enerally, the drive from Piopio to Eltham takes about 2.5 hours, but this trip began a further 1.5 hours away in Hamilton, and a huge number of road works, including the significant developments at Mt Messenger, added almost another hour to the journey. It’ll be a great drive when the work’s done, but in the meantime it’s a bit irksome. However, we reached our destination, Eltham’s Fonterra Cheese Bar, with half an hour to spare before closing time and stocked up with enough delicious product to see us through a fair few pre-dinner wine, cheese and cracker evenings. Eltham’s got some interesting dairy-related history, and its street art demonstrates the enormous talent of local artists, but we had another mission
