Things to do in Martinborough

Where Martinborough is, and what the Wairarapa is

The Wairarapa is the wide valley east of Wellington, cut off from the city by the Remutaka Range and running north towards Hawke's Bay. It is sheep and cattle country with a string of small towns down State Highway 2: Masterton, Carterton, Greytown and Featherston. Martinborough sits off the highway to the south east, 18 km from Featherston, on the edge of the plains that run down to Lake Wairarapa and the south coast.

The town began in 1870 as Wharekaka, near the Māori settlement of Waihenga. John Martin, the landowner who gave it his name, laid out the first streets in the pattern of the Union Flag, and you can still see it from above: diagonals running out from the square. For a century it was a service town for the farms around it. The wine came later and changed it more than any other town in the region.

Masterton is a different sort of place: a working town of about 22,600 people, with the supermarkets, the petrol stations and the hospital, and fewer reasons to linger. For travellers its main use is as the first proper stop on the way south from Hawke's Bay, and as the town nearest to Pūkaha National Wildlife Centre, 30 km to the north on State Highway 2, where you can see kiwi and walk through a remnant of the forest that once covered the whole valley.

Martinborough wineries and what to drink

In the late 1970s a soil scientist, Derek Milne, pointed out that the free-draining gravels, warm summers and dry autumns around Martinborough were about as close to Burgundy as New Zealand gets. The first vineyards went in at the end of the 1970s, Dry River and Ata Rangi among them, and within twenty years Martinborough pinot noir had a reputation well beyond its size. Pinot is still the grape to try. Sauvignon blanc, chardonnay, pinot gris and syrah are made too, and they are often very good.

Most wineries here are small, family run and close together, and many of the older names (Ata Rangi, Palliser Estate, Te Kairanga, Margrain) have cellar doors within a few kilometres of the square. Some of the most sought-after producers have no cellar door at all, or open only by appointment, so check before you set out. Tasting fees are normal, and are usually waived if you buy.

Bikes are the classic way round. Several shops in the village hire them, the land is flat, and a loop of four or five cellar doors is an easy afternoon; accommodation sometimes lends bikes too. If you would rather not ride, a guided tour handles the driving. A half day wine tour with a local operator is included on 6 of our itineraries, and 3 combine the wineries with the south coast in one day. Our guide to New Zealand wine regions compares the Wairarapa with Marlborough and Hawke's Bay.

Things to do in Martinborough beyond the wine

• Cape Palliser: the southern tip of the North Island, about 70 km and an hour and a half from Martinborough, the last stretch on a narrow coastal road. There is a red and white lighthouse at the top of about 250 steps and a fur seal colony on the rocks below, the largest in the North Island, with pups from around November to January. Keep your distance from the seals. The day is on 3 of our itineraries.
• Pūtangirua Pinnacles: badlands erosion columns in a stream valley on the way to the cape, about 40 minutes from Martinborough. The walk up the stream bed and back takes a couple of hours or more, and the valley was the Dimholt Road in The Return of the King. Stay on the tracks, because the slopes are unstable.
• Stargazing: Martinborough sits inside the Wairarapa Dark Sky Reserve, certified in January 2023 and covering 3,665 square kilometres. A guided night with a telescope is on 4 of our itineraries; our stargazing guide covers the other dark sky places.
• The village itself: the square, a brewery, a handful of restaurants and wine bars, and shops worth an hour. It is at its best in the late afternoon when the tasting rooms have closed and everybody comes back into town.

How to get to Martinborough

From Wellington you drive north on State Highway 2 through the Hutt Valley, then over the Remutaka Hill, a winding climb over the range that tests anyone who gets carsick, to Featherston. From there it is 18 km to Martinborough. Allow about an hour and a quarter. Coming from the north, most of our itineraries drive down from Napier through Masterton, about three and a half hours without stops.

Without a car: the Wairarapa train runs from Wellington through the 8.8 km Remutaka Tunnel to Featherston in about an hour, and a Metlink bus connects from Featherston to Martinborough. The buses do not meet every train, so check the timetable, especially at weekends. Once you are in the village, bikes and your feet are enough. Do not count on ride-share apps; taxis and shuttles are few and should be booked ahead.

When to go, and the weather

Martinborough is one of the drier corners of the North Island, with around 770 mm of rain a year, and it is warmer in summer than Wellington: January highs average about 23.6°C and hot days in the high twenties are common. Autumn, March and April, is harvest and the best time to come, with settled weather and the vines turning. Winter brings frosty mornings and short days, but the restaurants and cellar doors stay open and the town is at its quietest. The one thing to plan around is the wind: the nor'westers that blow through the Wairarapa in spring can make a day on a bike hard work.

The busiest day of the year is Toast Martinborough in November, a wine festival that adds around 10,000 people to a town of 1,900. Accommodation for that weekend is booked a year out. If you are not going to the festival, avoid it. Our November guide has the date. Summer weekends are busy with Wellingtonians; weekdays are calm all year.

How long to stay, and where

One night is enough for the wineries and a dinner. Two nights lets you add the south coast and Cape Palliser, or a stargazing night, without rushing, and it is the better choice if you are coming from Napier, because that drive takes most of a morning. Most of our itineraries are split between the two, and the ones that stay two nights usually spend the spare day at the coast.

The properties our tours use are all in or at the edge of the village. The Martinborough Hotel is where 7 of them stay, in the old building on the square with its long veranda. The Claremont is used by 6, and Parehua Resort, with cottages and villas close to the vineyards, by 3. Beyond those the town has motels, bed and breakfasts, vineyard cottages and a camping ground, and there are more beds in Greytown and Masterton. To see all the trips that stop here, browse the Martinborough tours, and the Wellington page covers where most of them go next.