Archives: 11th October 2001

The storm was still raging in the morning and, after a rotten night’s sleep, we were in no hurry to abandon our warm bed.  It was about 10.30am by the time we realised that we had better get our skates on if we wanted to catch the 2pm ferry.

We did the laundry while breakfast was cooking, and John checked his e-mail and bank account on the campsite computer.  Oh joy!  The insurance cheque had arrived at last, exactly one month after posting …

As we headed down the esplanade, towards Wellington, we could see that sailing conditions were far from improved.  The sea was brown in colour, and choppy, and the surf roared in across the deserted beach.  Before we even reached the ferry terminal, the radio DJ had announced that all inter-island services had been suspended.

At the ticket office, the next available sailing was 7.30pm on Friday – further shortening our tour of the South Island.  We had no alternative but to book it.  We couldn’t bear the thought of another sleepless night in Lower Hutt, so drove into town to find a comfortable hotel for the night.

We checked into the Shepherd’s Arms Hotel (due to close for renovations in a few days’ time), and treated ourselves to a deluxe room with a spa bath!  The dining room was already stripped out and ready for decoration, but for now we were just glad of a warm, dry, base, and the chance to catch up on our finances and work on the diary.  We ate in the Aubergine Restaurant across the road.

All good things must come to an end, and so we booked ourselves on the 7.30pm Lynx (high speed catamaran) ferry from Wellington, and said our goodbyes to Suzie and her gorgeous family. We were truly sorry to leave – and, given a little more time in New Zealand – would have gladly stayed to plant ALL their vines! Instead, we promised to return for the first harvest in a couple of years’ time.

It took about four hours to drive to Wellington. We stopped for tomato and bean soup at the Expresso Bar/Café in Shannon (Florrie’s recommendation), and arrived in Wellington at about 2.30pm. It was a pretty foul day, and the sea did not look inviting. Brigid sought out a chemist for some ‘Sea-Legs’. We found a watch-makers (Capital Watch Services) to change the battery in her watch, and browsed the mountain shops for a GPS for John. Soon it was time to pick up the tickets for the 7.30pm sailing.

The wind was now gale force, and the rain was coming down in sheets. Unsurprisingly, the Lynx (universally known as the “vomit comet”) was cancelled.

Wellington has no campsite, so we drove out to Lower Hutt. We dined in a perfectly dreadful family restaurant called Cobb & Co., where hundreds of unruly free-range children (lured by the promise of a free meal), ran wild between the diners and harassed-looking waiting staff. The food was stodgy and over-cooked, and the service slow.

After a second bottle of wine to restore our sense of humour, we retired to the wet and windswept campsite.

Today was the first day of term for Zoe, Florrie, Mina, and Ottie. At 4 years old, Amy is too young to begin the home-schooling curriculum, so she was allowed to watch her favourite video … in the hopes of keeping her out of the way of the older children.

By the time we surfaced, Suzie was in school-ma’am mode, deeply ensconced in the children’s ‘paces’ (units of work). Zoe and Florrie, studied quietly in their rooms, Mina studied intermittently (when she wasn’t checking on the condition of some hideous experimental concoction deceptively stored in a milk bottle in the larder …), and Ottie took advantage of the presence of strangers to ask endlessly for help with her ‘reading’ (miraculously she reads word perfect to Mum). Suzie reckons it usually takes about a week for the ‘education machine’ to crank into top gear – unless the grandparents are in town … in which case, nothing gets done for a month!

John, Roddy, Michelle, Andrew, Kingsley and ‘Mark’, went to plant vines with the aid of a mechanical hole-borer. But the hired one soon proved too heavy, so Roddy was despatched to buy a lighter one.

After lunch, and with school work finished for the day, Suzie and Brigid took the children over to see John Whitehead’s son, who works in the bush in the South Island. He had rescued a two-week-old ‘joey’ (a baby wallaby) whose mother had been killed, and was hand rearing it.

It was very cute, standing only about 10” tall (with legs and tail of equal length), but skinny and frail. Even now, its chances of survival were not high. After hopping about for the cameras for a few minutes, he instinctively sought the protection of the nearest ‘pouch’, in this case Florence’s over-sized shirt, where he rolled himself up into a compact ball and tried to go to sleep.

Later, while Ottie was having a swimming lesson, Amy and Brigid visited the supermarket to chose some sticky cakes and biscuits for a very special tea party. Meanwhile, Mina and Florrie found the testers at the scent counter of the local chemist irresistible. By the time Mum arrived with Zoe and Ottie, we all smelled DELIGHTFUL!!!

Today was the first day of term for Zoe, Florrie, Mina, and Ottie. At 4 years old, Amy is too young to begin the home-schooling curriculum, so she was allowed to watch her favourite video … in the hopes of keeping her out of the way of the older children.

By the time we surfaced, Suzie was in school-ma’am mode, deeply ensconced in the children’s ‘paces’ (units of work). Zoe and Florrie, studied quietly in their rooms, Mina studied intermittently (when she wasn’t checking on the condition of some hideous experimental concoction deceptively stored in a milk bottle in the larder …), and Ottie took advantage of the presence of strangers to ask endlessly for help with her ‘reading’ (miraculously she reads word perfect to Mum). Suzie reckons it usually takes about a week for the ‘education machine’ to crank into top gear – unless the grandparents are in town … in which case, nothing gets done for a month!

John, Roddy, Michelle, Andrew, Kingsley and ‘Mark’, went to plant vines with the aid of a mechanical hole-borer. But the hired one soon proved too heavy, so Roddy was despatched to buy a lighter one.

After lunch, and with school work finished for the day, Suzie and Brigid took the children over to see John Whitehead’s son, who works in the bush in the South Island. He had rescued a two-week-old ‘joey’ (a baby wallaby) whose mother had been killed, and was hand rearing it.

It was very cute, standing only about 10” tall (with legs and tail of equal length), but skinny and frail. Even now, its chances of survival were not high. After hopping about for the cameras for a few minutes, he instinctively sought the protection of the nearest ‘pouch’, in this case Florence’s over-sized shirt, where he rolled himself up into a compact ball and tried to go to sleep.

Later, while Ottie was having a swimming lesson, Amy and Brigid visited the supermarket to chose some sticky cakes and biscuits for a very special tea party. Meanwhile, Mina and Florrie found the testers at the scent counter of the local chemist irresistible. By the time Mum arrived with Zoe and Ottie, we all smelled DELIGHTFUL!!!

By the time we got up, Suzie was at church with Otty and Amy, and Roddy and Michelle were finishing breakfast.  Zoe (14) and Florence (12) found it hilarious that we were travelling in a “Britz” van, and all the children thought it must be a terrific adventure to live in a campervan for a month.

Andrew was planning to spend the day weighing bulls, so we were despatched on a Hawkes Bay ‘wine trail’ (notice we didn’t offer to help with the bulls …!). 

The suggested first stop was Selini winery.  They have built a tremendous visitor centre around a restaurant and wine cave.  They also have a reputation for being helpful to tourists like us when it comes to suggesting a route, and providing a map. The wines we tasted were (as we recall) excellent, but we neglected to take a pen and notepad to write any notes (… so you will just have to take our word for it). We had a quick mouthful of cheese before entering the next winery, Trinity.  But even so, by the time we had ‘tasted’ a dozen or so wines, we were both feeling decidedly hungry.  Suzie had recommended that we go into Napier at least once during our stay, to see the celebrated Art Deco architecture. 

(Napier was nearly entirely levelled by an earthquake in the 1920s, so the whole city was re-built in the Art Deco style of the period.  Whatever you may think of Art Deco, Napier has preserved most of the original facades.) Being Sunday, however, most of the businesses were closed.  Even the seafront seemed deserted.  We called in at the Blues Café, whose menu we had admired from outside, but after several minutes of being studiously ignored by the staff, we left and drove on down the coast.

Just when we had almost given up hope of finding anything to eat at all, we arrived at the Clearview Winery, who just happen to have one of the best courtyard cafes in the region.  We took our time over lunch, then made our way back, cross country, to the Trinity Winery, where we bought a couple of bottles of Pinot Noir for our hosts (and a couple of bottles of Sauvignon Blanc for ourselves …). 

We arrived back at the Wilson ranch to find that Roddy had had a successful day’s fishing, and was busily preparing a whale-sized trout for dinner.

The big excitement today, was the planting of the first vines on the ‘Wilson Estate’. Andrew has always been a cattle farmer, and (having leased land from his father for years) had bought this farm with a view to raising cattle. However, this particular area of Hawkes Bay enjoys a micro-climate, making it ideal for growing grapes – and the Wilson Estate has all the makings of an excellent vineyard!

After breakfast we were joined by Andrew’s friends, Kingsley, who was providing viticulture expertise, and John Whitehead. They had brought with them a sample 100 or so of the 4,000 Merlot vines, which were to be the first crop. (Infant vines look incredibly dull, by the way – just a twig with a small ball of roots.) While Kingsley carefully pruned away surplus shoots, Andrew and John dug holes. Brigid followed along with a hose …

Still later in the day, Roddy, another friend of Andrew’s, arrived with his girlfriend, Michelle. He had once owned a multi-million dollar business, sculpting neat, uniform-sized potatoes for the airline and catering industries.

However, since selling the company, Roddy had gone ‘bush’. He now had shoulder-length hair, and travelled the length and breadth of New Zealand in a beaten-up Landrover (and a moth-eaten sweater), pursuing his favourite passion – fishing! Roddy was definitely a hit with the Wilson children, especially Araminta, who was determined that he should build them all a tree house.

Whatever. Roddy was clearly a very good friend, as he had volunteered to help plant several thousand vines, and arrived with a barrow-load of fresh vegetables, offering to cook dinner one evening.

Having showered and dressed, we found breakfast down the road at the Utopia Café. We hired skis and boots for NZ$40 each (choosing better skis had cost us an extra NZ$5.00), and bought ourselves “All Mountain” day passes (having rejected the “Snow Garden” option). By the time we arrived at the ski field, it was already 11am.

The temperature on the mountain was about 5 degrees and, although there was plenty of snow, it was pretty slushy. Being the last weekend of the school holidays, the lower slopes (where we had hoped to spend a stress-free day) were actually quite crowded. New Zealand’s slopes are graded slightly differently from European ones. In normal circumstances, no cause for concern. But to two slightly over-weight, unfit, Brits, seeking a little novelty during what was, essentially, a summer holiday, the differences were just enough to be a worry.

In Europe, a green slope has practically no gradient, and is likely to be a wide open slope, with plenty of scope for soft landings. A blue slope is likely to be narrower, and have some steep bits but, on the whole, a safe bet for all but absolute beginners. A red slope offers a few tricky narrow bits, perhaps a steep chute, and may be some bumpy moguls, to make life a bit more interesting.A black run can be anything from a practically vertical wall, or a half-pipe couloir, to a monstrously large mogul field. (Or it could be a combination of any or all of these, with some easy bits in between.)

So, unfit as we were, we decided that this was to be a ‘green’ day – just for the fun of skiing in the Southern Hemisphere. What we did not realise was that New Zealanders are quite capable of labelling a narrow couloir, with steep sides and rock obstacles, as a green. (Their nursery slopes are the ‘Snow Gardens’.) Add to this the state of the snow, which was thick ‘porridge’, and your two unfit Brits (skiing in non-waterproof jeans and fleeces) have a problem.

Suffice to say that after a couple of hours of dodging Kamikaze-like children, we decided to call it a day before we ended up with one or more broken limbs between us. Not our most glorious performance, but an educational experience, none the less.

From Ohakune, we took the ‘Gentle Annie’ road (of which 27 kms is unsealed) through the mountains to Napier. On paper, it looked like a short-cut, but in reality it turned out to be 158 kms of perilously narrow twisty road, in varying states of repair, skirting vertical precipices, where the only life to be seen for miles, where cows and sheep grazing steep, terraced, ranges. On the plus side, it was very scenic. The last half hour or so, we drove in the dark, which was somehow less daunting, as we couldn’t see the drop-offs each side of the road!

We arrived with Suzie and her family in Otane around 8pm. The youngest of her five daughters, Amy (4), Ottily (6), and Araminta (10), had been allowed to stay up especially late to meet us.

Today we were due to move on to Mt Ruapehu to try our luck with some Southern Hemisphere skiing. First Ngaire called Scotty at Harvey World Travel in Rotorua, to see if he could make any headway with our dud Ansett tickets.  We either needed to exchange them for Quantas tickets, or find some alternative route across Oz … and any alternative route was likely to be expensive!

While waiting for Scotty to call back, we visited the Kathmandu store in town to kit ourselves out with some warmer clothing – especially necessary for Brigid, who had had to return her new motorcycle jacket! For lunch we shared chip butties and tea with Ngaire and Cameron, but hearing nothing from Scotty, we eventually decided to visit him in his office.

At first the prognosis was good.  Quantas would apparently honour the Ansett tickets providing we booked by the end of October.  Great!  But Scotty wanted to check one aspect of the booking direct with Quantas.  They were not answering their phones, and his ‘liaison’ at the airline was off for the afternoon.  When he did eventually get through, there was bad news.  Quantas would honour the tickets.  But … we had to COMPLETE our travel by the end of October!  This would give us no time at all to explore Sydney, and no time for diving on the Great Barrier Reef off Cairns. 

Perhaps we should fly directly from Melbourne to Perth … In the end we left Scotty our e-mail address, and went back to Clyde Street to say goodbye to Cameron and Ngaire.

 From Rotorua, we drove south to Mt. Ruapehu.  Rather than spend a cold night in a ski resort in the van, we checked into a small hotel in Ohakune.

Having thoroughly disrupted Ngaire’s morning, she prepared a comprehensive itinerary of sightseeing around Rotorua.

We started in Kuirau Park to see the bubbling geysers … from whence emanates the revolting smell of sulphur that envelops Rotorua on an overcast day.

A professor and his students were measuring the temperature of the various bubbling pools. Some are nearly boiling, and are surrounded by fences and ‘danger’ signs.

In somewhat gratuitous detail, the professor explained why the fences were necessary.

Apparently it was not uncommon for drunks to lose their way in the park at night and fall into the pools. “It was pretty a gruesome sight in the morning”, he said, “their arms and legs came away like boiled chicken …”

On the way out to the museum, we passed the Air New Zealand office. Within a couple of days of our arrival in New Zealand, we had decided to extend our stay by a week, so now seemed an ideal time to change our flights. Changing the Melbourne flight to the 21st was no problem, but when we enquired about changing the internal flights, Sydney to Cairns, Cairns to Ayers Rock, and Ayers Rock to Perth, we were told that Australia’s domestic airline, Ansett, had ceased to exist, and our tickets were no longer valid. The Australian portion of our trip now required a major re-think. Bummer!

We decided to skip Waimerangu Springs and go in search of an Australian guide book and map.

That evening, Brigid contacted her old friend Suzie Wilson, and arranged to see her on Friday evening. We would be arriving just in time to help the Wilsons plant their first vines.

Couldn’t leave without visiting Wihai’s Visitor Centre at the Martha Hill Mine. We walked a short distance to the old pump house, and looked down into the 600m deep open cast mine. The noise of the machinery seemed strangely distant, despite being directly below us. But, otherwise, the mine itself was quite dull.

We took the coastal road (SH2) to Tauranga, then looked for the “direct” road to Rotorua. We must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, but spotted a sign for “Windsong Miniature Horses”. Intrigued, we followed the road to the Windsong Stud, and arrived just in time for their “Wild West” show … aimed at the predominantly under-10 audience!

After a cringe-inducing musical opening number from the owners, we were won over by the real stars of the show – the miniature horses (Falabellas, as they used to be known).

They averaged about 36” high, and the best examples were indeed perfectly proportioned miniature horses – too small to ride, but trained to jump and pull small wagons and gigs.

We arrived in Rotorua around 5pm and sought out Cameron in his workshop. Ngaire (pronounced ‘niari’) had cooked up a delicious stew in honour of our arrival. We talked till late, drank too much wine, and parked in their drive overnight!