What's a former airline engineer doing in a hut near a small, rural South Taranaki town?
If you're name is Wayne Grace, it's more than likely you're spinning a few yarns and brewing award-winning coffee for people who stop for a break as they travel along State Highway 3.
Mr Grace runs
a coffee cart, A-La-Cart, just north of Waverley.
The distinctive cart is well known among Taranaki travellers. Made from rimu, it was built from an early 1900s Manaia villa where horses and carts used to stop on what is known as Surf Highway 45.
The villa was renowned for its coffee and discussions about politics of the day. Mr Grace and wife, Denise, moved back to New Zealand and to Taranaki after 17 years in Australia. These days conversations at the coffee stop are likely to centre around the 747s, 767s, 737s and the resourceful Hercules that Mr Grace worked on during his aviation engineering career.
And there's the Rugby World Cup, which Mr Grace says will be won by the All Blacks, because, "[Coach Graham] Henry has analysed all the other teams ... he's a tactician."
The topic of his Altura coffee also comes up. It has won a supreme award, and in the 2009-10 year a gold for its flat white, silver for organic and bronze for decaf.
"It was judged out of 250 coffees in New Zealand by 12 judges," Mr Grace says.
For more stories from South Taranaki, turn to Page 5
