Day 6 – On the road to Feilding

Breakfast this morning was the rest of the croissants from yesterday with Raspberry Jam and Philliy cheese as per yesterday. In the name of variety we also picked up some home-made lemon butter from one of the local stores yesterday, as well as some delicious fresh strawberries. I have to say taht I haven’t had strawberries with that much flavour in Australia for a very long time.

We got on the road by about 10 and drove up through the Wairarapa through Masterton, Eketehuna and other notable places. The drive is quite scenic as the country is quite green and you get good views of the mountain ranges on both sides of the car, but not many easy places to stop… so no photos. This area is well-known for its farming and logging based economy. Notably, Hollywood film director James Cameron spends a lot of time in the area, presumably pursuing environmental causes. 

The last part of the drive took us through the relatively scenic Manawatu Gorge and the Te Apiti Wind Farm. This wind farm currently hosts 55 Turbines with a generating capacity of around 320MW. Despite the concerns of our former PM, I did not see a lot of deaf people, dead parrots or starving coal miners as a result.

It took us about two hours to reach Feilding and we stopped for some lunch before joining the family activities. New Zealand weather can be quite changeable and the cafe we ate at were clearly prepared for a drop in the temperature.

After lunch there was time for a little last minute shopping before heading to The Baird’s house. Feilding is home to about 15,000 people and I think most of them had the same idea about last minute shopping. Even the old bloke was having a wee rest on the clock tower.

Feilding is apparently also the birthplace of Aaron Smith (All Black halfback) and the Whitelock brothers attended high school here, before heading to Canterbury to play their football down there.

We spent the afternoon catching up with Deb’s nieces and nephews as well as getting all the plans in place for a big Christmas day feast tomorrow. Everyone else has headed of for Chrismas Eve Mass and the nativity play, while I get us settled in to our accommodation for the next two nights.

Until tomorrow.