Will we - wont we?

Here we are camped in the little town of Takapau in the Hawkes Bay where we have been for a couple of days. Other than the caretaker, we ae the only ones staying here, so had the choice of where we wanted to park.  This is a very reasonably priced camp, and we are nice and toasty with a power site, plus our cozy diesel heater too, keeping us warm.

Staying at Takapau

The weather started out fine, but rather chilly, probably because of the snow on the Ruahine Ranges.

A little snow on the Ruahine Ranges

Our trip to Hawkes Bay was to attend a family 21st Birthday on Saturday, but things are a bit unsettled at the moment.   Unfortunately, after 100 plus days of nil cases of Covid 19, there have been a cluster  of cases detected in Auckland.  The Auckland area is now at Alert Level 3 in the meantime, many workplaces closing and only those returning to their homes can enter or leave this area.  The rest of the country is at Alert Level 2, and we are all waiting to see if we go up a level as well.  Further plans will be announced on Friday evening, then we will know  if the family party can go ahead, or will have to be cancelled.  So it is “will we, won’t we?” at the moment.  Just as well we have a nice pleasant place to stay here at Takapau – there is no point heading into the Napier NZMCA Park just yet, as we had planned, till we know for sure what will be happening.  We are thankful that the Health Department and the Prime Minister are acting decisively to nip this outbreak in the bud.

In the meantime, I’ve been doing a little knitting, and  hand quilting around the cute little girly teddy on my stitchery.  Then I will be doing big stitch quilting with Perle thread along the dashed blue lines.

Hand quilting around the teddy

While we are waiting to see if we will be driving up to Hastings or not, we have been doing some exploring.  Takapau is quite a small town, but must have been rather prosperous in it’s time.  In fact, the caravan park where we are staying used to be quite a busy sock manufacturing business some years ago.  The local hotel is now closed, but is still rather a handsome building.  It doesn’t look derelict, so I do hope someone is living in it, and taking care of this building.

The Takapau Hotel, no longer trading

I wanted to have another look at Onga Onga, founded in 1872 by runholder H. H. Bridge. Like other runholders who founded towns, Bridge built a school and church and provided land for a recreation ground.  These days the small village draws admirers to view the wonderful historic buildings dotted along the main street. The Coles Brothers building is the jewel in the crown.  The category 1 listed building was built in 1878 and housed the Coles Brothers’ various businesses including carpentry, surveying, interior decorating and even coffin building and the local undertaker business.  Fund raising is taking place to help with the restoration of this wonderful old building.

Coles Bros building, Onga Onga

 

Another interesting building was the recreation of a bush settlers cottage.

The weather then changed to rain and a marked drop in the temperature.  We went for a drive this morning and called into the sleepy little village of Ormondville.  For those train lovers amongst you, Ormondville Station is “a modified Vogel Class 5 station building, the only surviving Class 5 station left on the operating system”.

Historic Ormondville Station

Next stop was Norsewood, which together with other southern towns emerged in the 1870s from the bush that covered most of southern Hawke’s Bay. This was burned and felled by Scandinavian immigrants who were brought to New Zealand in 1872 to clear and farm the land. The process of transformation from forest to farmland was a huge task, which took decades.  We called onto New Zealand Natural Clothing, formerly Norsewear Factory Shop.  This must be the right place, just look at those signs.  It was lovely and warm inside, with the wood burner giving out plenty of heat.  Lots of knitwear to check out, but interestingly enough, Robin was the one who came out with parcels, not me!

Norsewear – now known as New Zealand Natural Clothing

While we were away, Gemma kept herself occupied with catching up on her beauty sleep.  Cats have a really good life, don't they!

Gemma snoozing again

There will be a news briefing given by the Prime Minister and the Dir Gen of Health early this evening to inform the country what further steps need to be taken to deal with this latest Covid outbreak.  Then we will be able to plan the rest of our weekend, whether we travel on to Hastings, or go back home.