Port in a Storm

Saturday morning came and we decided we had better move on.  We had met a guy in Raglan in the bar/restaurant where we went to listen to the band Rosie Tin Teacaddy and he was from the Wairarapa and got us enthused about visiting the area, so Masterton became our destination.  Off we set in overcast weather, Ross looking forward to going through the Manawatu Gorge, more new territory for him. It was a very interesting gorge one might say, narrow road carved out and built up from the hillside and  a very steep drop to the river below on my side. It was around 7kms and I was glad it wasn’t any longer.  We had been told to stop for lunch at the cafe at the Tui Brewery in Mangatainoka.  Unfortunately there were a number of people there who sounded like they had been sampling rather a lot of  ‘the product’ and the noise level was not very conducive to having a quiet lunch. Even exploring the museum out the back wasn’t possible as they were using it for their introductory talks for their tour groups.  We left and had lunch in Suzi.  Ross walked up the road to see if there was anywhere to turn around and discovered that there was a rather large NZMCA (our motorhome association)rally being held. While we were reattaching the car to Suzi the A frame slipped and by grabbing it Ross tweaked his back.  We carried on and realised that the wind was getting worse and in fact it got really worse…particularly between Eketahuna and Mt Bruce.  We had wanted to stop at the Mt Bruce National Wildlife Centre but it was too late in the day and the weather was getting worse.  We were very pleased to get to a Park over Property somewhere just north of Masterton and find it was relatively sheltered from the Westerly.  No sooner had we arrived when the sky went really dark and there was a downpour of rain, very loud thunder and lightening and rather large hailstones and oh did I mention the gale force winds….I was trying not to focus on the tall blue gums that were being blown sideways but was assured they were blowing the other way by he who was lying in bed bemoaning his bad back.  We watched last Thursday’s Coro St which we had recorded as we couldn’t get any TV reception because of the trees…  I was rather relieved to wake up this morning to find the storm had eased during the night – there was even a rainbow.  Ross is moving rather slowly today and it looks like we are going to spend another night here.

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