Wairarapa 31 May 2009

We went to the Wairarapa for the Queens birthday but didn't see her! We left on Saturday morning after dropping the kittens off in Kilbernie at the Cattery. The weather was overcast, but ok. We drove up through the Hutt Valley past the Rimutaka Rail Trail, and over the top of the mountain, past the Trig Track. At the bottom of the other side we got to Featherstone, which really is only one main street, and some very ordinary houses built around it. Although the station runs through it, and they appear to have a miniture railway too! It must come to life sometimes!
Martinborough was another 18km, which took about 10-15 minutes to get to. It's another small town, with some old buildings in it, built around a square. It seemsed to me that one saide was the nice side with the posh restaurants and cafes, and the other was the poor side with the pub abd bottle shop.
After checking into our very modest cabin, we went for lunch at a nice little cafe offering panine and hot soup. Very nice! We wandered around te town for all of 5 minutes, as that was all it took, and then went searching for wine tasting. We decided on number 11, which was really very nice. It had an old colonial house from which you could order five small glasses of wine to taste. We did this and had a piece of chocolate cake, which was really really nice! The wine itself was ok, but not wonderful. I've decided I'm not keen on earthy, woody wine, but prefer fruity types of wine. Merlot is still my favourite!
We decided on a trip, then, to Greytown, which is about 20 km away. This is another town, which to be honest, is very similar to the others! However we did get some nice sausages there! It also provided us with a few ideas about our future, as they were selling two cafes for around $100-150000 for each one. We discussed the idea of living out here, and running them, but I fear it will be a non starter, as already we have stopped thinking about doing that.
That evebing was spent in a restaurant, a very expensive restaurant! Lucy had Venison pie, I had fillet steak, Alistair had Lamb Shanks and Row had chicken burger.........along with a whole bottle of wine and a couple of beers. $200 later we emerged! That's expensive for NZ!
Waking up too early the next morning, we went into town for a cooked breakfast, the best thing to do really when you have a hangover!
After which we felt refreshed enough to go to Lake Ferry first, which is amazing. You look out to sea and the waves are above you! Why don't they cover you when they roll into the beach? You can really feel the power of the sea, when you see it flowing through the entrance of the inlet.
Cape Palliser was next, which in the words of Private Frazer is a lonely desolate place! We climbed up the steps of the Lighthouse, all 250 of them, and observed the view of the sea and coastline. I could imagine that in the summer it would have been lovely, however today it was a case of sheltering from the frequent heavy showers of rain. When the sun did come out it was really nice.
The seals are littered around the side of the road......they look like giant slugs! After an hour or so making our best selling video we returned to Martinborough.
Tonight we were going to do our own cooking, but after struggling through the local caravan club into the kitchen we decided to go out again! This time to the Settlers Hotel, where I knew they would be showing the Rugby! However after waiting for an hour after ordering, we were not worried about the rugby, but were worried about where our dinner was! When it came, the children were happy, but I have to admit that having coffee and cumin on your steak tastes like eating dirt!
The next morning we left, although we did manage to get to the kitchen before the caravan club, and eat our lovely cooked breakfast. As we left, though, they were setting up their chairs for another caravan meeting!
Not much happened on the way home, we stopped off and looked at a couple of areas in Upper Hutt, Silverstream, and Stokes Valley. Don;t think it helped us, though, in our search for houses, but I guess we know we don't want to go and live out there!