My wife’s family arrived on one of the first settler boats into the Wellington harbour in the 1800’s and the family then spent five days walking over the Rimuataka’s to settle in Masterton. Right up to her mother the family lived in Masterton and ran a farm just north of the town. They are buried in the oldest part of the Masterton Cemetery.

As our daughter was out of town we decided to spend the day over the hill and see if we could find the graves, and the old farm. Both proved much more difficult than anticipated. While we could find the plots and grave markers had long disappeared. Also while we found the area that we understood the farm to be on, the land had changed so much that we could not be certain.

The day was marked with sun and rain and at times the road seem to delineate the two. As a result there were a number of extremely bright rainbows.

In the afternoon we drove out towards Gladstone so that I could find a derelict farmhouse that I had seen several times in other’s photos. Fortunately it was not that difficult to find as no one was around I jumped the fence and actually went up to it. It’s only inhabitants now are a large flock of pigeons.

I understand that the house was moved to the property in four pieces in the 1980’s and the farmer had intended to turn into a family home. Its sits right on top of the hill and commands million dollar views over the valley below. Unfortunately soon after his wife left him and in the midst of a farming recession he had neither the money nor the will to complete the renovations. So the house has continued to deteriorate.