated corner of the Pelorus Sound were pioneering types, retired sheep farmers turned water taxi skipper and artist. Their hilly farmland, once milled for native timbers, was returning to bush and the unprofitable farm was being cut into lifestyle blocks for city people like us.

Pelorus people typically lived in isolated neighbourhoods, cooperating with the other very few locals in walking distance, and the few more in short boating distance. These Marlborough Sounds people would make major pilgrimages for supplies to the urban communities in Havelock, Picton or Blenheim.


Forty years on

Since our Wellington student friends started times-out in Marlborough 40 years ago, the society and economy have become more diverse. People with skills for the wine industry came from many cultures, adding to the cultural diversity of what had been European enclaves amongst the few Maori of many tribes with homes in this province at the top of the South. The Maori renaissance was helped by increased employment and ownership options in the marine farming industries, begun with mussels over the last couple of decades. Tourism grew, stimulating the growth of attractions and services based on what had been there for other reasons.

The population now is wealthier, and older, than the average in New Zealand. The community has mature local and national services, focused on handling the local issues visitors and their hosts will face. There are still traces of the pioneering spirit, and pioneering challenges as the separate but connected neighbourhoods respond to opportunities to make their livings.

150th anniversary of Marlborough

2009 is the 150th anniversary of the Marlborough Province, and the year in which archeological inquiry reminded Maori and Pakeha of the Polynesian heritage at the mouth of Marlbolrough’s Wairau River.

In its long term community plans, and in its Progress Marlborough research, the locals have set down ideas for their futures.

Visitors from home and abroad are welcomed as a part of their future. Visitors can inquire into the past, see the geography and mix with the locals as little or as much as they wish during their short breaks.

Local Parliamentarians, Councilors and the people in the attractions and services you share illustrate contemporary Marlborough.

Find out more from the locals later, and these welcomes and links now