TOUR 1104
Full Tour Itinerary:
What a day we have planned for you in the heart of CHB today. After a reasonably leisurely collection time we head to one of our favourite café’s for morning tea – The Paper Mulberry at Te Aute. A Devonshire scone with all the trimmings is on the menu with a cuppa this morning. Just the thing to set us up for the day.
From here we head towards the Tukituki River and a rather unique destination. River Grove Quail are commercial producers of Quail’s eggs and they might be familiar to those who frequent the Hawke’s Bay Farmers Market, but we’ve never visited their place before. Co-owner Anne will tell us all about their operation and we’ll get to sample some products made with their eggs. They also sell live birds if anyone fancies a few Quail running around in the back yard.
From here we make the trip over to SH50 and on up to renowned farm cadet training establishment, Smedley Station. It’s been a few years since we’ve had the opportunity to visit this prestigious training farm. Only 13 trainees are accepted each year for the 2- year training course and Station Manager, Rob Evans, will guide us into the station and tell us all about it. Rob and his wife, Jenn, will host us for lunch too. After lunch and a tour with Rob we head away to our final stop of the day at Tikokino Peonies. Linda and Graeme Addis will host us in their beautiful, landscaped garden showcasing these spectacular blooms. With over 80 varieties of Peony on the property, we are in for a visual explosion of colour.
