3 pit stops cheese lovers should make in Wellington, New Zealand

If you’re both a model train fan and a cheese enthusiast, a visit to Cwmglyn Farm will be quite a treat. It’s the site of the Middleton Model Railway and a model railway shop. Cheesemaker Biddy Fraser-Davies makes traditional English-style farmhouse natural washed rind raw milk cheese with milk from her four cows: Dizzy, Lily, Patsy and Isobel.

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Visit Over The Moon Dairy’s boutique factory for tastings of New Zealand’s biggest range of handcrafted speciality cheese – 26 across four categories of fresh, soft, blue and semi-hard – from local cow, goat, sheep and buffalo milk. Many of the cheeses are created by master cheesemaker Neil Willman. To watch the cheesemakers at work, it’s best to visit between 10am and noon, Mondays to Thursdays.

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Owners James and Catherine McNamara are both born and bred in Whangarei, Northland, where they have stayed on to make Grinning Gecko Cheese Co cheese from single-herd organic cow’s milk and sustainable goat’s milk. They currently make 13 cheeses – the washed rind Kau Piro won a gold medal at the 2016 New Zealand Champions of Cheese Awards.

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– TEXT BY ANNE LOH
PHOTOS: TOURISM NEW ZEALAND (CWMGLYN FARM), OVER THE MOON DAIRY FACEBOOK
This article was originally published by Singapore Press Holdings.