All posts tagged: Hawkes Bay

Up Te Mata Hill

Published by The Dreamstress

On our last night in the Hawke’s Bay, before she left New Zealand, the Naiad and I took a ramble on Te Mata hill. The light was sublime, Bailey the Backpacker’s dog was frisky, the air had just enough of a chill to make tramping fun, and the scenery was spectacular. Best of all, when we got back to the car, just as it began to get really dark. the Naiad had packed a thermos of tea and a bottle of farm-fresh milk.  We sat on a log in the deepening gloom with cups of tea in our hand and watched the lights come on over the Hawke’s Bay, like the best sort of Christmas display.

The Hawke’s Bay

Published by The Dreamstress

The Naiad’s* time in New Zealand is almost up.  For the last 4 months she’s been chefing at a fancy lodge in the Hawkes Bay.  She’s just finished working, so I flew up to visit her, and to spend a little time seeing the Hawkes Bay before she flies off to spend a year on working holiday in Australia. I visited the Hawkes Bay when I was first in NZ, and had a lovely time, but other than two slightly disastrous road-trips through in the ensuing years, I really haven’t spent any quality time there.  Time to rectify that! So what is the Hawkes Bay?  It’s everything between the big curve on the East Coast of the lower North Island of New Zealand and the nearest range of mountains.  The climate is perfect for vineyards, stonefruit orchards, apple orchards, berry farms, kiwifruit orchards, and every other sort of agricultural endeavor, giving it the nickname of the ‘fruitbowl of NZ’. In other words, Dreamstress heaven.  I’m all about fruit.  And the countryside.  Which is what most …