Yet another eventful weekend! After an interesting work week- fish trials finally got underway and I am now running my own experiment!- I had Friday off and had decided with 2 friends to head up to the Martinborough region of the Wairarapa. An early morning train took about an hour to get to the Featherston Station where we were supposed to be able to catch a bus that would get us to Martinborough in about 20 minutes time. Well, we saw a bus that had a Martinborough sign on it, but it looked like a wine tour bus and there was no way we wanted to get roped into paying buckets of money for a wine tour when we were planning on just walking to and from on our own. So, we didn't get on the bus, thinking that the MetLink bus would show up for us. It didn't. Turned out the colorful small bus was the bus we needed, and the next bus wasn't going to do another pickup for another 5 hours. We walked into the town of Featherston (if you could call it that), and popped into the police station to see if they had any info. It was 930 in the morning and nothing was open. Turns out it would have been crazy expensive to get a cab, and our foolish thought of walking was quickly shot down when we learned that it was a 20 minute busride going 80km/hr with no stops, that would have taken us ages. Our savior came in the form of this lady cop who said that she would give us a ride, as she was heading in that direction anyways. So, bucket list check- ride in a cop car. Thought it would be a bit pushing my luck to ask for lights, but it was still quite a kick!
The Martinborough region is gorgeous. Farms and wineries. Sheep and cows. Long roads and ripe grapes. Cheese plates and olive oils. We did 4 tastings at 4 different wineries, and then got some food in our stomachs at the 5th, with a delicious plate of cheese, bread, jams, and nuts. An unsuccessful attempt to find the olive grove and shop lead to hilarious conversations down the long roads with the hot sun belting down. Luckily, my new motto when it comes to sunscreen is 'when in doubt, re-apply', so I successfuly did not get burnt! Maybe a few more freckles. We decided to forgo the 330 bus and catch the 830 one instead, so we had a delicious dinner in the town at the one of 3 available restaurants, and had gelato in a small park in the middle of town. We successfully caught the bus, now a big MetLink one, back to the station, and the train home. A great day.
Saturday found me above the city wandering in Central Park, overhearing the HomeGrown music festival from the waterfront, and pulling up a nice patch of grass and reading to my hearts content. Perfect escape, and combo of sun and wind. My weekly foray to the market on Sunday proved fruitful (pun intended), and I got some peaches that will hopefully not go bad before I get to them! Have put tons of photos on my computer, but don't have the internet access at my place to upload them. At this rate I'm going to spend eons going through them when I get back! The new guy who lives next door to me is in the Hobbit- though when I asked a bunch of questions all his replies were 'I can't really say' though he did say he will be in the credits. And yes, he's quite short.
Well, its Monday and I'm off to start my duties of the day. A gorgeous morning- rare to be so calm, the bay is glassy- and I would prefer to be walking around outside. Maybe a lunchtime walk is in order.
