Martinborough Fair 2012
Having escaped the big city rugby booze-fest this weekend, we got up early and headed to Martinborough for the first fair of the year (it’s held on the first Saturday in both February and March so you get 2 chances).
Now having been a number of times, we are pretty quick at getting around the event, and tackle it as a kind of assault course. We get there early (around 8.30) to beat the crowds, and today managed to finish by 10.40, including a stop for coffee half way round. However, unless you have been a number of times – I would bank on spending at least twice that amount of time wandering around and browsing.
We really tend not to spend much money, mostly because I seem to have expensive tastes and the stuff I like and want to buy is in the hundreds of $$$. So I take a card and add it to the list of things I will buy one day when I have a stash of cash burning a hole in my pocket.
However, we did buy some delicious Satay Sauce from Sone’s Satay. Unfortunately they don’t have a website, and stockists are short, but if you see this stuff anywhere – grab some. Its the best Satay Sauce I have ever tasted in New Zealand. At $10 a jar it is quite expensive – but it is worth it.
Hubby spent some money on some real Turkish delight from Loukoumi. I cant stand the stuff, and it’s full of sugar, but he confirms what the seller said, in that it really does melt in the mouth and is delicious. At $12 a box, I would say its quite expensive, but it gives you 16 pieces and hubby it’s worth it!
What I didnt but was a stunning hand beaten copper still from Alembics.
This one was distilling a Eucalyptus oil which you could catch on your finger as it came out. Now I have a lot of essential oils – I am actually trained as an aromatherapist – but I have never actually seen a still in action and I have never smelt an oil straight from the still. It was beyond devine. For the serious DIYer, lifestyler this is a true treat. Even better, they sell a range of stills for different products – the large ones for distilling essential oils and making hydrosols, and smaller ones for distilling alcohol.
And they are gorgeous to look at.
At $295 for the smallest stills and $795 for the large 10l column still its not pocket money. But to be honest with the cost of essential oils in New Zealand, you could probably save that relatively quickly, not to mention savings on Alcohol, and having the pleasure of owning a beautiful item.
And may favorite whimsy of the day was the Car-B-Que. Only in New Zealand!
The Wairarapa is getting popular with big names
Filed under: Life in New Zealand, NZIS & Immigration issues
It turns out that James Cameron has bought two large plots of land near lake Wairarapa, after getting consent through the Overseas Investment Office.
I have to admit to finding that a little bit exciting.
Apparently according to the article, he and his family are going to be living permanently in New Zealand after setting it up as a farm.
”James F Cameron and his family intend to reside indefinitely in New Zealand and are acquiring the property to reside on and operate as a working farm,”
I do kinda hope that doesn’t mean he’s going to give up making movies, though personally I don’t really want to see Avatar 2&3 in yet more 3D. Peter Jackson also has his main pile in the Wairarapa – near Masterton.
There are a couple of issues here – that I am sure we won’t get any answers to but here goes anyway:
1/ There’s a loud (very loud) hoo hah going on in New Zealand at the moment because a Chinese company is buying up the Crafar Farms (had to be sold as they went into receivership). It seems James Cameron alone is buying about 15% of the amount of farm land involved in that deal, and so far not a whimper about “selling New Zealand to foreigners”.
Personally I don’t think its a big deal either way – but I do dislike the hypocrisy when people scream at selling land to the Chinese, but couldn’t care less when selling it to non-Asians.
2/ Of personal interest – what are the Immigration issues – you cant just buy a farm and have the right to live in New Zealand indefinitely. It doesn’t work like that. People buying farms generally do so under a business visa, and you have to have experience in that business. Is this another investor category?
Its important because the Overseas Investment Office is nothing to do with immigration – so its a whole other ball game.
Either way, I wish them the best of luck and a warm welcome to the Wairarapa. It is a wonderful place, and I for one don’t blame anyone for wanting to live there.
Why does it cost so much to buy tickets to a LOCAL event?
My family were trying to buy tickets to a Local event – the 2012 Wairarapa Wines Harvest Festival. This is an event held in March to allow wineries outside of Martinborough to try and get some of the kudos (and $$$?) of Toast Martinborough which they are not allowed to be part of. Martinborough Wineries are however represented at the Harvest Festival.
It’s been running for a few years now, and is actually quite good. Instead of Toast where you visit several wineries an buses – at the Harvest festival the Wineries come to you – at a site not far from where we live. Set in a beautiful little park near the Ruamahanga River – it does make quite a lovely day.
Now tickets are only $40 – compared t the $70 of toast – but bear in mind you still need to buy your wine (at not exactly cheap prices) and food on site. In fact over the years the staff running the event have got stupidly draconian about not letting you on the bus from the car park to the site until they have checked your bags for water or food.
I don’t bother going now as I refuse to let someone poke their nose in my bag for no good reason!
Now last year – we bought tickets at the Wairarapa Wines shop in Greytown (again an answer it seems to the Martinborough Wine Center), and is run as a collective of the wineries. but this year you can only buy tickets through Ticketec.
Which means added fees.
You either have to pay $11.75 or $13.75 depending on where you want the tickets “couriered” to. The extra is for rural delivery – which in our case means it comes via the normal postman anyway. And of course 2%-2.6% for the “credit card fee”.
Plus of course Ticketec will also be taking a commission from Wairarapa Wines for the privilege of having their tickets sold for them.
So on three tickets costing $120, we would have to pay $16.50 in order to buy them. That’s 13.45% of the price of the tickets.
Which is a bloody rip off – when postage actually costs 60c and would be free if we were allowed to buy them form the outlet bloody well organising the damn thing.
When asked about this – the Wairarapa Wines Center in Greytown basically couldn’t give a stuff on the basis that they will sell the tickets. So why should they care? Only this is local event. Why wouldn’t you allow locals to buy tickets locally? Why would you force them to pay over the odds for the tickets – especially when Ticketec is taking a cut from them as well as from us?
Then they got really snotty and proceeded to tell my mum all about how expensive it is to run a stand at the event. This did not go down well – on account of my parents having run stands at several large UK events a year – with fees that would make the eyes of the wineries here water.
They have a snotty attitude – and for the first time – my family is not going to the Harvest Festival.
Instead, they will take the $120, buy some nice wine (which may or may not be Waiararapa Wine, and enjoy it in the garden, where they wont be overcharged for the wine or the food (and wont have to use portaloos). And can rest easy that they arent subsidising some very snooty people. All they will miss really is the entertainment.
Sad weekend for Wellington and the Wairarapa :(
This is a hard blog to write. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to blog about this at all.
On Saturday morning, there was a ballooning accident in Carterton and 11 people died.
Hot Air Ballooning over the Wairarapa is one of the many things I hope to do someday. We have done it from Christchurch when we came here on our Honeymoon – and have beautiful memories of it. And watching the balloons from our house, or on the way to the train station in the morning is a stunning sight.
Hy heart goes out to the people left heartbroken by this.
I am not linking to any news stories about this as I have found them to be quite revolting in their need to be as sensationalist as possible. The reporting has literally turned my stomach.
Scary quake in Wellington last night.
There we were – quietly watching TV and we got the first rumble of an Earthquake. Then it got worse with a loud bang and some pretty severe shaking. It was enough to get us up off the sofa and heading for the table to dive under it.
It turned out to be a 5.7 Magnitude quake our in the Cook Straight between Wellington and Picton – a lot nearer Picton.
Now we are quite used to quakes here in Wellington, but that’s the worst one we have felt in the 7 years we have been here- and it caused one helluv an adrenaline rush. Because it takes about 10 minutes for the information about a quake to show up on Geonet or the online Quake Drums, we had no idea where it originated. So I was straight on the phone to the family in the Waiararapa to make sure it hadn’t been worse out there. FaceBook went into instant overload – everyone wondering where the quake was, and hoping it wasn’t Christchurch (given the jolt we had – it would have been another devastating one if it had hit the city).
We experienced no damage – which is as far as I am aware a sign of a well designed building. Its supposed to shake. Essentially the building is built in such as way that it moves with the quake -rather than trying to withstand it. Not a single glass fell of the shelf.
Others were not so lucky with damage and falling objects being reported in the comments on the Dom Post, and the swanky new Meridian Offices on the waterfront having the Louvres on the outside of the building damaged.
Obviously – people seem to be a lot more wary and worried these days because of the situation in Christchurch. We have seen close up just what a bad quake can do – and I certainly found myself wondering last night if this was our “big one” – in the few seconds it took to decide to head for the table. I think the situation is actually being made worse by the sheer number of quake related stories we are reading. Not the stories about Christchurch – I mean articles about just how many building in Wellington are unsafe – not up to current building codes. How many need millions of dollars of earthquake strengthening work, and how little help is available to owners to get it done.
Just this week, it was reported that the Justice Department had closed several courthouses (including Masterton) because they had engineering reports that said they were not safe in the event of a quake. There are plenty of building in this city that are still occupied – and yet prone to significant damage if a big one hits. It’s hard not be a bit jumpy in the city – wondering if the cafe you are sitting in is going to stay standing up. Odd that the only building damage mentioned from last night was not in fact the old unstrengthened buildings, but the new modern green Meridian office.
20 Years of Toast Martinborough
The 20th Anniversary took place on Sunday – which luckily was 1 day’s grace before gale force winds have literally rocked the lower north Island. We have now been every year – except last year when we were in Sydney and couldn’t make it – it’s a family “tradition”.
Now normally, I tend to be the one pointing out that things in New Zealand may not be as rosy as you are led to believe, and that you need to keep a sense of reality about you when planning to immigrate here. However (just to be contrary it seems) I am on the other side of the argument when it comes to the Toast Martinborough Festival. Apparently, it is reported that this year was “marred by drunken brawls”.
That was absolutely not our experience of the event. In fact the only sour notes of the entire day had nothing to do with the party goers – drunk or not. There was one really stroppy bus driver, and James Murdoch Winery had a stupid and utterly nuts rule about “one in one out” when buying wine. As we have a system where often hubby takes the glasses and gets the wine while I get the food – while someone else holds our place at a table – it meant he had to bring back two empty glasses, go back and get one filled, then go back and get another one filled. Along with everyone else.
It was the only winery with queues, and we didn’t bother, and headed to the next one – which was much more reasonable about the whole thing.
That aside, we had nothing but good humour, friendliness and fun off an awful lot of less-than-sober people (of all ages). By the time we got to Palliser Winery for the traditional end of Toast Dancing to The Beat Girls we were pretty shattered, definitely not sober, but still able to dance for a few hours with a whole mix of people (some of whom took quite a shine to my mum!) There was still no aggression or unpleasantness – just a bunch of people having a good time and getting louder as the day wore on.
Best Bands of the day:
The Dufraines - Brilliant Rock!
That 80′s Band – seriously good for dancing to.
The Jedi Nights – cos you just have to right?
The Beat Girls - Thier sets travel through the decades so theres something for everyone.
DJ Maxx - he was on while the Beat Girls took a break, and had the fantastic taste to play music in keeping with thier style, so we could just keep on dancing.
On the the other hand – Rimutaka Road ahead of schedule.
The Manawatu Gorge may be stuffed, but the work on the Rimutaka hill is storming ahead – and is due to finish months early – in March next year. I cant wait. It’s impressive as it is – but right now its little better than driving on a 4wd track. Which in a low 2 seater sports car is – um – fun.
Not a road you can drive right now with the hood down!
Im still really grateful to all the crews working up there – especially over the winter.
A small issue of a blocked road.
This is the current state of the Manawatu Gorge - the main road between the Wairarapa and Palmerston North.
Its been like this for months now, after a storm caused an initial slip back in August. Its been open for 3 days since then. The issue is causing massive problems – there is another route from the Wairarapa, but its a slower road and longer – so will make a big difference for haulage companies and other businesses. The Gorge runs from Woodville to Ashurst, now you need to turn off at Pahiatua and head through the Pahiatua Track. Its a nice drive – especially if you have to time to take in the scenery.
The Gorge is stunning actually – the problem is that you don’t have anywhere to stop and admire it -its a narrow road with no stopping spaces.
But with the size of the slip now – I can see it being a very long time before I drive through there again.
A great service day :)
Two shout-outs todays for brilliant and helpful service.
John at South Wairarapa Autos (our favourite Wairarapa garage anyway) for coming to our rescue at the local tip because the car wouldn’t start. Actually a second shout out here goes to TAD Builders for trying to help us get our car started first. But as that didn’t work – SWA had to come and pick us up – and drop us off at Wild Oats cafe where the rest of the family was waiting for us with coffee.
And thus comes the second excellent service award of the day – to the owner of Wild Oats cafe who came running out to us in the car clutching the $5 I had dropped.
It’s a lovely day here in the Wairarapa – but those people just made it better.
Thank you!
Proper devonshire cream tea at Clear River Estate
Actually we had this last weekend for fathers day – I have just been too lazy to blog about it till now. We came across this new winery the weekend before at a “Made In The Wairarapa” expo. Clear View winery used to be the Solstone Estate which closed down three years ago. We do not have good memories of it – the one time we went there to use the cafe it smelled overpoweringly of cow dung. We didn’t stay for a coffee.
However it has now been taken over, the vines have been tamed and restored, wine is being produced and the cafe is now open on Sundays. And doing Devonshire teas. So bad experience with the previous owners notwithstanding – we decided to give it a go.
First of all – no cow dung!
Then we come to order the cream tea. Now for those not familiar with this – a cream tea should consist of scones (plain or sultana but in no way should this be a “kiwi” style scone shaped like a rock cake and savory) served with clotted cream and jam (sometimes butter).
Now the charge is $10, but there was an option of $8 for whipped cream. So we asked what the $10 version came with and were told “Clotted Cream”.
O.M.G.
Oddly enough we went with that version. 
Because I’m curious, and because I figured people would want to know -I asked where they were getting it from – I figured we could all do with knowing just how and where you could get the stuff. Turns out they got the recipe off the Internet. Now I don’t know if it was this website that they visited – but if it was – you are very welcome! They also have a recipe from a local cheese producer – hopefully they will at some point be providing the recipe for people.
So on with the yummy bits. We each got two scones – you can choose your flavour including cheese. (Cheese??? With Clotted cream and jam???). They were good size scones – definitely no skimping here but still rock cake shape rather than English style, and they tasted absolutely delicious. The clotted cream was heavenly – just the perfect taste and consistency – and just like mine comes out. And we got different jams – I had blackcurrant – the others had raspberry.
I think its also worth noting that the tea and coffee was really good too.
In fact the only niggle I really have is that there wasn’t enough of the cream and jam for 2 scones that size. We managed because my brother and dad actually didn’t want theirs.
That aside – it was delicious and a lovely treat. I really wish the new owners well with the business – they are providing something that is very rare in New Zealand – a cream tea with clotted cream instead of whipped cream. Even the nearby copthorne hotel which serves High Teas serve them with tiny scones and whipped cream. I hope they keep making their own clotted cream and keep selling cream teas – because if the amount of NZ visitors to this blog searching for it is any indication – it’s much sought after.
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