We had arranged with Philip, our hunting friend, to have a day out with the Hawkes Bay hunt that Saturday and had been planning on staying with Philip and Jane. However, during the week I got an email from him saying that he’d had a bad accident and dislocated his shoulder and lost an eye. I gave him a call and was very relieved when he turned out to be in really good form and was adamant that he still wanted to go hunting on Saturday, but now I would have to drive. I happily agreed to those terms!
On Saturday morning we had a good breakfast and went off to collect Philip, and his car as our van only fits 3! When we arrived at the meet we called up to the house of our hosts for the day, Jamie and Pru Lowry. Pru was kind enough to lend us her 4WD Subaru for the afternoon too; as Philip’s car wouldn’t have had a chance of going up the hills we scaled that day!
As we had done the time before, we drove through the fields getting ourselves up on a perch to get a good view of the hounds and followers. We chose very well at one stage during the afternoon and had the hare and hounds pass right by us. Susan was really excited and couldn’t wait to get back to Dad with pictures and videos from the day.
It was a really cold and windy day but there were clear skies and the hounds showed us a bit of sport. We later found out that the entire rest of the country had terrible weather that day and were freezing with rain or snow. Most of the mountain passes and some other roads were closed over the next few days after the snow that fell. We were pretty glad to get back to Jane’s warm house for a tasty roast mutton dinner that night! It was brilliant to see Philip in such good form and I think Jane also appreciated having an afternoon to do all the things she hadn’t had the chance to since Philip’s accident, and again they were excellent hosts.
The next morning we took a bit of a lie in before going into Hastings to find out where the best wineries in the area were. Apparently over here they distinguish between wineries and vineyards. Wineries are vineyards with shops I think! Hawkes Bay is renowned for its red wine, which Susan loves so she was quite happy to do the tour there. We started off by going back up to Napier and taking a proper look at the art deco architecture and having a bite of lunch. Then we set off for our first winery, Mission Bay. This is the oldest vineyard in the region and has been going since 1851. We asked could we do a tasting and it turned out to be free. Seán drew the short straw and got to drive for the day, leaving Susan and I free to enjoy ourselves. Moving on from there, we went just down the road to Church Road where Susan made the most of the information we’d been told at Mission Bay by repeating it all knowledgably to our hostess there! After that we moved on towards Hastings and to Te Mata and Black Barn wineries before deciding that was quite enough for one day. The best bit of the trip was that none of the wineries charged us for the tasting. Susan finished the day well armed with bottles to bring back home. We later found out that the information site in Hastings had been good to us as those wineries are among the best in the region.
That night we finally met up with Dermot, the brother/son of the family friends from home that we met with in Auckland. We went out for a tasty dinner with him and his girlfriend Vanessa. The next morning we set out towards Wellington for the next phase of the trip.
1 comment:
wineries were places where they bottled the wine wasn't it? as opposed to having multiple vineyards round the place which they seemed to have over there - not sure tho - should ask Sean he was doing the driving after all!!!
But now that you've tried some other wines I hope you'll give tasting a go again somewhere else! - there's more to life than Chardonnay after all.
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