There was a distinct musky smell permeating from the ground as I clambered up the steep dew-covered hill. Walking around bristly bushes I looked out at the swirling morning mist blanketing the bush-covered hills. The sun was almost peeking over the horizon, throwing shafts of light down through the mist. Below, a plume of smoke was rising from the chimney of the shed below – AKA the ‘hut’. When I came back into the kitchen the window of the cast-iron wood-burning oven was glowing red and the aroma of coffee brewing on the gas burner filled the room.
We have a couple of friends from Ōakura who have a back-country escape on a 500-acre (202 hectare) block near Whangamōmona
