With some detailed directions, we had no trouble finding their house one sunny Tuesday afternoon. We had a very grand and also very tasty dinner of home grown lamb that night to prepare us for the next day’s exertions.
The meet was at 12 o’clock at Shanley Road so we arrived a bit before that and Philip brought me around to meet the Master and some other hunt members. Apart from being a beautiful sunny day it was very like home, with the same style of turnout of both horses and riders, though there were more followers than we would normally have at home. We counted about 50 on horseback and three cars of followers in all. When they moved off we drove up to the top of a very steep hill and, while the car stopped smoking, we got set up to watch the proceedings. The country was very open, with no hedges or ditches and only wire fences which the hunt had put posts over to hinder the followers. From our vantage point, we watched the hounds working and during the day they had three quick hunts. I was amazed that they were able to hunt at all given the lovely weather, but it did seem that scent was hindered a bit. The best hunt of the day was under the cover of a small plantation where we couldn’t see anything, but did enjoy listening to the hounds in full cry.
At about 4pm they decided to call it a day, so we drove on home without waiting for the hunt tea, which seems to be quite an event out here. That evening we enjoyed another tasty dinner and prepared for our departure the next morning. We had to get back up to Auckland again to get flights to Christchurch for another polo weekend. Philip and Jane told us we were mad and should have booked the flights from Napier, but at the time of booking we hadn’t planned on still being in Hawkes Bay at that stage. They were to get another good laugh out of that on Friday, but I’ll tell you more about that later…
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