We would like to thank the following people for their kind assistance
with our website:

Emma & David Barker, Mandy Thorpe & Len Paki for their lovely wedding photos
Sheridan Gundry, North and South article
Gray Clapham, photography (home page)
Brennan Thomas of "Real Photographics" (wedding page)

North & South magazine July 2007

We venture out to eat with some trepidation these days. Too often we're disappointed by what restauranteurs offer up at top dollar when we enjoy excellent fare at home, much of it home-grown or freshly caught.

But dining out on Friday night after a big work week does have a special appeal: a chance to dress up and get out of our culinary comfort zone. In buoyant mood and with balmy temperatures belying our proximity to mid-winter, we head for Bushmere Arms, 10 minutes from Gisborne city on rolling farmland.

On entering the century-old weatherboard hotel - a once rundown pub lovingly restored by chef-cum-proprietor Robin Pierson - we're immediately at ease. There's a crackling wood fire in the grate and a friendly but not unctuous greeting from bar staff. The Arms still has a homeliness, redolent of its country pub days, but Pierson has dressed up the old girl; he's polished the fine rimu panelling and added stain-glass lampshades, a grand piano and a mix of New Zealand landscape paintings . . . more