Successful Martinborough House and Garden Tour 

Fortune was certainly smiling on 23^rd November when the Wharekaka Auxiliary hosted the Martinborough House and Garden tour. 11 stunning properties basked in beautiful sunlight as over 650 excited ticket holders made their way around our lovely town.

The feedback we have received since the event has been wonderful, with everyone praising both the standard and diversity of the houses and gardens and the organisation and smooth running of the day. 

As always, there are people who must be thanked profusely. Firstly the 11 home owners who generously agreed to open their houses and gardens to such scrutiny; they are truly the ones who bore the brunt of the day. Many months of hard work went into making the properties look so stunning. They were: Pauline and Alistair Mcleod, Sue and John Hughes, Dinny Pearce and Jim Brassell, Di and Tom Bunny, Felicity and Arthur Warren, Cath and Marco de Groot, J.C and Roger Gaskell, Charlie and Angela Cresswell, Gay Chadburn and Dave Stewart, Helen and John Meehan, Rosie and Paul Collins. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. … Continue Reading

Technicolour fun

If you are a kid it’s not often that adults tell you to mess up your clothes.   Perhaps that’s why the Colour Run at Considine park last month was such a hit.  You started with a clean white t-shirt and ended up with your own unique rainbow coloured top.

The day was a fundraiser for the new Waihinga Centre playground, especially the water play feature.   Thanks to the hundreds of children and parents who came along enough money was raised to completely finish the project.   

The fun continued at Parehua.  Children played games set up on the lawn while parents could enjoy a relaxing drink.   The night finished with a fireworks display back at the park and a chance to ride on the fire engine. … Continue Reading

The Power of Paint and Friendship 

When I first met John Lace he was selling poppies outside Kitcheners Dairy. The Martinborough Friday walkers had just finished coffee there and as a bright, chatty, happy group we suggested he join us the next week.

John did but could only walk 100 metres as he was soon out of breath, the result of smoking for 60 years, even though he gave up ten years ago.
 Each week saw John walk a bit further before he had to stop, but enjoying our company he always joined us for coffee when we finished our hour walking about town. Sadly, he was a very unhappy, lonely, depressed man since his wife, Joyce, died five years ago. … Continue Reading

Under The Martinborough Stars

We used to have a special file at Carter Observatory that all the strange, unidentified and mysterious objects used to be filed in. If someone saw something weird, they would phone up the Observatory and give a description of the object.

Unfortunately for all you alien hunters, it turned out that these strange objects were nearly always a much more boring answer: Venus.

Venus has always been a bit of a mystery. It has thick clouds in its atmosphere, so it reflects sunlight incredibly well and is the second brightest object in the sky after the Moon. It can even cast a shadow.

Venus always appears at sunset or sunrise, hovering above the horizon and shimmering, changing colours or twinkling. We look at Venus through our own thick atmosphere, so it gets easily distorted.  

It is often thought as Earth’s twin because it is of similar size, but actually it is very different. It is the hottest planet in the Solar System even though Mercury is closer. The surface is hot enough to melt lead and has the most volcanoes of any planet. … Continue Reading