April « 2009 « Moon over Martinborough

Conquering the road that scared me

April 30, 2009

If I was going to live in paradise, I had to be able to drive there.

Rimutaka Hill Road

So it was that on a Saturday afternoon in September of 2006, I sat behind the wheel of our little Nissan Pulsar and drove toward the Rimutaka mountain range. Rick sat in the passenger seat as official navigator and voice of reason.

I’ve already told you how terrible the Rimutaka Hill Road is. Even Kiwis, who seem to downplay everything, admit that the road is less than ideal. Of course the locals will tell you that it’s better than it used to be, back when they were kids. It must have been a goat track.

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15 Comments | Commute, New Zealand, Roads | Tagged: driving, fear, muldoon's corner, rimutaka hill road, rimutakas | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough

Testing the train to paradise

April 24, 2009

Having established that both Rick and I loved the property, there remained two hurdles to pass before we could really consider moving out to the middle of nowhere. The first was the train commute.

The train at Featherston station - Image from Rimutaka Incline Railway Heritage Trust

We found accommodation in Martinborough mid-week so that we could actually experience the commute to work back in Wellington, just to see how bad it was.

For two nights we stayed in a refurbished old house built in the style Kiwis call a ‘villa’ – which isn’t an Italian mansion with a courtyard but a quaint, wood-clad bungalow dating from the 1920s to the 1950s. It had a gorgeous garden and was adjacent to some vineyards.

Right away we learned that nights in the country are different. They are pitch black and intensely quiet, as though the darkness itself were a physical substance muffling sound, like fog. That first night we slept more soundly than we had in years.

So we were doubly surprised to be woken in the early hours of the morning by a low humming sound.

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3 Comments | Commute, New Zealand | Tagged: helicopters, rimutaka hill road, rimutakas, train | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough

First time I saw the trees

April 9, 2009

It was early as Rick and I climbed into the car for a day trip to Martinborough.

Across Wellington's harbor lie the Rimutakas.

There were apples in the back seat to snack on later, and we had travel mugs full of hot coffee sitting in the cup holders between us. The morning light was pale blue as we pulled out of our driveway.

We’d been living in Wellington for two years by then. Somewhere along the course of our lives we’d accidentally become itinerant Americans, moving first from the North Side of Chicago together to northern Japan, then down to the bright lights of Tokyo, and most recently all the way to the bottom of the planet to New Zealand. In the two previous years alone, we’d lived in four different spots in Wellington.

Although this was just a day trip, there was something bigger behind our reason for the drive to Martinborough. We were going because Rick had proposed something radical.

He proposed we settle.

That day we were off to look at his Fantastic New Idea. I admit that I was skeptical.

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8 Comments | Commute, New Zealand, Roads | Tagged: house, olive grove, rimutaka hill road, rimutakas, wellington | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough