Month: February 2016

 

Banks Peninsula / Akaroa  23 – 29.02.2016.

During this time we travelled to Christchurch – Akaroa – Christchurch, with most of the time at Akaroa, which would be the most beautiful place we have been to so far. We stayed at a POP (Park Over Property).

It is owned by Graeme Duder who has lived there for 22 yrs. Oscar had a mate to play with named Lily.

I will not write a lot about Akaroa, which used to be a French settlement & still has a French flavour, with the French street names being retained. I will let the pictures tell the story.

 

Shops

Bottom right – Yummy Crepes!!

Cottages.

Giants House Mosaic Garden by artist Josie Martin.

 

Okains Bay & Little Akaloa.

A visit to the most Eastern bays of Banks Peninsula.

 

Little River

On the road to Christchurch.  This is where the train track from Christchurch used to end. It is now a mecca for motorcyclists, cyclists & car clubs for a Sunday run. The cyclists ride out on a rail trail created by removing the train tracks & they can stay overnight in little silo apartments. When we came through on Sunday the place was humming & the coffee shops were doing a roaring trade.

 

 

 

Christchurch

Five years on from the earthquakes we found Christchurch to be a real mix.Areas where no damage had happened, areas well under way with the rebuild, areas with obvious damage & areas that had been tidied up, but they were very empty spaces.

In the city.

Top left- building behind yet to be removed. Wide empty spaces around the Cathedral where movie theatres & shops existed before.

In the suburbs.

Rows of driveways which used to lead to houses, lightly damaged houses in the background. The brick house seemingly undamaged but with no neighbours or services.

These unlucky people had insurance for their houses but the land couldn’t be insured. Some streets had perfectly restorable houses on one side of the road but completely written off houses on the other side. Who was worse off?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kaikoura  & Coastal road south.   22, 23.02.2012

We stayed next to the Pier restaurant & met a really nice couple from Perth who were celebrating their 40th anniversary. They had a few of Terry’s Butterscotch Schnapps before heading off to a celebration dinner. Our meal at the Pier was earlier, they were booked there but when Terry told them about the awful dry small crayfish he had been served, & the couldn’t care less attitude, they decided to go elsewhere & had a great meal.

Morning view & time for a haircut.

Coastal Road

The road & the railway run parallel to each other right on the coast towards Christchurch. Our campsite for the night was at Paia Point. The German girls next to us got up at dawn to try & spot dolphins or whales but they were disappointed.

Centre  Two road tunnels & one train tunnel.  Bottom right    Our neighbour at Paia Pt.

 A change of direction from Collingwood.  1803 kms so far.

On 16th February we left Collingwood & said goodbye to Golden Bay. We drove to Murchison, with a few diversions, & stayed the night. Originally we were going to head for the West Coast, but we heard from some of Catherine’s friends from the IOM & they are going to be in Hokitika on 3rd March. So we have detoured to the East instead, to time our journey better to meet up with them.

Murchison

 

Lewis Pass

Hanmer Springs  18, 19,20   02.2016

Oh beautiful Hanmer Springs, surrounded by painted velvet mountains & nestled amongst stunning trees.

View from Conical Hill.

We stayed at the NZMCA Park just out of town & Terry found some big blackberries. Catherine made these into a blackberry crumble with an ingenious application of Weetbix , muesli & cream. Which we shared with a couple from Timaru, Ash & Ineka.  Yum Yum!!

 

 

 

To Collingwood.  Sunday 14th February 2016

We set off for Collingwood & we stayed in a motel grounds for three nights. We caught up with the washing & had some big showers.

Hand made chocolates at the Rosy Glow Chocolate Shop in Collingwood.

Wharariki Beach

The road to Wharariki Beach, which faces the Tasman Sea, is mostly sealed but we had about 20 mins of dry corrugated dirt road at the end.  A 20 minute walk over a farm brought us to an amazing site. White sandhills cascading down to blue surf breaking on the beach.

 

Two inhabitants of Wharariki.

 

Farewell Spit.

Terry took the trip to the Farewell Spit lighthouse leaving Collingwood at 7.30 am & returning at 2.30 pm. As 7 hours was too long to leave Oscar, Catherine decided that she would look after him & have a welcome break from Terry.

 We passed by large flat areas where the tide went out about 10kms. This is where there are whale strandings inside Farewell Spit. One year there were 300 Pilot whales beached & about 800 people came to assist in keeping the whales upright & wet. Some helpers flew over from Christchurch & most of the whales were saved. Any injured whales are put to sleep otherwise their cries cause the freed whales to come back to help them. Any larger whale species die due to their own weight pressing down on vital organs.We don’t wish to make this story too boring so a lot of the ecological detail will be left out.

Farewell Spit is a living thing, growing all the time, the sand starts out as fine rock deposited by rivers running to the west coast from the Southern Alps. As it gets taken north by the ocean current & gets deposited on the beach, it gets ground up finer & finer. The prevailing wind then blows this very fine sand up the beach to form the sand hills.

The Lighthouse.

As you can see the lighthouse is undergoing a major face lift. They are water blasting all the old paint off & then they will repaint it. There is no water out there so all the water has to be trucked in along with fuel, & food for the workers. It is 37kms out to the lighthouse, which used to be at the tip of the Spit. The end of the spit is a further 9 kms on, now.

Birds & Fur Seals.

We had about 12 different species of birds shown to us but they were mostly too hard to photograph without spending a day just on birds. Many of the birds on Farewell Spit migrate every year to places as far away as Alaska & Siberia. I think it is the Godwits that fly non stop to Alaska, losing half their body weight, arriving there in a week. There was a Gannet Colony recently formed & where we stopped was the flight path to the fishing grounds. They just flew in small groups directly past us.

Cape Farewell

On the way back we went to Cape Farewell (named by Cook) which is the most northern point of the South Island.

 

 

 

To Takaka      Wednesday 10th February.

Devonshire tea at Woolshed Cafe top of Takaka Hill.

 

View from the top of the very high Takaka Hill.

The Winding Road down.

Pohara Stopover

Pohara Beach

Ligar Bay with a memorial to Abel Tasman also his four seaman who were killed by Maori who were settled in this bay.  This was the only landing made. He called this bay Murderers Bay.

Beautiful Tata Beach. Expensive real estate but pristine.

Wainui Falls, The Grove.

OOPS!!!!

We decided to go for a coffee after the falls but the road to the cafe turned into a very bad metal one.I then decided to back to the sealed road but being aware of the corner behind me I tried to avoid oncoming traffic. Unfortunately we ended up in a ditch. Luckily there was a milking shed nearby & the farmer towed us out with his big tractor when he had finished milking. He said that he would enjoy the bottle of wine we gave him & told us that we were probably one of 90 that he had towed out of this ditch.

 

Oscar takes over the driving.

After my display of driving we decided that even Oscar could do better so we decided to give him a go.

Ok ahead.

Anything behind?

Lets go!!

 

The winding roads, top of South Island. 1550kms so far.

 

Despite what it may look like we have had a leisurely journey mainly because our motorhome is so good to drive & ride in. We drive at 70 – 80 kms / hour & move over if traffic comes up behind. We are amazed at how few other vehicles are using the roads we are travelling on. Sitting up high we get a great view of the road & scenery.We have breaks in camps, do the laundry & top up & tip out if  you know what we mean.

We get excited when we move on to the next destination as every area is different in one way or another.

Weather.

So far we have had rain only at night on two occasions, otherwise the temp has been between 25 – 32 degrees.  During the night the temp drops right down so we sleep well.

 Marahau – Gateway to the Able Tasman National Park.

This is our third day in The Barn camping ground. There are numerous visitors from other countries staying here & the facilities are first rate. Most of the visitors are young & German with other countries represented in a small way, also crinklies like ourselves. Yesterday we caught a water taxi up into the park, walked for two hours to another bay & then water taxied back to Marahau.  It was good that we had high tide in one way but if it had been low we could have cut the walk time down by going straight across the bay, saving 75 minutes. Another Red Letter day – the scenery & beaches with golden sands & clear water – just outstanding.

 

Arriving at Marahau.

 

The office & the kitchen.

 

Our transport to the water.

 

Split Apple rock.

 

Torrent Bay. Catherine can’t resist a swim.

 

The start of the walk to Anchorage.  Quite a few private homes at Torrent & they have a community fire hose network with many of these fire hose points around the bay. Access to the bay is by boat only.

 

Outstanding Anchorage Bay.

When we got back the tide had dropped considerably so they sent out the tractors with trailers to bring us back in. They have a fleet of 14 boats & 10 tractors. The tractors are completely stripped down in the winter & rebuilt.

Nelson / Havelock. Havelock / Motueka 03- 06.02.2016

We have spent the last few days going to the east of Nelson & then back to the West.

Our stay in the east was at Canvas Town, behind the Trout hotel. Yes, we did sample some of the products along with $10 dinners.

The area was known for gold deposits & people are still panning for a bit here & there. There is a beautiful valley running up behind the pub & when we drove up the valley road we were surprised by the number of new houses.

Apparently there is no shortage of work in the area, 4 big dairy farms, a large mussel factory & pine forests forever.

 

On our way back west we visited Cable Bay. There is a great Skywire there which has a long seat attached to a steel cable which runs for about 3.5 kms. Four people can sit on it at a time & it reaches speeds up to 100kms/hr in the steepest section. The passengers get winched up backwards at a terrifying speed which some say is more scary than the ride down. Terry will never know because somebody was not very keen to go & there was a minimum of two required. We couldn’t even see it as it was over a hill from the office.

 

The whole of the sea bed in Nelson & surrounds is very flat & the tide goes out for flaming miles. This photo was taken on the way to Cable Bay where fortunately there was enough water for a bit of horsing around.  Terry went in for a swim afterwards and the water was tepid.

 

 

A beautiful bronze statue in Nelson.

 

Out west we stayed at Kina Beach at Motueka, a very laid back family camp costing only $10 per night.

Bath time Kina Beach style.

The only place for cellphone reception is on the beach. Cooler too.

Mapua 02.02.2016

We went to Nelson yesterday to have a look at getting a better rear vision screen only to find nothing open. Nelson Anniversary day. So we came out to beautiful Mapua for lunch & decided to stay in the camp overnight.

We have both been thinking about getting new hats/caps & found a hat manufacturing shop at Mapua wharf.