The Settlers Arms, Ormondville

After a long hiatus through the winter months, spring, and a birthday in need of a celebration, saw us out and about once again. This time to the Ormondville Pub, more correctly known as The Settlers Arms. We’d never been before and it well and truly met our core criteria. At more than thirty minutes drive from Waipawa it is indeed off the beaten track. Our advance preparations, the old fashioned way  (by telephone, they don’t have a website), left us a bit confused about what might be on offer for lunch. So because it was spring, because it was a birthday, and because we fancied a drive we chanced it. It’s a very pretty place, Ormondville. It’s  a very quiet place. Especially  on a Sunday. But there are signs of  the bustling community it once might have been.

Ormondville Railway Station and Siding

Ormondville Junction

When we arrived, not long past midday, the hungriest of us, relieved to discover there was in fact a bar menu, made our selections (hamburgers and chips)  in an instant and looked around for someone, anyone, to take our orders.  One of the two men I’d taken to be our fellow patrons  told us the Chef was away but that he, himself, could do us a toasted sandwich.

Although our small group can’t be described as fussy eaters, and although the prospect of a seat in the sun surrounded by the likely soon-to-disappear green of springtime Hawkes Bay did have considerable appeal,  the consensus was that  a birthday required something more substantial than beer and a toasted  cheese sandwich.

As we prepared to leave a small group of bikies arrived. Our guess is they took up the proprietor’s offer. They probably didn’t even see the menus which could only be described as on the  grimy side of  tatty although, to be fair, this detail wasn’t noticed by all of us.  Who knows – we’ll probably go back, sometime, even if it is only for a beer. It’ll be cold. It’ll probably  be a  Tui. Chances are the sun will be warm, the breeze gentle, and we’ll have the place to ourselves.