Delights of Martinborough

On Tuesday 6th of Feb we headed of with the caravan in tow to Hastings. It was a quiet uneventful trip - no heavy traffic on Waitangi Day - except that 2ate7, the cafe where we  usually have a break had run out of coffee beans so Duncan had to have a tea.  We stayed the night at the Hastings Golf course which has a few caravan plugs there at a cheap price. Being a holiday they had a social competition on so we went up to the clubhouse for dinner and some very nice Trinity Hill wine.

 Next morning we headed off to Martinborough and took ages to set up - which is unusual for us. First of all we couldn't get TV reception because we were under huge trees. Then we were half set up and found the site we were on didn't have water. We can go for a couple of days on our water tanks, but as we were staying 4 days decided to move yet again.

Next morning we went and played golf - I played off the short tees, but with a rest after lunch, didn't feel too bad. Robin and Chris arrived that afternoon, none the worse for wear after their Queen Charlotte  Track. Lots of catching up to do, but we wanted to visit Johner, a favourite Pinot Noir vineyard up the road at Gladstone for a bit of a wine tasting. Then we walked into town to Pinocchio's  for dinner - the food is excellent there.

Duncan and Chris

Gwen and Robin

Robin and Chris were staying in a cabin, so we had them to breakfast next morning at the caravan and then Duncan and Robin went off to play golf and Chris and I went into town to get some antipasto type stuff for dinner. We had to wait for the breadman to arrive - fortunately the bread was worth the wait. We had a 1pm booking at Coney's Wines and had a great tasting and lunch experience there. And yes, the owner was definitely related to Jeremy Coney (cricketer)  - he was very talkative!

We continued on to Luna and Palliser. Palliser used to have the Lighthouse Gin, but it had moved to Te Kairanga. We were surprised to find it closed.

Gorgeous lights at Palliser

In the end the local brewery won out. The guys had a tasting rack. As it had been a fairly hot day I had a low alcohol beer too.

Kicking back at the end of the day.