Wairarapa Weekend

No one ever tells me about public holidays here—imagine my surprise at learning Labour Day was in October, and that Wellington has an anniversary, not to mention that everyone gets the day after Christmas off too– so I was pretty excited to learn that Kiwis get Good Friday and something called “Easter Monday” off. I spent the first part of the long weekend going to parties, taking walks, writing weepy emails, and sleeping for eighteen hours a day, which was, you know, fine. The second part, wherein my friend Georgina from Melbourne came for a visit, was much more exciting and garnered many more pictures, so I’ll just tell you about that, all right?

Georgina got in Saturday evening and I made my latest favorite pasta, which is short spirally things with sundried-tomato pesto, sautéed zucchini, feta cheese (how I love you, New Zealand dairy products!) and some truly sublime pancetta from Mediterranean Food Warehouse. I have stopped eating basically all meat except Italian pork products, which I love with a love that is pure and true and sweet and surrounded by a light layer of pure white fat. I will have to give it up sooner or later, I know, but oh it is heaven in pasta. Once we were firmly ensconced on the couch, bowls and spoons in hand, we talked about boys for four or five hours and called it an early night, as we were getting up and driving the next morning.

We’d planned to go on a little overnight trip to the
Wairarapa Valley as George had already been to Wellington before and done touristy things and I had had houseguests for four thousand weeks in a row and was itching to get out of the city even if only for a night. She’d spent the previous week at the Great Barrier Island with her friend Alison, who also had a friend, Shelley, who just moved to Welly around the same time I did. The four of us met up at the car hire place and after ascertaining that only Georgina could drive, hopped into the car and headed for the Rimutakas on Highway Two, joy in our hearts at the prospect of even more vacation.

After a very windy throw-uppy drive of about an hour through the hills, we fetched up at our laughably awful b-and-b in lovely Greytown and, after a restorative pastry or two at a very cute French bakery, headed over to a gorgeous chocolate shop to pick up some stunningly delicious olive-oil chocolate, thereby setting the tone for the trip. I knew that I was in good hands, with these Australians, because much of our conversation revolved around what we’d like to eat, or what we’d be eating next, or what we’d eaten once that we’d like to eat once more. After getting a recommendation on where to have dinner from the chocolate guy (as well as discussing my ethnic heritage—when I told him I loved the olive oil chocolate the best, he said very seriously “It’s in your genes,”) we rolled over to Martinborough to check out some of the vaunted vineyards there.

All the vineyards are very close to one another so we just parked the car and walked around.

The tree that is apparently in my genes.

We first went to Ata Rangi, which apparently makes the best pinot noir the world has ever known, whatever that means. I know about as much about wine as I do about internal server processors, so while I did taste everything, my assessments of the wines were a little less…uh, nuanced then those of my fair companions, all of whom are big wine freaks and have done classes and traveled to all the big wineries in Australia and could pick out notes and undertones and all sorts of interesting things. I was reduced to “That tickles the back of my throat” and “That makes my nose feel funny” but it was still fun to listen to them talk about wine and a good time was had by all.

Feeling a little hungry, as it’s been nearly an hour and a half since we’d last eaten, we went off in search of a winery that would offer a cheese plate. We came upon Vynfields and were thrilled to discover that they had some very yummy cheese there along with their wine or whatever.

Apparently, and for reasons I don’t exactly understand, the owners had moved this big beautiful house over the crazy mountain “highway” from Wellington. On the way back the next day we couldn’t imagine how they’d done it; did they cut it in pieces, or something, and put it on several trucks? Why would you do that? Why wouldn’t you just build another house?

Logistics aside, we were very happy to be eating cheese in a gorgeous garden, especially when a very friendly cat (called Pinot of course) came and sat with us for a while. There were a lot of bumblebees around the flowers and this was very exciting for the Australians. Our conversation was like:

Shelley: But where do bumblebees live? This brie is lovely.

Chiara: I think they live in the ground. In burrows? Can I have another piece of bread, please?

Alison: Burrows? Oh, cheers, is that fig for me?

Georgina: The blue vein is gorgeous with the chutney on top. Ooh, this one really smells like green peppers.

Chiara: Wine can smell like vegetables?

Shelley: Bees can live in burrows?

Sitting and eating and drinking and talking in the late afternoon sun—pretty much my favorite thing to do in the world– was so perfect that we stretched it out as long as we could, but eventually we had to hike a couple of Ks back to the car so we could marshall our energies for dinner, of course, which we made sure included several varieties of cheese as well as pumpkin pizza and a chocolate dessert that rendered Alison temporarily speechless. We were all pretty tired after a day that included so much butterfat but due to the vicissitudes of our terrible, terrible beds I don’t think any of us slept very well that night.

The next morning—after, oddly, the terrible staff at the terrible b-and-b asked Alison and Shelley if they’d used both beds in their room, like, hello, is there a discount if they don’t have to make up one of the beds, or something? Anything was possible in this place–we decided to head over to Cape Palliser to check out the beach that we’d heard involved a seal colony (you know how I love a seal colony. Georgina, bless her heart, did all the crazy driving along the coast while the rest of us tried not to barf directly into our laps due to the extreme windy-ness that is the New Zealand rural road system. We leapt out of the car as soon as we could and immediately saw some seals without even trying.

I scrambled around the rocks and ended up almost stumbling on seal after seal—at one point one barked really loudly at me before I even saw it and girl, did I run. After climbing around for a while, which I found strangely exhilarating all by itself, I finally found a little tidepool where three pups were playing. I couldn’t believe my luck. I would have been happy to stay there for hours, doing my other favorite thing in the world: watching creatures just do their thing.

I’m not sure but I wonder if that was their mom, that seal in the last photo. When she saw me coming she moved closer to them (and to me)..to check me out, maybe? She watched me for a long time. I think the babies saw me too because at first I thought they were going to leave the pool when I hopped up to my vantage point, but I crouched down low to the rock and they didn’t leave, although the mom (I think it was the mom) kept at least one eye on me while I was there.

I didn’t end up staying there forever, sadly, to live amongst the seals, but instead got back in the car and drove up the road a bit so I could climb up two hundred and fifty steps to see a lighthouse. Very smart decision on my part, I think you’ll agree.

It was really time to go then—there were many kilometers of vomitous road ahead and we had to return the hire car and eat some more cheese and get George ready to leave my house at three this morning—so there was only a little time to stop at another black sand beach to take pictures before we hopped back in the car and I made a fool of myself by asking what the difference between a wombat and a koala was.

Shelley: Wait, are you taking the piss?

Chiara: Um…no?

Alison: You really don’t know?

Chiara: You didn’t know about bumblebees!

Georgina: Okay, a koala lives in a tree.

Chiara: Yes, thanks. Got it.

Alison: And a wombatlives on the ground.

Shelley: And it has smaller ears.

Chiara: But it’s still a marsupial, right?

Shelley: Yes.

Chiara: Well, okay then.

Georgina: People always think Australians have koalas in their back yards.

Chiara: I didn’t think that! I just have never seen a wombat! I just didn’t know!

Georgina: Fair enough.

Chiara: I would tell you guys about the difference between…um…a moose and a beaver! If you didn’t know!

It was such a fun trip. It was short and silly and involved a lot of food and walking around pretty stores touching pretty things. I ended up liking Alison and Shelley, who of course I’d never met before, very much, and I renewed my devotion to the lovely Georgina, who I hope to see in August back in Oz if all goes well this winter. It was just a really simple and easy kind of fun: yummy eats and ridiculous discussions about animals (“Wait, do bumble bees even make honey?”) and knee-high boots and grassy notes in wine (“But how do they get the grass into the wine?”) and the differences between Kiwi and Aussie accents and beautiful seal pups and cool green surf crashing on black sand and the feeling that there are a lot of good places and a lot of good people in the world, all waiting to come together to bring me a nice full rich creamy slice of happiness this Easter.