Wellington ; Te Papa Museum ; Martinborough and Poppy’s ; Drive to Ngawi
(posted from Woodville Library, Woodville, NZ)
(This post covers 18 - 19 March, 2013)
----------------------------
Tuesday, 19 March -
It rained quite a bit last night but we slept well. I’d wake up and hear the rain but then fall right back asleep.
After pack-up this morning we took a look at the maps and decided we’d trend eastward today. The town of Featherston was close and then we’d see what Martinborough’s vineyards looked like.
Featherston is a very small town but I did stop at the “RD1” store. From the look of it and the name “RD1” (as in Rural Delivery route 1), I thought it would be a farm store and that was indeed the case. It was similar in feel to a ‘Tractor Supply’ store back home. And I wanted to see real examples of the iconic ‘gum boots’ worn by New Zealand farmers and fishermen (similar to our Muck-brand rubber boots).
I thought we’d just do an out-and-back drive to Martinborough to see the land but the town is very charming and once we stopped at the i-Site we were hooked. There’s a balloon festival starting Thursday and they had two upscale cafes nearby. We ate at Cafe Medici and I had the best breakfast ever there.
The breakfast menu had the normal fare of eggs and streaky-bacon, etc, but also had Chilli Corn Fritters with guacamole and tomato. It was fantastic! It was a stack of corn fritters made with a bit of chili powder but the four fritters were stacked and layered between with tomato, a bit of fancy lettuce (roka?), and a perfectly-spiced guacamole and a bit of cream cheese. Now is that a breakfast or what !?! It was fabulous.
After, we walked across the street to a wine-tasting outlet and chatted with the guy behind the counter, Alex. It turns out Alex hiked the Appalachian Trail in its entirety in 2002 and was familiar with our home area. When we asked about visiting a winery on this rainy day he suggested we go to “Poppy’s”, not far away.
At Poppy’s we met Poppy and her husband Shane. Both had worked for one of the top wineries in Queenstown and in the area here as professional vintners and had broken away to start their own label. Poppy has the gift of gab and is quite the charmer. We had four wines, only three of which I can remember-- savignon blanc, pinot gris, and pinot noir.
The wine tastings work on a $5-per-tasting of four wines. If you buy, you need not pay the tasting fee but these are more expensive upscale wines. In our case we ended up buying a $40 bottle of Poppy’s Pinot Gris to compare to our favorite, Five Flax wine which we buy at New World for $10-12 per bottle on sale, regularly $19. We want to see if what we learned from Poppy about ‘palate-weight’ and ‘manky’ grapes makes any sense in a head-to-head taste-off.
Poppy and Shane told us about one of their favorite drives in the area to Cape Palliser so we tried it even though it’s a drive to the shore on a rainy day. We drove a half-hour south to Lake Ferry, then another 45 minutes to Ngawi, a small fishing village. The first part was through farm country then it suddenly opens up on a miles-long beach, today lashed by southerly winds and crashing waves.
We were very happy to see this countryside. In the farming area, you see golden hills to the east and looming, dark mountains to the west. At the beach, it’s all sky and sea and the road is often a cliff-side one with warnings about falling rocks... and dodging rocks which had just recently fallen on the road! In one place the warning says “Active Slump. Drive carefully and don’t stop” and another says “Slow down now. Road ahead is slippery” (because of mud from the slump washing onto the road).
But the beach is gorgeous. The water is green and the beach black sand and there are jagged rocks sticking up here and there.
After our short visit to Ngawi, we re-traced our steps back to the farms and sheep stations and set the GPS for Carterton. There we took care of provisioning and service chores, then drove on for another hour and a half or so to Woodville, our goal for tonight.
At Woodville we have a grassy campsite behind the town recreation hall. For $10 a night we get our campsite and a key to the showers and toilet. There’s no one here to monitor the site, just a sign on the building telling us to go to the local Caltex gas station to pay and to get the key. I love it!
After supper I took a short walk into town but the sidewalks are all rolled up for the night.
-----------------------------
Monday, 18 March -
Last night ‘The Straitsman’ ferry landed at the Bluebridge Terminal in Wellington at 2230. Our crossing had been remarkably smooth the entire way. We had spent the time in the coffee shop which had the only receptacles available to power our laptops and it had a good wi-fi signal. The wi-fi was a bit slow given that it’s based on the cell-phone signal from the ship to shore and it went out a few times but it’s kind of amazing that a ferry boat has wi-fi at all.
The unloading process was just a matter of waiting for the signal to drive Budley off the boat. As we drove through the docks area I pulled off to the side and let all the other vehicle pass to have time to make up my mind at the street. We were looking for a car parking lot called something like ‘CARe Park’ and because we had time to look about Labashi spotted a small sign for it which we otherwise would have missed.
This was to be our spot for the night. We had been told by the ferry ticket agent that we’d pay $18 to park in this open parking lot but that was much better than the nearby ‘motorhome park’ which charges $50 to park in a very similar open parking lot just a half-block away.
As it turned out the lot charged only $8 for the 12-hour stay and we were the only vehicle in that lot when I bought my ticket from the machine at 2300.
We had a glass of wine and settled in for what we thought might be a noisy night here next to the marine terminal. A steady rain started not long after.
Around 0630 we were awakened by car doors slamming. The parking lot served a nearby office building and workers were arriving for work. We snoozed another hour, then had breakfast and read our guide books.
We then drove a few blocks to the Te Papa Museum. This is a famous one in New Zealand and I’d say it’s comparable to Smithsonian museums. It’s a national-level museum about New Zealand, starting with the land and it’s plants and animals on the first level, the impact of man on the second level, the social interactions of man on the next level, a large Maori history section and an operating marae (community center) for all New Zealanders and guests, an art museum, and a special collections level.
We were in the first level for about a half hour and I thought this was going to be a walk-through for us since we were familiar with most of what was there. But it just kept going and going and getting better and better.
For us the Maori history was a highlight. From the full-size waka or war canoe which had seen action in several battles to the sea-going double-canoes with woven-flax-reed sails to the coconut star-viewer navigation device to stories of gods, we loved it all.
At lunch time we went down to the cafe and ordered a ‘hangi basket’, which is a plaited-reed basket filled with steamed meats and vegetables with aromatic spices. We had chicken, lamb, pork, wild boar, kumara, potatoes, carrots, and, I believe, cabbage-tree-heart. We’re not sure of the spices but detected rosemary among them.
In the traditional hangi, a fire is built in a pit and allowed to burn down to coals. Then the various meats and vegetables are layered between leaves and the whole covered with a tarp or more leaves and allowed to steam. After hours of steaming, the food is uncovered and served to a large group. Ours was just a single portion but the two of us could barely finish it. And this was one of the bargains of New Zealand in that it was only $15 in a country where that barely buys a decent cheeseburger!
We continued touring until 1530 and declared ourselves museumed-out... even though we hadn’t seen it all. We took a break in Budley, then walked to the nearby shopping district at Cuba Mall. That turned out to be a disappointment. We enjoyed seeing the interesting people but the shops were very worn and had nothing interesting. We walked through Courtney Place, the strip of bars and restaurants, with much the same reaction. Perhaps it was because it was raining and people were just scurrying along and the nicer restaurants weren’t open yet.
We weren’t going to stay in the city another night so joined the throng exiting the city at 1700. We drove for an hour to reach a small regional park. As we drove by the ferry terminal we could see a half-dozen or so campervans turning the same direction as us and there’s not a lot of camping to pick from that close to the city so we thought it might be crowded. Fortunately, those other campers mustn’t have the NZ Camping app because we were the only campervan there... and it was a beautiful spot along the Hutt River for only $10.
As we had supper the ranger came by to greet us (and take our trash!) and we talked about some walking possibilities if the rain let up.
Labashi and I then shared a bottle of Five Flax pinot gris and relaxed from our tough day at the museum.
****************** END OF POST *****************
(posted from Woodville Library, Woodville, NZ)
(This post covers 18 - 19 March, 2013)
----------------------------
Tuesday, 19 March -
It rained quite a bit last night but we slept well. I’d wake up and hear the rain but then fall right back asleep.
After pack-up this morning we took a look at the maps and decided we’d trend eastward today. The town of Featherston was close and then we’d see what Martinborough’s vineyards looked like.
Featherston is a very small town but I did stop at the “RD1” store. From the look of it and the name “RD1” (as in Rural Delivery route 1), I thought it would be a farm store and that was indeed the case. It was similar in feel to a ‘Tractor Supply’ store back home. And I wanted to see real examples of the iconic ‘gum boots’ worn by New Zealand farmers and fishermen (similar to our Muck-brand rubber boots).
I thought we’d just do an out-and-back drive to Martinborough to see the land but the town is very charming and once we stopped at the i-Site we were hooked. There’s a balloon festival starting Thursday and they had two upscale cafes nearby. We ate at Cafe Medici and I had the best breakfast ever there.
The breakfast menu had the normal fare of eggs and streaky-bacon, etc, but also had Chilli Corn Fritters with guacamole and tomato. It was fantastic! It was a stack of corn fritters made with a bit of chili powder but the four fritters were stacked and layered between with tomato, a bit of fancy lettuce (roka?), and a perfectly-spiced guacamole and a bit of cream cheese. Now is that a breakfast or what !?! It was fabulous.
After, we walked across the street to a wine-tasting outlet and chatted with the guy behind the counter, Alex. It turns out Alex hiked the Appalachian Trail in its entirety in 2002 and was familiar with our home area. When we asked about visiting a winery on this rainy day he suggested we go to “Poppy’s”, not far away.
At Poppy’s we met Poppy and her husband Shane. Both had worked for one of the top wineries in Queenstown and in the area here as professional vintners and had broken away to start their own label. Poppy has the gift of gab and is quite the charmer. We had four wines, only three of which I can remember-- savignon blanc, pinot gris, and pinot noir.
The wine tastings work on a $5-per-tasting of four wines. If you buy, you need not pay the tasting fee but these are more expensive upscale wines. In our case we ended up buying a $40 bottle of Poppy’s Pinot Gris to compare to our favorite, Five Flax wine which we buy at New World for $10-12 per bottle on sale, regularly $19. We want to see if what we learned from Poppy about ‘palate-weight’ and ‘manky’ grapes makes any sense in a head-to-head taste-off.
Poppy and Shane told us about one of their favorite drives in the area to Cape Palliser so we tried it even though it’s a drive to the shore on a rainy day. We drove a half-hour south to Lake Ferry, then another 45 minutes to Ngawi, a small fishing village. The first part was through farm country then it suddenly opens up on a miles-long beach, today lashed by southerly winds and crashing waves.
We were very happy to see this countryside. In the farming area, you see golden hills to the east and looming, dark mountains to the west. At the beach, it’s all sky and sea and the road is often a cliff-side one with warnings about falling rocks... and dodging rocks which had just recently fallen on the road! In one place the warning says “Active Slump. Drive carefully and don’t stop” and another says “Slow down now. Road ahead is slippery” (because of mud from the slump washing onto the road).
But the beach is gorgeous. The water is green and the beach black sand and there are jagged rocks sticking up here and there.
After our short visit to Ngawi, we re-traced our steps back to the farms and sheep stations and set the GPS for Carterton. There we took care of provisioning and service chores, then drove on for another hour and a half or so to Woodville, our goal for tonight.
At Woodville we have a grassy campsite behind the town recreation hall. For $10 a night we get our campsite and a key to the showers and toilet. There’s no one here to monitor the site, just a sign on the building telling us to go to the local Caltex gas station to pay and to get the key. I love it!
After supper I took a short walk into town but the sidewalks are all rolled up for the night.
-----------------------------
Monday, 18 March -
Last night ‘The Straitsman’ ferry landed at the Bluebridge Terminal in Wellington at 2230. Our crossing had been remarkably smooth the entire way. We had spent the time in the coffee shop which had the only receptacles available to power our laptops and it had a good wi-fi signal. The wi-fi was a bit slow given that it’s based on the cell-phone signal from the ship to shore and it went out a few times but it’s kind of amazing that a ferry boat has wi-fi at all.
The unloading process was just a matter of waiting for the signal to drive Budley off the boat. As we drove through the docks area I pulled off to the side and let all the other vehicle pass to have time to make up my mind at the street. We were looking for a car parking lot called something like ‘CARe Park’ and because we had time to look about Labashi spotted a small sign for it which we otherwise would have missed.
This was to be our spot for the night. We had been told by the ferry ticket agent that we’d pay $18 to park in this open parking lot but that was much better than the nearby ‘motorhome park’ which charges $50 to park in a very similar open parking lot just a half-block away.
As it turned out the lot charged only $8 for the 12-hour stay and we were the only vehicle in that lot when I bought my ticket from the machine at 2300.
We had a glass of wine and settled in for what we thought might be a noisy night here next to the marine terminal. A steady rain started not long after.
Around 0630 we were awakened by car doors slamming. The parking lot served a nearby office building and workers were arriving for work. We snoozed another hour, then had breakfast and read our guide books.
We then drove a few blocks to the Te Papa Museum. This is a famous one in New Zealand and I’d say it’s comparable to Smithsonian museums. It’s a national-level museum about New Zealand, starting with the land and it’s plants and animals on the first level, the impact of man on the second level, the social interactions of man on the next level, a large Maori history section and an operating marae (community center) for all New Zealanders and guests, an art museum, and a special collections level.
We were in the first level for about a half hour and I thought this was going to be a walk-through for us since we were familiar with most of what was there. But it just kept going and going and getting better and better.
For us the Maori history was a highlight. From the full-size waka or war canoe which had seen action in several battles to the sea-going double-canoes with woven-flax-reed sails to the coconut star-viewer navigation device to stories of gods, we loved it all.
At lunch time we went down to the cafe and ordered a ‘hangi basket’, which is a plaited-reed basket filled with steamed meats and vegetables with aromatic spices. We had chicken, lamb, pork, wild boar, kumara, potatoes, carrots, and, I believe, cabbage-tree-heart. We’re not sure of the spices but detected rosemary among them.
In the traditional hangi, a fire is built in a pit and allowed to burn down to coals. Then the various meats and vegetables are layered between leaves and the whole covered with a tarp or more leaves and allowed to steam. After hours of steaming, the food is uncovered and served to a large group. Ours was just a single portion but the two of us could barely finish it. And this was one of the bargains of New Zealand in that it was only $15 in a country where that barely buys a decent cheeseburger!
We continued touring until 1530 and declared ourselves museumed-out... even though we hadn’t seen it all. We took a break in Budley, then walked to the nearby shopping district at Cuba Mall. That turned out to be a disappointment. We enjoyed seeing the interesting people but the shops were very worn and had nothing interesting. We walked through Courtney Place, the strip of bars and restaurants, with much the same reaction. Perhaps it was because it was raining and people were just scurrying along and the nicer restaurants weren’t open yet.
We weren’t going to stay in the city another night so joined the throng exiting the city at 1700. We drove for an hour to reach a small regional park. As we drove by the ferry terminal we could see a half-dozen or so campervans turning the same direction as us and there’s not a lot of camping to pick from that close to the city so we thought it might be crowded. Fortunately, those other campers mustn’t have the NZ Camping app because we were the only campervan there... and it was a beautiful spot along the Hutt River for only $10.
As we had supper the ranger came by to greet us (and take our trash!) and we talked about some walking possibilities if the rain let up.
Labashi and I then shared a bottle of Five Flax pinot gris and relaxed from our tough day at the museum.
****************** END OF POST *****************
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 16:45
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