NGAPUTAHI RIVER CAFE

Lookout Point - Pohangina Valley

Poplar Trees Planted By Grand Jack

Mum's Tiny School in 1946

Crystal Clear Waters - The Pohangina River

Pohangina River Painting By Jean Mintoft, Artist In Wales

Up Stream

Down Stream

Observing Bush Bird Life

Setting Up Base Camp

The Ngaputahi River Bank Fry Up

Tall Totara Trees

Sunshine Egg

Farm Sausage Sunbathing On Bread Lino

Andrea's Kiwiana Snacks

Matilde the Lamb

Garage Ping Pong - Invitation Cup 2012

#39 Those Famous Steps

The River Bank Fry Up

To conclude this mini-series of posts on NZ Coffee Culture lets venture off-piste for another slice of essential kiwiana kit. The NZ River Bank Fry Up.

This fry up travels downstream along the river banks of the beautiful Pohangina valley at a farm station called Ngaputahi, its maori name meaning 'where the two rivers meet'.

This soulful place holds special resonance to me as the much loved childhood home of my mother and my grandparents working farm. It is also poignant as the setting that provides my earliest childhood memory when first visiting this beautiful land at the age of four, having travelled 11,564 miles from our home in Ty Gwyn, Wales.

Right on the doorstep of Ngaputahi is the idyllic Totara Reserve Regional Park a 340ha bush and camp grounds, with magnificently tall native Totara trees along with Matai, Rimu, Kahikatea and Black Beech, claiming their rites of passage as an ancient forest. Following a whirlwind romance, it was here in the Totara Reserve Community Hall, where my parents held their wedding reception mid swing during the 60's.

The Pohangina river flows southwards along the lower central stretch of the North Island and is crystal clear in parts, collecting fresh mountain water from the Ruahine Forest Ranges and flowing all the way down to Ashurst where it joins the Manawatu river.  I recall Mum's fond stories of swimming with her younger brothers and sisters in this river during the long warm summers. It offers the sort of idyllic tranquility and immersion with nature that inspires British artists like Jean Mintoft to circumnavigate the world and start painting.

The Pohangina Valley is also the home to the wonderful Kereru Company who produce the most Natural of Products for body care and essential oils. Our personal favourite is the Calendula and Manuka Honey Skin Cream.

We were lucky to have amongst our ranks an expert tour guide: Mum's youngest brother Nigel who spotted the sign he had hand crafted 50 years ago, still in situ and directing the local sheep traffic. After setting up base camp Nigel set about preparing the Ngaputahi River Bank Fry Up, which is renowned in these remote parts. Not surprisingly this fry up ceremony attracted some intrepid Japanese tourists who pretended they were observing the natural wildlife around the river. There is plenty here with Tui, Native Pigeon, Fantail and Kingfisher all hanging out their tail feathers.

Our tour guide passed on great river-bank-fry-up wisdom. "These are the simple things we all need to find time to do. Enjoying life's good stuff." And while we paused for reflection, Nigel prepared a shearers feast with farm fresh bacon and eggs, sausage, bread with knob of NZ butter and artfully seasoned with a generous splodge of tomato ketchup.

We washed it down with a fine cup of diaspora tea, complete with bag in cup,  hot water from a whistler kettle and a new world teaspoon, a super functional tool.

With a plan to see the amazing Te Apiti Wind Farm on top of Manawatu hills, followed by Nigel's philanthropic ritual to shout visitors a hokey pokey tip-top ice cream from the Ashurst diary, it was time to leave this river bank bliss. All good New Zealanders know the rules of nature are to Leave Without A Trace and only take away the memories.

We rounded off our river-bank jaunt with Andrea's kiwiana snacks, french lamb bonding and garage ping-pong. Only available in NZ.

Tika Hoki Aotearoa !

BLANDFORD'S

Cabbie's Delight

'Two eggs, and a slice of toast darling'.

Keeping it Simple

Bench Warmer

His and Hers

Wooden Bench Booths

A Lady Comes Around

A bow for Blandford's

# 21  Key Of The Door

Taxi Haven

This north Marylebone institution has witnessed a few scoops, chronicles and celebs in it's time. Plus a few high ranking taxi cabbies. A daily commute of continuous traffic plods and meanders its way to Blandford's doorstep, covering all cultures and generating a gentle stream of constantly busy, without punters feeling poked or rushed. You could hang out in here all day, do your laundry, mend a radio and bake a cake and nobody would bat an eyelid.

Blandford's is one of those places you discover by chance and keep close to your chest. London's underbelly bubbling away in all its glory. It's a conversation listener sort of a place, that any script writer worth her salt would sponge dry.

Unlike most places of a greasy spoon genre, Blandford's isn't seedy or preferential and has an elegance in its manoeuvres. The wooden furniture, tables and benches are worn into place and provide a golden hue and timeless attitude. The long french cafe curtain wraps up the ambience, allowing a sense of place and secret escape. It also keeps the cold out when your inner icicles are popping a cog.

For those partial to mechanically recovered meat, this is sausage fry up heaven. Seriously good comfort eating. It might not appear at your table foaming with liquid nitrogen or warrant attendance at the Soho Food Feast but get off the grass, who cares ?

Who can be bothered banging on about sourdough and spelt when you can have processed plain white pre-sliced supermarket bread for your toast. They could even fry up Tongue-in-cheek.

There is no such thing as a flawed meal, moreover a welcome retreat from highfalutin, 'menu degustation' grandiloquence. Gordon, Fergus, Heston, sling your puffed-up butchers hooks. 

Blandford's was doing its worst while other recent cool cafe cubs were still doing wedgies on the Brit Cuisine trail.

No. There's nothing bland about Blandford's.