The traffic for the Labour Week-end holiday can be very busy, so as Roy and myself live in Waiuku, we decided to go out through Tuakau. Several members met at the BP Service Station near Drury, at 8am for an 8.30am departure, in a convoy. Our 23 Auckland club members were later joined by 2 Christchurch and 5 Midland club members – a total of 30 in all.

Well actually, the traffic was not too bad, until we got to the end of the express way, at the back of Cambridge. We were held up for about 30 minutes, whilst the two lanes of traffic converged.

The next hold-up was Tirau, where some of the group stopped for ’Enchanted Cafe’ coffee. There was no hold-up at Putararu or Tokoroa, which was great.

Most people stayed at the Anchorage Motel. The units were pretty tidy, but some of the other visitors were a tad noisy on the Saturday night. Management apologised on Tuesday morning when I dropped off the key at the office.

Our organiser Trevor, had chosen the Mission Estate Restaurant for dinner on the Saturday evening. The Estate was founded by French Marist missionaries in 1851, who brought with them generations of wine making knowledge. The Estate has been a cornerstone of NZ’s wine heritage ever since.

The meal was lovely food, in good sized portions, and served by a polite crew of young restaurant professionals, in the lovely ambient old homestead.

We all met in the motel carpark on Sunday morning at 10am, for the drive to Unison Vineyard. The route followed along the Tuki Tuki Road, eventually Middle Road, then finally into Roy’s Hill Road and the Vineyard. A great drive, designed to bring out the latent Liam Lawson in any driver, especially when driving a Mercedes Benz!!

Unison Vineyard land is a former river bed, with special soil (gimblett gravels – Ed). Each bottle of wine had a story, narrated by our enthusiastic host. Then we had the wine tasting – lovely and generous tastes. It was followed by a tasty platter lunch. It was so economic to buy Unison bottles of wine, as the cost of the ‘tasting’ was deducted, so some of us told ourselves. We were indeed feeling ‘in unison’ as we left there, with lots carrying wine bags!!

Sunday night was our choice of bar or restaurant at West Quay, all with-in walking distance to the motel. There was a definite ‘buzz’ there on Sunday night!

Next morning most cars roared off into the impending traffic jam. Pree and Chris gave us a few traffic shout-outs, so one way or another, everyone got home safely.

Roy, myself, Karran and Lindsay dined at Kork n Barrel that evening, only 6 of us there for the tapas dining. Our drive home on the Tuesday morning was traffic jam free!!

Thank you Trevor for designing the week-end!! A master piece of planning indeed!

Marianne Hobson

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