Wallingford Homestead

Worth getting out of bed for

Wallingford House is just part of the story here – the Ormond family estate first cultivated in 1853 was once much larger and you can get a sense of that as you go beyond the manicured cottage gardens and oak-tree-studded QE II bushland reserve (which takes around 90 minutes to complete) to explore the more rugged Angus Stud Station and wider and wilder Hawke’s Bay. You’ll see the inner workings of the farm where the Angus beef and lamb you’ll be eating are reared, as well as the fertile vegetable patches and orchards, and the 1,800 Périgourdine trees that provide treasured truffles of Chris’s cuisine. Visit during the winter harvest and you’ll see springer-spaniel Jim sniff them out (he was home-trained using Youtube tutorials and a tennis ball covered in truffle oil). The owners will happily pack you a picnic for your wanderings on request, too. Gather around the concrete kitchen table Chris hand-poured himself for lessons in cooking up sourdough, truffle ice-cream and other treats, and bowl food (fresh gnocchi, cioppino stew, moules marinières…) Croquet, cricket and Pétanque are set up on the lawn each day, and you can also borrow mountain bikes for threading through the truffle trees onsite, and for offsite forays – Waipukurau’s Tuki Tuki Trail is remarkably scenic. Try your hand at fly-fishing close by, Porangahau Beach’s quiet golden sands are a 10-minute drive away, or you can splash about in the Waihi Falls, about an hour away. Waipawa (a 30-minute drive north) has antique stores and art galleries, and the Central Hawke’s Bay Museum. And take a deep breath before asking for directions to the longest place name in the world: Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu – there’s not much there, but it’s debatably worth the trip to have your photo taken with the sign. And, Aroha Helicopters can show you Hawke’s Bay in all its glory, with flights along Cape Kidnappers coast, out to Hastings and Te Mata Peak or hovering over art deco city Napier. If you get a taste for the high life, they also offer lessons.

Local restaurants

This is destination dining at its finest, so you don’t really need to seek sustenance elsewhere, and if you do you’ll need to go quite far to find it. But, there are gastro hotspots in this farm-flush region. Mission Estate is first and foremost a winery opened by 19th-century French pioneers; but the restaurant is as much of a lure with the likes of pig terrine with honeycomb butter, beef Bourguignon with potato doughnuts, and crab cakes in espelette velouté. And Malo in Havelock North has enticing prospects of goat’s cheese, honey and thyme profiteroles; pork belly in a ginger jus with spiced sweet potato and apple slaw; lamb rump with romesco and hazelnut dukkah. Black Barn Vineyards makes a romantic countryside setting for its menu of babganoush croquettes with sheep’s milk labneh, chicken and duck terrine with tiger-milk mustard and preserved cherry; and wild red deer with plum and parsnip.