GO NZ: The best of the Wairarapa, from Martinborough to Greytown to Featherston
10 Mar, 2021 02:26 AM
8 minutes to read
Ascending the 253 steps to Cape Palliser lighthouse s observation deck offers views out across the Cook Strait. Photo / Belinda Craigie
Ascending the 253 steps to Cape Palliser lighthouse s observation deck offers views out across the Cook Strait. Photo / Belinda Craigie
NZ Herald
By: Belinda Craigie
Belinda Craigie Are you ready? , my friend and walking companion asks as we approach the section of the Patuna Chasm walk that calls for stepping into the cool waters of the Ruakokoputuna River. We wade in, gulping at the considerable change in temperature. But the cold and soggy shoes are soon forgotten as we walk upstream toward a waterfall and take in the scenery.
A formation of North American Harvard WWII fighter trainer aircraft flew over Wellington on Friday. The formation was anything but static as the pilots kept their eyes fixed on their neighbours’ wings. The old planes were floating and bobbing around as they contended with the relatively busy air at these lower altitudes. Despite fog interrupting flights out of Wellington in the morning, the skies opened up in the afternoon to reveal the capital in all her glory. Photography was not easy, as you re trying to hold onto your camera while being buffeted from both sides, and at one point my headset was blown right off my head.
This stylish Wairarapa bach has been reworked to double its living space.
Early Wairarapa settler Charles Bidwill was made of stern stuff. The ancestor of Wellington artist Diana Bidwill, he arrived in the Wairarapa with a flock of merinos to establish one of the earliest sheep stations in the country. His home was two tōtara bark huts on the banks of the Ruamāhanga River, one for sleeping and one for cooking. During the great Wairarapa earthquake of 1855, Charles was caught in the Hutt Valley at a friend’s house, which fell down around their ears. The next day he walked all the way back to his South Wairarapa home on the virtually destroyed road that crossed the Remutaka Range, jumping the chasms and clambering through the landslides as the earth continued to shake.