Chapter 8, April 18: The Second Day at the Ranch
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Our 'alarm clock', the family getting ready for the day, woke us. After we got ready, we had a light breakfast to compensate for the more than filling dinner of the night before. Wendy had a luncheon to attend in town, so we planned the day around this.
First, we drove our rental following Wendy, who was in the spare family car, out the access road to the paved road, and around several turns that were unfamiliar to us, to the spot where Gary was picking apples. Leaving the Fiat parked by the side of the road, we all packed into Wendy's car and drove to Puke Tuki (pronounced poo-ki too-ki) road. Wendy's sister, Penelope, is a supervisor at a kiwifruit packing house, and an extemporaneous tour was arranged for us.
The packers, who are farmers just earning some extra income during the kiwifruit harvest time, got a real kick out of us tourists taking pictures of them at work. Their kiwifruits are much larger -- about the size of a small orange. What we get in the United States are the size of their rejects.
On the way out, we stopped at a field of vines laden with kiwifruit. We went under the arched trellises to find the fruit hanging in large bunches of eight to ten. I could not stand up all the way under the arch, but was still able to snap a picture or two for posterity.
From here we headed to downtown Napier and parked on a street not too far from the aquarium that we had visited a few days earlier. Wendy sold a frozen hide from a lamb that they had recently slaughtered, to a local tannery. As Wendy completed the transaction, I watched the workers stir large vats of pungent bubbling fluids half expecting them to start chanting, 'toil, toil, boil and bubble' from Shakespeare. With the business completed, Wendy and I went across the street to the discount sheepskin store and caught up with Janet, who did not want to smell the awful chemicals at the tannery, but instead wanted to get a head start picking out a few items.
Wendy led us up some narrow stairs to the loft where they kept the hides that were not quite perfect. We selected a brown and gray hide that looked perfect to us and bought it at a large discount. As noon was fast approaching, we drove back to the apple orchard where Wendy dropped us off, gave us some directions to town, and sped off to her luncheon.
Not far from the road, we found Gary busily picking Granny Smith apples. He was on a foot controlled one-man lift which put him very near the branches where he had both hands free to pick the fruit. He showed us the special technique that he used to pick the apples with a bit of the stem still remaining with them. This made it more desirable to the buyers. We knew how much the family needed the money he was earning, so we didn't want to disturb him too much. As we walked back to the car, we purloined a couple of missed ripe apples from an already picked row of trees for our lunch.
We traversed the previously difficult traffic circle with all the ease of a city resident and followed directions to the south part of Hastings. We were looking for the 'kit-set' furniture shop to see if we could find a reasonably priced do-it-yourself spinning wheel kit. The shop was just a few blocks past where we asked for directions earlier. We found something close to what we were looking for, but decided to wait on this purchase. As we walked back towards the car we stopped for ice cream at a small shop, and then found a MacDonald's restaurant which provided facilities for us. I was looking for hamburgers made from ground lamb on the menu (McLamburgers???), but just found the normal bill of fare and one sandwich that we don't have in the States.
Heading back towards the ranch, we took a side trip up Te Mata peak. From there we could see over ten miles to the city of Napier and almost back to the ranch. We compared the coastline to our map and were able to pick out all the places we had just visited in the past few days.
Being in no hurry to return, we also stopped at a roadside wine sampling shop. The Lombardi Bros. Winery owned only five acres and specialized in selling bulk wine to those who brought their own flagon. After sampling a few of the vintages, we purchased a couple of bottles and continued on our way.
We came to the large white stucco house on a large vineyard which was our landmark, but rather than make the usual sharp right turn to the ranch, on a whim, I went straight ahead following a sign pointing to another winery. This one was closed for the season, but we wandered down several metal backroads and finally came to a spot next to a river which looked like an ideal spot to have a river bash. Except for a few beer cans probably from the last partiers, it was deserted on this a Tuesday, so we did a quick donut with the car and left without stopping. The roads were cut through thick woods and every once in a while we saw the large flapping wings of a hawk or a pheasant fly away from the road scared by our engine noise. Janet tried, but the birds were just too fast for the camera. Our only trophy was a picture of some tail feathers quickly disappearing into the bush.
Back at the ranch, Wendy had already returned, and dinner was almost complete. We reviewed our activities of the day and thanked her for showing us all the good places to shop. Her eyes lit up again as we asked her to suggest a good place to buy woolen goods. She was more than happy to inform us of Norsewood, a city we were going to pass through the next day, and got as much pleasure telling us about it as a child would have describing a candy shop.
Gary and the boys arrived home like clockwork and during our pre-dinner snacking and conversation ritual, Wendy brought out their guest registry. We entered our names and browsed through the list looking for interesting names and countries of origin. We happened across a Southern Californian family that had stayed there a few months previous. It turned out that Richard was interested in their daughter, so we took down the name and address and promised to call her on her birthday with wishes from New Zealand.
We settled down for dinner which was roast lamb and vegetables with a wonderful rolled pavlova for dessert. I made a comment about being unable to keep up with Wendy's driving as we followed her that morning. This went a long way in reducing the boys' shyness as they teased their mother about driving recklessly.
Since Gary and the boys would be gone before we were up the next morning, we said our good-byes to them after dinner and then returned to our room to do a little pre-packing in preparation of our departure.
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Chapter 9, April 19: The Trip to Wellington
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During breakfast, Wendy gave us directions on how to continue on our way without having to backtrack through Havelock North and Hastings. She again pointed out the route to Norsewood to make sure we didn't miss out on the woolen goods. We finished packing, said our final good-byes, and followed her directions.
The road started out paved, but then turned to metal for a few miles before it again returned to being paved. There were a few cows grazing about the road so we had to slow down a couple of times to avoid getting a new hood ornament.
Our next stop was, in fact, the Norsewool plant in Norsewood. The shop sold factory seconds at substantially reduced prices. We could not discern any defects with the merchandise, so we bought matching sweaters, scarves, mittens, and other woolen goods for ourselves and for relatives who live in cold climates. Later, we found out that these were seconds because the pattern or picture was not quite centered vertically, etc.
We asked for and received a tour of the factory which was attached to the shop. In a few minutes the factory supervisor came out and personally escorted us on the tour. We took our time to watch the machines knit both yardage and tubular stock for sweaters. Next, thick stacks of the material was cut with a razor sharp band saw according to sized patterns. The bulk of the thirty workers were sewing and knitting the pieces together to produce all of their company's goods except for gloves which were produced at their other plant. We particularly remember the quaint accent of our tour guide and how she politely answered 'ye-es' to some of our inquiries. After passing through the mountains that divide the island, our next stop was in Palmerstown North. Here we resumed our hunt for a spinning wheel. We entered from the north and parked prior to reaching the business district. We had to ask in several shops before someone knew the directions to the local 'kit-set' store. It was only three blocks away, through the center of town. This business district is built around a large park with businesses on all four sides. Because it was getting close to lunch time, there was a lot of foot traffic around and through the square. We mostly followed the crowd and arrived at the street which led west from the square.
We found the indicated shop, but they did not have what we wanted. The salesman directed us to another shop that specialized in knitting products. We went back through the square and took a street that led to the south. We found the shop without any difficulty, but they only carried finished spinning wheels, so yet again, we had to wait on the purchase.
It was now past noon. Our hunger directed us back to a pizza restaurant facing the square that we had passed earlier. We had to wait longer than usual for our pizza even though the eatery was not crowded. We couldn't quite figure out what was different, but we surmised that the New Zealanders did not quite have the knack for making pizza. This was the first time that we had missed home, and the aroma of a Lomeli's pizza, only a faint memory, was beginning to call us back to California. Janet took the helm and drove us out of town. Because of a broken sign, we took a slightly different route only a few miles longer. It was lucky that we went this way, because we found an antique shop that had the toast tray we had been looking for, and snatched it up.
We popped out on the west coast of New Zealand, and, after driving for an hour, stopped at a roadside viewpoint where we saw Kapiti Island in the Tasman Sea. Beyond that, a thousand miles away, was Australia. Not being ready for the stresses of city traffic, Janet returned the driving responsibilities to her husband, and carefully studied the map to figure out the best way to our hotel. We were approaching Wellington from the north and could tell we were getting closer when the two lane road, lane by lane, turned into a freeway. Janet's directions got us around Lambton Harbour to Oriental Bay were our hotel was waiting for us. We parked behind the building and checked in to our room on the eighth floor overlooking the bay. After unpacking, we got ready for dinner. As we did not want to go exploring for a restaurant in this new city, we opted for the restaurant in the hotel.
We had a quick before dinner drink in the attached bar, and then were seated in the restaurant. I had lamb, as usual, and Janet had a beef dish. We ordered a bottle of wine to begin the celebration of the final stage of our trip. The food was not bad, but also, not tremendous. We knew that there had to be better places in city this size, and hoped to find them. |
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