Greytown

We go for a run along Riversdale Beach this morning; strangely tough on the muscles but good for the legs. People are out walking their dogs, all of whom seem to be having a great time racing around in the surf, chasing seagulls, each other, the wind and their tails. Is there a more engaging sight than the overwhelming exuberance of a dog on a beach?

It's nearly time for the long weekend to finish so we pack up and head home via Greytown. I've never been here before and want to explore. It feels like a bigger version of Arrowtown with its cute old buildings, antique shops and historic trees - there are even signs to point them out in case you don't notice them.

We bumble around looking in the shops. We love the Italian leather shoes, the bone-handled cutlery and the rows of toys and rubber ducks.  We are tempted by artwork, kitchenware and kittens.

(EDIT: There was another word and picture in here but someone complained to the Blogger standards people and the post was deleted until I removed the content. I could get into an argument about free speech and whitewashing social history, or I could just be amazed that someone cared enough to report a blog post of mine written over 14 years ago.)

The cafes are charging 10-15% extra and many of the shops are closed. I blame the public holiday surcharge rather than the recession. I hate the fact that the hospitality trade tries to make out it can't afford to pay staff when they are clearly raking it in. We eat lunch at the Swan Hotel and my grilled chicken salad is very nice.

It doesn't take us too long to drive home, which is one of the reasons we decided to go over to the east rather than up the west coast. Holidaymakers coming back into Wellington from up that way have to sit in traffic for four hours. Surely this negates any relaxing benefits that the holiday has bestowed?

Honeycomb Rocks

We head off down the coast in the opposite direction to Castlepoint. The countryside is just beautiful with gentle rolling hills and riotous colours under crisp autumn skies. Place names such as Kummerstein and Bismarck Road hint at German ancestry. The early pioneers to this region came from Sweden, England, Norway and Germany – they planted orchards and vineyards and made beer, like all good pioneers should!

We get to the end of the road and the start of our walk to the Honeycomb Rocks. We pick our way along the beach strewn with crayfish and paua shells and glistening strands of popping seaweed pearls. There’s plenty to feast on here, and birds chirp, screech, tweet and flutter all around. Flashes of brilliance indicate kingfishers and startled swoops from the long grass suggest a linnet-type bird (although my ornithology is rusty).

The path wends its way through weeds, reeds and long spiky grasses next to the beach, sometimes popping out onto the sand. It’s actually pretty energy-sapping in the legs.

Him Outdoors smells the telltale odour of seal. There’s a colony of them basking on the rocks, blinking their big brown eyes and languidly waving their flippers. I take a few pictures, using the telephoto lens and trying not to startle them, which is harder than you would imagine when some of them take to hiding in the grass!

We reach the Honeycomb Rocks which are really pretty impressive, eroded through wind and rain into strange porous formations. There are caves that look as though they could have housed hobbits, and a rock that both Him Outdoors and I instantly name Stegosaurus Rox – we can’t both be wrong, can we?




There is a rusting wreck in the sand – obviously the salvage job was too big to be considered. We throw smooth ovoid pebbles at it, like children delighting in the clanging sound when they reach their mark.


Walking back along the 4WD track is much quicker – it reroutes around the farm buildings but there isn’t as much hiking through tussock, bog and repetitive ravines. I am tired and weaving between the cabbage trees. I begin to hallucinate about the perfect beer to drink after a walk like this – such thoughts probably don’t help as they make me thirsty and we have run out of water – very ill-prepared.

When we get back to the car we drive back over the gravel roads to the bach. Him Outdoors says it feels like ages since we’ve been on a gravel road. He loves exploring new bits of the country, and now the car is covered in dust, it probably feels as though it too has been on an excursion.

After quick showers we get to the golf club earlier tonight and have our choice of meals – scallops for me and pork steak for Him Outdoors. The salads are all full up and not yet picked at. Once again Him Outdoors gets chatting to a bloke at the bar.

Jim is captain of the South cricket team. As an annual Easter event, people from the south play a team from the north, captained by Rosy. The division is made at the golf club and only people who own or are directly related to someone who owns a bach in Riversdale can compete – absolutely no ring-ins are allowed. They play for pride, bragging rights, and an old cricket bat trophy. What fun!

Easter Sunday

As it is Easter Sunday, I go to the little church in Riversdale – it is gorgeous. The vicar is a farmer, a youngish bloke who has the Tinui district as his diocese. He has no little (or large) helpers to assist with the Eucharist and does it all himself.

The service is very interactive; there aren’t enough prayer books or hymn books to go round and there is neither an order of service nor an organ or piano. People just nominate an appropriate hymn that they like and everybody sings it. A volunteer is asked to do the reading, another passes round the collection and people are encouraged to call out the names of those they would like to be remembered in the prayers.

Tania from Camp Anderson tells me there are 62 permanent residents at Riversdale Beach and the congregation swells during the holidays. The simple wooden church is packed to the rafters with worshippers and wasps – there’s a nest here apparently.

Tania and her husband run programmes at the adjacent camp for boys and girls during the holidays. Usually they are mixed, but this week they are running one just for girls with lots of art and craft activities.

Tania says she is struck by how many girls don’t know that they are beautiful and she finds this very sad. It leads to abused and broken women and she wants to help them develop their strength and their self-esteem and to know that their beauty has nothing to do with their looks. What wonderfully positive and noble sentiments.

The sermon likewise, is that we should all just be good to each and share the love – we don’t need to become priests and spread the word – simply listening to someone’s sorrows or baking a banana cake for the person down the road is enough to support those in our community.

I receive the blessing – I love the beautiful words, and I feel at peace. The congregation disperses to their family commitments and I drive back to our bach to Him Outdoors and bacon butties.

Cruising at Castlepoint

Having been lulled by moreporks in the night, we awake to the sound of birdsong in the morning. I potter around the beautiful trees in the garden encircling the bach. They were planted by the owner’s wife. The leaves of the beeches, birches, oaks and sycamores rustle in the breeze and blaze with colour.

Him Outdoors goes to fetch some coffee from the Riversdale café. He says people are pouring in for their morning fix of caffeine before heading to the beach on their quad bikes. There is a fishing competition on this weekend with categories from boat or shore, and a prize of $2,000.

We drive over the hill to Castlepoint. It’s quite different; more touristy and gentrified, and dominated by the picture perfect lighthouse on a promontory of rock.

We walk across the broad sweep of sand and up the steps, wandering around the magnificent cast iron structure. The wind whips in from the ocean, spraying the crests of the waves as they tumble into shore.

People stand atop the sea cliffs, casting rods into the foam below. A sign warns to beware; these rocks are dangerous. We pick our way over the jagged rocks, comprised of shells and limestone formations.

At the local shop we buy sausage rolls and ice creams, and scribble postcards to our parents, expressing the same sentiments in slightly different semantics.

Another walk takes us around the headland. In the pine forest a bloke supervises his children as they hurtle down a pine-needle carpeted slope between the trunks. Him Outdoors asks whether he’s managed to send them careening into the trees. The bloke grins back, ‘Not yet!’

We carry on across a col covered in toi toi and up to a vantage point where in either direction we can see endless beaches thrashed by the Pacific Ocean. We snuggle into a peaceful alcove out of the wind and just sit and admire the view, then walk back bathing our ankles in the water – it’s soothing on strained Achilles tendons and insect bites.

Windswept and sunburned, we return to the bach, stopping to admire the countryside. It’s reminiscent of Central Otago with a confusion of colour, pristine churches and curious cows. Back ‘home’ after a pasta meal, a couple of glasses of red wine and a failed attempt at the Dominion Post crossword, it’s time for an early night.

Relaxing in Riversdale

For our Easter break we decide to head over the hills and far away – well, not that far away actually, just to Riversdale on the Wairarapa Coast. We had hoped to stay in a bach but we found out the day before that the owners are using it, so we thought we’d just turn up and see if there are any vacancy signs or if anything is available.

It isn’t, but we have a pleasant walk on the beach watching people motoring up and down the sand on quad-bikes and ATVs (I’m such a petrol head, I don’t even know if there’s a difference or not) and families fishing in the surf.

As we are leaving town we see a corrugated iron shack with Bayleys and rental written on it. We peer in the windows but it is all real estate to sell as rentals. A bloke pruning trees with a chainsaw and dressed in scruffy jeans introduces himself as the real estate agent and says we can use his bach for $80 a night.

We follow him down a dirt track 2.5km from the township to a little place surrounded by oak trees. We say we’ll take it for a night and decide later if we want it for all three, but apparently we can’t call him as there’s no Vodafone reception. It’s a bit damp, there’s no TV and you can’t stroll down to the beach, but it’s sufficient and Him Outdoors seems happy enough.

We have lunch back at the township at the dairy/café (a burger and wedges) then Him Outdoors goes running while I take a photographic walk along the beach. Apparently the waves are 2m plus and ‘messy’. We are told this is very unusual by a couple who describe the horizon as ‘bumpy’.

Our bach seems a little cosier once we put the lights and the heater on, and I stop worrying about our new temporary landlord being a chainsaw murderer – there’s a headstone for his brother in the garden although he assures us he’s not buried there. It’s the sort of thing that you imagine in horror films – well, I do anyway. Him Outdoors says I’m being daft – I know I am, but I’m still a bit jumpy.

We walk into town along the moonlit road. Once we emerge from the trees we can see incredibly clearly by the full moon. The local police officer cruises past, reversing to get a good look at us before turning off into a driveway where a party is in full swing.

We have been advised that the golf club is the best (i.e. only) place in town for meals so we head there. A stressed couple (she is called Pam; I don’t catch his name) bang about in the kitchen providing meals that consist of ‘fish’ or ‘steak’ and come with chips. There is no creativity in the descriptions – ‘nestling on a bed of’s and ‘drizzled with’s are noticeably absent. They aren’t taking orders at the moment as they are way too busy, but we can wait.

The beer on offer is Speights, Tui or Export – I go for a glass of wine. It’s $5.50 for an enormous vase full of cheap chardonnay. You’d not be able to drive after two of those glasses. Him Outdoors talks to strangers at the bar – within minutes he has met a bloke who usually drinks at the Malthouse, reconnected with a chap he’d talked to after his run, and received two offers of a lift home – one of them from the barmaid.

There are cluster of school-assembly-hard chairs around Formica tables, most of which are supporting quart bottles or jugs of beer. There’s rugby on the television (it’s the Hurricanes all the way in these parts) and drunken surfer dudes falling over themselves. One guy is celebrating his birthday – he’s been out at Castlepoint today because you can’t get out ‘through the corridor’. See what you can pick up?

Eventually we order and receive our meals. As well as chips, they come with an array of homemade salads. These are spread out on a table and I see one woman, who claims to be ‘starving’ help herself without ordering a meal. ‘Not with your fingers, please’ admonishes our friend Pam.

When we set off on our homeward walk, our way is once again lit by the night-time constellations and we get to sing about our moon shadows. There is no traffic on the road, although one car passes us and then backs up and offers to take us home. It’s the bloke from the pub. We hop in and he shoots straight past our bach until Him Outdoors points it out. The bloke thought we were somewhere else but he stops and lets us out.

Him Outdoors says, ‘I bet that scared you?’ Actually, not until you mentioned it, no, although now I think about it, it could be considered sinister enough to fuel my horror story phobia – Him Oudoors: ‘We’re just up here’; Axe-murderer: ‘Oh no, you’re a long way away yet, mwah-hah-hah.’