Greytown
One could be forgiven for thinking these two towns are just like Parnell in Central Auckland with the fashion shops and Cafe’s in abundance.
But keep looking and you will find history and stories here.
A visit to the wonderful presentation of Greytown’s past at the Cobblestone Musuem on the Main Street opens the door to a world of ingenuity and guts from the early settlers here.
Below is a model of Greytowns Main Street in the early 1800’s created by 6 volunteers (not historians, but interested locals of their towns history)
Of the original 82 buildings on the Main Street depicted in this model, 32 still remain today. All have been lovingly restored and now house a variety of retail shops and cafe’s.
Martinborough
We stayed four days in MARTINBOROUGH to witness the Vineyards the cafe’s and restaurants and book shops in the town.
But we decided to get out of town (there is only so much wine tasting one can have)to take an exciting day trip to the Pinnnacles, Lake Ferry and Cape Palliser Lighthouse.
The day was rain, rain, rain and cold, but we hung in there and glad we did. The Pinnacle rock formations were hard to capture on the camera in the rain but worth the trip.
The famous Fish and Chips at Lake Ferry Hotel were missed as we had bought our own lunch and drove on the bumpy rocky road to see the Lake entrance and frightening waves there.
”Shall we drive the 40klm to Cape Palliser Lighthouse?” Well we are not coming here again, so let’s do it.” We are so glad we did.
Road to the Lighthouse at Cape Palliser
This was pretty scary in our AWD Suzuki. Such a rugged coastline of steep rocky cliffs and stoney foreshore to the waters edge. There is a community of hardy souls living in this harsh environment.
The group of fisherman can only launch their fishing boats at the Cape with bulldozers with tracks because of the unforgiving stoney foreshore. The bulldozers with purpose built trailers with long drawbars are a must if you want to fish here.
The Lighthouse
The drive on the precarious unsealed, bumpy road with many slips along the way, ended at the foot of the lighthouse. Because of the conditions (no not the weather-our fitness levels) we decided not to climb the very steep set of 258 steps to the base of the lighthouse.
The Seal Colony
What a surprise when carefully manoeuvring this road to the Lighthouse we came across a colony of hundreds of brown seals. “ Watch the road” Robyn yells, as I was so gob smacked at sighting these seals I got quite close to the road edge.
We have never experienced this before and to be so close these seals of all ages. At times they were close, right beside the car basking in what little sun there was and treating us with ignore.
This discovery of the seals was so unexpected it was the highlight of the day.
2 Comments
James Bonham
Nice photos Robyn and Peter, interesting place for rugged individuals to live.
Cheza
All looks wonderful.