We woke to such bright sunshine this morning streaming in our window, a lovely start to the day. When we arrived at the breakfast room we were the only people there! one other couple came in a little after, but it really shows we are not here in peak season.
Breakfast finished we packed up and checked out to begin our drive south. The drive took us down along Marine Parade for some distance and we passed by a classic cars convention, with many beautiful old automobiles lined up on display. They really do embrace the “vintage” in Napier.
It was only about a 30 minute drive to the town of Hastings and our first stop, the Hawkes Bay Farmers Market – which is held in the Hastings Showgrounds every Sunday, weather permitting. With the sun shining they were drawing a good crowd today, the cars were streaming in as we arrived. We really should have skipped the hotel breakfast and waited til we arrived at the markets, there were queues at the coffee stand and the French bakery that were an indicator, I assume, of the quality of the food and coffee available! We enjyed the atmosphere and wandered around before heading back to the car.
About an hour further along we arrived in the tiny town of Norsewood ( which was established by 300 Scandinavians in the early 1800s) and parked outside the door of the New Zealand Wool Shop. No, we were not here for wool… the wool shop are the custodians of the food for the NZ Longfin eels that occupy the Wop Wop Wetland Park, immediately beside the shop! The park is an ongoing conservation project with their chief efforts concentrated on helping the native New Zealand longfin eel and educating communities about these weird looking creatures. ( Wop Wop is a sland term for the Eels, but the Maori name for them is Tuna) . We found the eels with no difficulty, there was a squirming bunch of them undulating at the edge of the little stream.
The lady at the shop had given us a cup full of food ( which looked like bbq chicken!) and a spoon. She had warned us that the eels would come as soon as they saw us, and that they also like fingers! So we should keep our hands out of the water. When Neil started to feed them spoonfuls, we could see what she meant, they almost took the spoon from him!
It was another hour or so drive through rolling green countryside to our next stop, the Pūkaha National Wildlife Centre. Pūkaha is a non-profit organization dedicated to restoring native wildlife and their habitats, with a strong focus on conservation, education, and tourism. They’re primary focus seems to be on preserving and protecting native birds, and they have several aviaries set within their forest grounds, as well as a Kiwi Nocturnal house and a nice shop and cafe. We kept our eyes peeled as we wandered around , and it was a bit of a challenge to spot the resients but we did see some pretty NZ native birds as well as their notroiously cheeky Kaka parrot. In the Kiwi house we were able to spot a couple of kiwis in the gloom and we found some more eels drifting in the river. We stayed for a light lunch in the cafe before heading off futher south.
We only had another 50 minute drive from here to our stop for the night, in the quaint little town of Matinborough. This is the epicentre of another on New Zealands wine regions and we passed several on the way into town. I’d booked us into the Martinborough hotel, right on the main square, which is, coincidentally, right next door to the only brewery in the region! Today is Father’s Day and they’re hosting a Fathers Day event so after checking in and doing a little grocery shopping we strolled next door to see what was on offer. We were lucky to find a table, the place was packed! This was definitely the place to be in Martinborough on Fathers Day!
They had a live band playing… and the best you could say about them was that they were doing their best! They were so bad it was funny! Neil and I had a laugh trying to guess what the songs were as they played… lots of fun. Luckily the beer was good and this time I stuck to the local Martinborough wines, which were also very nice.
When we’d had enough of the band we walked back down to the hotel and had dinner in the bar, I enjoyed the Sunday night roast and Neil had a tasty anchovy pasta. As I sit here typing I can still hear the music from the brewery, but luckily it’s not the band – they have packed up and gone home.
Our room here is really lovely, spacious and decorated in Hamptons style. Hopefully we will sleep well before we head on to Wellington tomorrow.