The last two day’s of our Wairarapa weekend…

were extremely wet! Our hopes of visiting Riversdale Beach were completely washed away when the rain set in on Sunday morning and didn’t stop till midday Monday.

Thankfully, Masterton has a brilliant swimming pool, complete with hydro-slide and lazy river (and a nice spa pool for the adults) so we soaked up the water in comfort and ignored the deluge outside. After a refreshing swim we lunched at the art gallery cafe, Entice, explored the artwork in the Wairarapa Museum of Art and History, Aratoi, and then visited the Shearer’s Museum – ‘Shear Discovery New Zealand‘. Masterton hosts the world premier shearing and wool handling championships in March every year – ‘Golden Shears‘ and wow there’s some seriously talented and strong sheep shearers in New Zealand!

In the afternoon we returned to Tinui Station and lots of wet sheep trying to make themselves at home on the verandah of the cottage we were staying in.

On Monday we drove back to Wellington, stopping at Greytown to stock up on scrumptious chocolate from Schoc and visit Cobblestones, Wairarapa’s Early Settlers Museum.

We had a really fun time at the museum, particularly in the old school, church and fire-station. And Grandma was a very good sport in the stocks! As for the chocolate at Schoc – wow! I would seriously recommend a visit, or at least go online and take a look, as there are the most amazing varieties of chocolate to tantalize the taste-buds! We returned home with one of our favourite – lemongrass dark chocolate.