The Martinborough Connection

... the younger members of the Ames clan I would need to make sure it was U rated music rather than some of my R18 punk albums. I thought some gentle Lounge would be appropriate and I span up the ever wonderful ‘Music to watch girls by’ compilation which has some awesome tunes including Theme from a Summer place and my all time favourite piece of Lounge ‘On the street where you live’. Not sure the kids thought much of my singing!

... of the Rings was filmed. Martinborough is in NZ wine country - so we went for a nice lunch at a winery after we got all dirty and dusty. We sat on the porch of this little bistro overlooking all the grape vines. We then drove for yonks (long time) back into Wellington. April did some work on her new project while I blogged about China. We managed to stay up late talking again - shocker, but it's our last chance!

... us to a local café for afternoon tea. Our Afternoons were taken up oiling the horse's leather collars and various harnesses. We found the experience to be quite therapeutic and relaxing, again it's really rewarding to look back and see what were dry, sad pieces of leather now shiny and brought back to life, I'm sure the horses will look spectacular in all their finery. Unfortunately our stay here was only for 3 nights and it was over in a flash, but most enjoyable all the same.

... the Rimutaka pass, Upper Hutt and Lower Hutt, where I'm camping for the night about ten miles from Wellington and the ferry terminal. I see on the map that I'm very close to various parts of Middle Earth, including the rivers of Anduin and Rohan, Dunharrow, parts of The Shire, Lothlorien and even Rivendell. I doubt that Rivendell on the ground looks much like Rivendell in the movie, let alone in imagination.

... for any senior citizen to spend time in. The place itself had a good few restaurants though and we ended up in a Turkish place. We stayed in a chalet in a pretty nice, but cold at night, camp site. I managed to sleep for about 12 hours!. Next morning we went to a cafe and ordered what turned out to be the biggest plate of pancakes, bacon and banana this side of Florida. So all in all a lot of eating!

... up sets that sent me through some underwater cartwheels and washed out the entire break. When I got out a guy was set up on the beach taking photos and said there should be some of me on: nzsurfpix.com for the feb. 10 days. I haven't been able to view them on this computer but they're probably a few fun ones of me doing but turns. We paddled out about five times because we thought the wind was going to come on shore any minute that day but it never did. That evening I ...

We got up a little late and had breakfast before we left. On the way to Wellington Rob spotted a place called Southward Classic Car Museum (It's on SH 1 not far after Waikanae). It was huge and there were so many cars that we didn't think that we'd get around it. We got chatting to one of the staff, he was going around polishing the cars. We asked him how long it takes to do them, he said it was an ongoing task that was never finished. He was a ...

... a meadow with the mountains far in the background. Truly spectacular! We decided to rent bikes and start touring the wineries. Since it was a weekday, many of the wineries were closed. We did find 4 that were open - and we bought 4 bottles of wine! The last winery we visited, Te Kairanga (TK) was our favorite. It had a big yard with picnic tables, so we bought a chilled bottle of their delicious Sauvignon Blanc and some crackers ...

On Sunday morning, we drove to Cape Palliser. Cape Palliser is the southernmost point of the North Island. There are only really 2 things to do here, climb the 250 steps to visit the century old lighthouse, and also visit the fur seal colony that lives at the cape. We did both, but the steps are ************ the legs! Well worth the view at the top though. We also saw some seals. There didn't seem ...

... enough to get through the heads, after which we took them downstairs to the double storey soft play area, which had been overrun by primary aged school kids on excursion. Fortunately 'Amy' took a shining to our Yasmin, and helped the two of them through the playtime for the next hour or so. After docking in Wellington, we negotiated peak hour traffic to Lower Hutt, where a patch of gravel awaited ...