Autumn in the bay

Well, I didn't think it could get any more beautiful, but Autumn has brought a whole new palate of colours to Hawkes Bay and it is just gorgeous here at the moment. It's a little chilly in the mornings and evenings but generally fine and about 15-20 degrees during the days and the orchards and vineyards that dominate the landscape have turned to vivid shades of red, russet and yellow.

We had our friends Alan and Laura here with us for a week over Easter and it was so great to see them even for just a short time. We spent a few days in Napier and Hastings at the beach and in town with me and laura mostly window shopping, lunching and visting wineries and the boys surfing and fishing. It was good to do the art deco 'tourist' thing in Napier with someone as I hadn't really done it yet. It really is a very pretty town (officially it's a city, but with only one decent shoe shop and no where to get a kebab i think it's stretching the term).

For Easter weekend we headed up to Mahia Pennisular which is a couple hours (on a very windy road) north of napier. It has a beautiful, unspoilt 10km white sand beach and is a mecca for all sorts of birds and marine life. We stayed in a bach which is a classic kiwi beach house ( think a bigger version of the beach huts at Lyme regis but with bedrooms) just off the beach. The weather was amazing and we had a fantastic time swimming with a wild dolphin - moko who just hangs around the beach (type mahia moko into youtube!), fishing by the light of the biggest full moon i've ever seen and gathering pipis and tuatuas (think cockles) from the clear shallows of the beach.

We then headed down to Wellington for a night and it was great to get a city fix. We went to the Te Papa national musuem of New Zealand which is totally free and has things like an earthquake simulater and lots of stuffed animals (taxidermy, not bears). We had a night of luxury staying at The Museum Hotel which was where we had the Frizzell wine launch so I get a very good rate and then Al and Laura headed off for ten days camping in the south island and we headed home.

Am a bit blue this week missing them, but have Kerry arriving in 3 weeks to cheer me up!