Lower Hutt > Woodville (not Napier)
We got up extra early for today's trip, by far the longest leg of our drive around, an epic 320km, but...
Wind! Wind! Wind!
We're in a motel now - having given up on driving today due to gale force winds. The warnings started as we climbed up the Rimutaku Range - maybe not the twistiest road, and maybe not even the windiest conditions... but combined it was awful! And then coming down again, with only a flimsy fence (occasionally) guarding against an enormous drop, and massive gusts shoving us across the road. It just got windier.
So, we stopped for tea and toast in our van at Featherston (naively hoping for a break in the weather) before heading into the storm. It just got worse and worse - horizontal rain and massive gusts picking the van up!
Again we stopped - and didn't realise we'd stepped into the set for Twin Peaks...
The location was the Eketahuna Country Cafe & Crafts. From the outside it looked fairly normal, inside however it was a combined cafe and bric-a-brac shop. In other words it looked like a shop with tables in it , with 1 other customer, and in parts felt like someone's house. Oh, and had a garden pond fountain in the middle. We ordered our lunch (toasted cheese sandwhich & hamburger) and sat down to wait. A woman came in (so far so good), said hello and took her coat off to reveal the most hideous yellow nylon top, and looked like she was going to start mopping the kitchen. Instead she started to arrange the furniture and attached a microphone to the lo-fi near to where we were sitting.
I joked, "Are you about to sing us a song?"
"Yes."
[Embarrassed] "Oh..."
And then she started, sort of Country and Western Karoake - it was so bad, I just didn't dare make eye-contact. The yellow top was obviously her stage outfit, and I later noticed a CD for sale on the counter. I just tried to act normal, and played with James in the corner, and managed to capture some of the awful racket as I filmed James playing with the marbles.
Then I went to use the toilet - 'Toilets second left' read the sign. So I opened the door to find myself standing outside in gale-force conditions in a junk filled yard, with the toilet indeed being in the second shed on the left. It was so strange I forgot to take a picture. In fact it wasn't until we'd politely paid the bill that I managed to compose myself (straight face, act normal) and 'casually' take a photo of the shop frontage. It was seriously weird! When we stopped laughing, we compared notes, and I was just sorry I hadn't warned Catherine about the toilet first.
Anyway, the wind degenerated to 'diabolical', so we crawled into the next town to avoid any more mountain passes, found the last motel room in Woodville, and haven't stepped outside since. The wind has not dropped one bit, it's almost impossible to walk outside, and the forecast is for more of the same tomorrow. So, maybe Napier won't actually happen this trip. In fact we mightn't even make it out of here if it's like this in the morning.
I'm increasingly coming to suspect that there's a bit of propaganda obscuring the true NZ climate. No one said it was dry, true enough, but the wind is never ending. THIS IS THE SUMMER! I'm sure there are days in the UK like this - it makes the news (in January), roof tiles blow off and insurance companies wring their hands. However, it has not escaped my attention that no-one here has roof tiles, it's just corrugated metal sheets for everything. Also, what would shred oak and uproot beech back home doesn't seem to touch native trees here. Like there's been a few million years of toughening up.
We'll see what tomorrow brings.
4:17:15 PM 
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