Greytown

Greytown is a small town on State Highway 2, over the Rimutakas in Wairarapa. We've driven through it numerous times on the way to Masterton, Castlepoint, and Napier, but never stopped to see what's there.

Thanks to a voucher in Treatme, however, all that was about to change. With a night's accommodation at the White Swan hotel, with dinner thrown in, we decided to take advantage of the offer over the Labour Day weekend. We set out with the plan to get there in time for lunch, and found ourselves in Bar Saluté, a tapas/pizza restaurant in the middle of town. We decided tapas was the way to go as we would be dining again in the evening, so had the asparagus, squid, duck prosciutto and halloumi. These were all very well presented – no ordinary tapas, each was a mini gourmet meal in itself.  We then ruined everything by being tempted to the pudding menu, and these turned out to be quite substantial – a vanilla crème and lemon fritters.

We checked into the hotel, then set out to explore the centre of Greytown, which has a number of shops of the variety that sell things that no-one actually needs, and admired the historic tree.

In the evening, we had dinner at the hotel – scallops followed by deconstructed beef Wellington, and duck liver pâté followed by risotto. We both had the lemon tart for pudding, and by this time were feeling completely stuffed.

The next day we went out to breakfast at the Main Street Deli before looking round the historic village artefacts at the Cobblestones museum, which included an old schoolhouse. This had the primary school curriculum with exam questions on the wall, as well as rules for teachers, both of which exhibited some quaintly old-fashioned values. There was also a typical cottage from the 19th century, which housed 10 people in less space than you'd normally reserve for feline oscillation.

We then drove up to the Waiohine Gorge for a walk which involved crossing on a swing bridge. There is a cautionary notice by the bridge which advises that it swings in high wind conditions. The breeze was beginning to pick up so we didn’t hang about but got across, and then back, without lollygagging too much. The views from the middle of the bridge were pretty spectacular, up and downstream of the Waiohine river.