About an hour's drive north of Wellington is the small settlement of Manakau whose only claim to fame (as far as I am aware) is its yearly "Medieval Market". I'm not quite sure what I expected when we decided to check out the 2003 version on Saturday, February 8th, but it was certainly a very popular place to be! Both the venue itself and the roads leading to it were jampacked with people. Traffic heading north on State Highway 1 was backed up for several kilometres south of Manakau, almost as far back as Otaki, meaning that it took us the best part of 90 minutes to get there from Tawa.

The event is a market (like the name suggests) and more, with an abundance of stalls and sellers offering their various wares, as well as house-truckers selling bits and pieces from their on-site vehicles. What makes this one different to your everyday fair or gala is its unique medieval flavour - people in costume, numerous props, knights in battle, etc. A sign outside the market grounds read: "Be heading here today". And apparently every hour there was in fact a beheading, or at least a mock one.

In hindsight we probably should have left home early enough to have beaten the traffic and got there when the market opened at 10am. As it was, we arrived about 11am and left again before 2pm. Their medieval market is a big fundraiser for this community and it is obvious that a lot of time and effort goes into bringing it all together for a very successful day.