Wairarapa footnotes

I thought I might add a few words to Joan's account of our few days away from Wellington. This is a photo of Joan enjoying the complimentary bottle of champagne we had in our room on arrival at the White Swan. The room was palatial, reproduction antique furniture, strange pictures on the walls, cooking facility, balcony--all in a sort of pseudo Georgian style. We were happy to arrive and find it so very agreeable after a rather frustrating day when we had found our way to the coast to a place called Tora, which our landlady had described as her favourite place in the whole world. It did not quite live up to this billing. It was a remote, bleak stretch of coast--stunning in its way, but with nothing else to recommend it unless loneliness and bleakness was what you were seeking. And the last six miles into it were on what in NZ is called unsealed road. The signs say "Gravel Road" but that is a misnomer--rocky road, or corrugated rocky road, would be more accurate--and the surface was such that sometimes the rental car seemed likely to shatter into a thousand pieces.
Maybe I should digress about NZ roads. There are a lot of unsealed, rocky roads, especially if you are going to places like national parks or to places where hiking trails start. We did have a pamphlet with hikes in national parks and most of them contained a warning that the trailhead was reached by an unsealed road of so and so many kilometers. In one case, 22 kilometres--that distance on a rocky road in a rental car would just rule it out. A few kilometres--OK: but not much more than that. On regular country roads there is very little traffic. For example, in the 60 odd kilometres from Masterton to Castlepoint, I doubt if we saw more than ten or so other vehicles. And on Friday, on a 30 km stretch we saw one other car--the passengers waved to us: they must have been surprised to see us.
Where was I? Oh yes, we were happy to get to the hotel, as our next venture after the bleak and lonely coast were Malborough wineries--all of which were closed.


In our bedroom at the hotel was this picture, and I am offering a prize to anyone who can tell me who this family is. I first thought Victoria and Albert--but count the girls: surely Al and Vic did not have that many. Is that building in the background Osborne on the Isle of Wight. Anyway--any suggestions?

And this imposing portrait was in the living room of our hotel suite. You will also note the top of the reproduction Chippendale dining room chair, of which we had four set around the reproduction Chippendale dining table.

Joan in jovial mood on the balcony of the hotel.

Now this is Deliverance Cove at Castlepoint, and I think that Joan has given it a bum rap. It is scenically quite stunning. The beach is sandy and gently sloping, mostly protected from the ocean by a rock formation with one gap through which the surf rolls . True, the wind was so ferocious that we had to abandon the walk around the cliff and down the track you can just make out coming down to the beach in the centre of the picture. True--the sand blown on the beach filled our ears and noses and hair. But the New Zealanders are a tough crowd: like British holiday makers cowering behind their windbreaks on Cornish beaches, the beach-goers were battling it out. Freezing in the sea, struggling with their picnics--lots of cars on the beach, drawn up in circles like wagons within which stoves and barbeques were operating, kids shivering in the surf...people enjoying themselves--always a pleasant sight. I liked it there. Even took my shoes off and wandered along in the water.

On our way to Palliser Point, the most southerly point on the North Island, we passed through a small settlement called Ngawi, which some guidebook described as a picturesque fishing village and, we were told that, if we were lucky, we might see the fishing boats launched. We did not actually see a picturesque fishing boat being launched, but what we did see was the world's largest collection of picturesque rusty and dilapidated bull-dozers and tractors and huge trailers with boats on them. Above is only one of the bull-dozers--a small one. Most of them were twice as large. Don't ask me why they had to be bulldozers: I don't know. To move sand on the beach, perhaps. I liked the notice on this one, and here it is in close-up.

We came back on the Friday afternoon through Featherston, hoping to see the museum with the Fell Locomotive in it. Fascinating subject--Fell locomotives (read Wikipedia on the amazing drive mechanism) They were needed to climb the steep Rimutaka Grade...before they built the 6 mile tunnel under the Rimutaka Range. Museum Closed. Well--how about the Heritage Museum? Closed. So off we went over the Rimutaka mountains. The sign at the start of the climb on each side does show a squiggle and the information "next 13.2 km." That doesn't seem very far, but with a blind curve about every fifty yards, and an enormous drop-off on one side (real men don't need guard rails), and huge trucks descending round every corner, it seemed like an eternity getting to the top and down the other side.

But we made it, although when slow-coach Cutler had acquired more than three cars behind him breathing down his neck, he usually managed to pull into the odd space offered at the side of the road and let them pass. I drive within my comfort level--and the rental car is not exactly Formula One.

There was one interesting sidelight on NZ cultural life on which I feel I should comment. We ate a meal in a bar/cafe and we had three other people drinking and talking loudly near us--and the accent was so thick that I could hardly understand a word. And the woman kept using a word I had never heard before--FACKING. Every third word was facking this and facking that. I must see if there is a Kiwi dictionary where I can find the word. I don't think it was Maori.

Posted by David--Saturday January 9 2010