Wairarapa Valley

Middleton Model Railway

Yummy Cymglyn Farmhouse cheese!

09.14.08: In the afternoon, we left Hawke’s Bay south towards Wellington, drove a few hours, and ended up at a town called Eketahuna for the night. The campground is fairly simple, but only ended up costing $12. Again, at least it sort of makes up for the extravagant lunches we’ve had the past couple days. Sean and Kailani were able to do some fishing in the stream near our site before it got dark, although didn’t end up with anything…again. We were still pretty full from lunch, so dinner was simple: salami, a gouda-type organic cheese, crackers, grapes and some Millton un-oaked Chardonnay. Considering that I thought we got a pretty substantial chunk of cheese that morning at the Farmer’s Market, it sure disappeared pretty fast.

Our stop in Eketahuna was not only because it was en route, but there was also a farm that makes organic cheese that I wanted to visit, called Cwmglyn (pronounced Coom-glin). Apparently, they were also famous for having The Middleton Model Railway. I tried calling to see if they would be open on a Monday morning, but my phone was out of batteries and kept dying. However, the night before, I asked the campground manager how to get there, and she pointed us 10 minutes back up the road north to Mangamaire. The town was not more than a couple buildings and there were no obvious signage towards the farm. After going around in circles, we finally found a local walking down the street to ask. It turns out that the farm was not north of the campground, but south. After all that, we finally found Cwmglyn, but the sign outside said it was only open on the weekends unless prior arrangements were made, and it was Monday. However, there was another sign that said the shop was open. We didn’t know what to do, but the owner finally came out to open the gate that leads to the property. So, we were in luck!

It turns out that the 7 acre farm consists of four milking cows, a steer and Biddie and her husband (didn’t catch his name) Fraser-Davies, originally from the UK. The model railway was HUGE and Biddie’s husband was kind enough to turn it on for Sean and Kailani. As well, they had a few toy railways for Kailani to play with. Meanwhile, Biddie fed me samples of her cheese, which were named by which cow’s milk it was made from. We had some of Emily’s cheese, one mixed with cumin and one with fennel, as well as a “Mystery” cheese, unknown because the label wore off during the aging process. I also had a nice chat with Biddie about her cows, the milking and cheese making process, how raw milk is illegal in New Zealand, how another local farmer gets past the law and how they are hoping that it will change soon, since raw cheese is allowed to be imported from Europe. It turns out that they farm with organic methods but can’t afford to pay the $2,000 to become certified, now the second time we’ve heard this. Biddie also had some awesome-looking glass and metal cloissone art pieces for sale in their shop. But apparently, all the affordable pieces are snatched up too quick. With more cheese in hand, we continued our drive down south.

We headed further south through the Wairarapa valley, also known for being a wine producing region. I thought we were going to just go through the town of Gladstone, but ended up having Sean stop the car when we passed by a sign for an organic winery, Urlar. Unfortunately, the winery didn’t even have a Cellar Door (wine tasting room) yet. They were only a year old and had just bottled their first vintage. The bottles weren’t even back from the bottling plant in Hawke’s Bay yet. Hopefully, it does well and I get a chance to come across this wine in the future.

Our next stop was for lunch, in the town of Martinborough, the region’s wine capital. We had sandwiches and a glass of wine each (good, but not great) at the Village Café, right in the center of town. After, we went next door to the Martinborough Wine Center. Although the town is supposed to have many Cellar Doors close to town and within walking distance of each other, we were feeling pressed for time with a little over a week left in the country. So, the Wine Center was our one-stop-shop to learn about the region’s wines. They were tasting a few wines from a local winery (Three “something”), that was not so impressive. But, they also sold all the other region’s wines. I asked if there were any organic wines, and Amanda, who worked there, pointed me to Vynfields, which I took a couple bottles of with me to try.

As Amanda inquired me about my interest in organic wines, I came to learn that she recently purchased 15 acres of farmland (for personal use) with her WINEMAKER partner and they were learning about biodynamic AND organic farming (after also traveling around the world for 8 months). It turns out that they are a member of WWOOF, an organization which matches travelers who are willing to work on organic farms, with the farms. I looked into doing this in Europe when we were originally planning our trip, but ended up putting it on hold “until Australia or New Zealand”. Some of the farms in Europe required more time than we had and/or weren’t child-friendly. Amanda mentioned that their farm animals certainly seemed to be child-friendly and they adopted 21 baby lamb who were either rejected by their mothers or their mother had died during the birthing process and they needed to be bottle-fed. Wouldn’t Kailani have been the perfect helper for that? I couldn’t sleep that night because I was kicking myself for missing the opportunity to stay on a farm that would have been perfect for us! If only we had more time...