A Visit to the Mainland

Catch-up; March 2021

Back in late March, Royalty arrived in the high country. Family Royalty that is. Mum & Dad who came to check out Night Sky Cottages for themselves. They flew into Christchurch from Napier on a direct flight and I met them at the airport after catching a bus from Twizel. We hired a car and I drove them back to the cottages, they hadn't been in the South Island for many years so it was great for them to sit back & enjoy the scenery.

For the first ten days we relaxed at the cottages and fitted in day trips (complete with a picnic lunches) around the Mackenzie Country. One of our first trips was to Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park.

Mt Sefton & White Horse Hill Campground- Aoraki/Mt Cook

The weather was fabulous, we'd timed the visit just right, not too cold nor too hot. Just stunning blue bird days. 

It was an especially calm day when we visited Lake Ohau &  the Ohau River weir, the water crystal clear.

T-Ohau River, Left- Ohau River outlet, Right-Lake Ohau & Ben Ohau

Looks like Banksy's been visiting the high country too. Rude Kids- on one of the canal towers 

I took them to see some of my my favourite places- Lake Ruataniwha

Oahu C Camp Lagoon at Lake Benmore; autumn was just around the corner.

We took the long way back to Christchurch; down the Waitaki Valley to Oamaru, checking the dams out as we went and stopping at Kurow for lunch & a hot drink on the way.

Followed by a pit stop at Duntroon where the art on the toilet block brought a smile to our face. The A2O Cycle Trail (Alps to Ocean) passes down the valley too. There's now a new toilet block nearby but I think they've left this there as well.

While Mum & Dad rested up at the Oamaru Air BnB we'd booked for the night, I took myself on a walking tour of the Oamaru Public Gardens which I thoroughly enjoyed, especially the colourful blooms in the hothouse.

The next day we headed off to Christchurch, first stop just up the road at the Rainbow Sweets factory shop. Just for a look of course. We all have a sweet tooth although I think Mum & I take the family cake for scoffing our loot in no time at all. Dad tends to make his last a few weeks (if Mum doesn't find his stash). Half an hour & several large bags of sweets later we made it back to the car. 

Our next stop was Riverstone Castle, one of my favourite places to visit whenever I am passing. I knew Mum & Dad would enjoy a visit too.

We had a lovely lunch at Riverstone Kitchen before exploring the gardens & shops. Dad looked very pleased with his favourite Blue Cod & chips ('rabbit food' passed over to me). I had great delight in letting him know that this particular dish was our 'takeaways' back in the original Level 4 & 3  lockdown last year. We spent that Lockdown just down the road at the Glenavy Waitaki Holiday Park & Riverstone Kitchen supplied takeaway fish 'n chips when we moved to Level 3. 

Mum was in her element, she had a craft shop at Bay View in Hawkes Bay for many years and spent her 'retirement years' selling at craft markets. She even met and had a natter with the owner, Dot, who was unpacking stock. 

For the next few nights we stayed at an Air BnB in Rolleston (near Weedons NZMCA Park, where David was due to arrive from Twizel with the 5th-wheeler a couple of days later).

Dad wanted to do a tiki tour of Akaroa Peninsula, he hadn't been on the road around the top of the rim before. We stopped at Little River for a morning coffee and then I turned off at the summit and travelled clockwise around the top. Which was just as well when Mum saw how far down it was on some of the road edges on the inside or when I pulled over to show them the view.

Akaroa Harbour, Banks Peninsula

Once down from the top we had lunch & an icecream in Akaroa township before heading home.

When planning the trip I had asked Dad if he wanted to visit some of his old haunts; he's a born & bred South Islander. At the time he'd said no he wasn't fussed but once we were in Christchurch we decided we couldn't get this close & not check his old hometown out. He was born in Woodend just north of Christchurch, went to school in Woodend and also spent some time in Sefton just a little further north before his family shifted north to Havelock North in Hawkes Bay.

St Barnabas Anglican Church, Woodend

So we did the obligatory tour, stopping at the family church (which is on the main highway) and finding many of his Eder relations on the cemetery burial list. Next stop was Dad's primary school, then locating his old house (with add-ons) down a back road & checking out the cenotaph roll of honour for relatives & finding his Uncle Jim Eder listed there. 

Then it was off to Sefton where some of his cousins still live. We drove a few more back roads, Dad giving us a running commentary of who lived where & what went on there before finding our way back onto the main road near Saltwater Creek where he used to go white-baiting with his cousin. Funnily enough the rest area beside the creek is where we often stop for lunch or a cup-of-tea break when we're travelling. 

And then before we knew it it was time for them to fly home. We all had a lovely time and for me it was great to spend some quality time with Mum & Dad and show them around our new home province. 

 

A Fairlie Big Bang- Part 1

Real-time

We left Weedons, south of Christchurch, and headed west towards Darfield, we'd decided to take the scenic route to MacKenzie Country. SH77 runs along the foot of the mountains that form the backdrop to the vast Canterbury Plains. 

We've spent quite a bit of time exploring along this road previously, today we just enjoyed the open road with very little traffic. Mt Hutt, with very little snow for this time of the year, filled the view ahead of us for quite some distance as we passed through Glentunnel, Windwhistle and dropped down into the Rakaia Gorge before popping back up onto the straight roads past Methven, Staveley, Mt Somers & Mayfield.

Just past Staveley we stopped for lunch at a very wet Bowyers Stream rest area...

.... this is also a free camping area but it's often boggy or flooded during winter. 

Back on the road and there we were crusin' along at 90kph on a gloriously sunny day without a care in the world when there was an almighty huge boom followed by 'whack, whack, whack', the rig wobbled a bit and a large cloud of blue smoke poured out behind us. David quickly brought the rig to a halt, I jumped out to check and saw that we'd had a blow-out on the back left hand side of the 5th-wheeler. 

There was nowhere to pull off the road on our side of the road but luckily there was a wide grass berm on the other side. David carefully drove the rig over to it. 

Yes, that's definitely a blow out, there'll be no repairing that tyre! Our first (and hopefully last) blow-out to add to the two punctures on the ute & one on the van in over 88,000kms and 7 years on the road. The ground underneath was soft and it took several stages to jack it up, block, release, jack, add another block, release, jack.... Eventually there were enough blocks under the axle to get the wheel off and the spare back on. And in case you're wondering these aren't retreads, they were new tyres 3.5 years ago.

At least 100 vehicles passed us while we were changing the wheel,  many of them work vehicles and farm utes with burly young men in them, yet not one person stopped to offer help or check that we were ok. It didn't matter because David had it under control (with some help from yours truly) and if we had needed help I would have flagged someone down but it did surprise me that not one person stopped. I know any motorhomer passing would have checked on us but unusually not one of the vehicles passing was a motorhome. 

Ninety minutes and a few nasty scratches from the protruding wire later and David had it changed and we were back on the road. 

We were very pleased to see Carters Tyre Service as we rolled into Fairlie township just before dusk on a Friday afternoon. David popped over to see them Saturday morning and they were able to order a replacement tyre and would have it for us on Tuesday morning which we were very pleased about. As it happened, we were intending to stop in Fairlie- the gateway to MacKenzie Country- for a night or two anyway, a couple more nights wasn't going to be a problem.

Fairlie Holiday Park is part of the NZMCA (NZ Motor Caravan Association) new CampSaver winter camping initiative where members can stay at participating campgrounds for $20 a night, this includes power. This has to be a win/win situation; members get cheaper camping sites and in return camping grounds get some winter turnover. Hopefully camping grounds will find that it's worth their while being involved, I know that during our week long stay at Fairlie there were two to four other members staying each night that usually wouldn't have come to a campground.

We thoroughly enjoyed our extended stay, we had a relatively sunny spot in an area that didn't see many other campers; most preferring to park on the hard on the otherside of the small stream that ran through the campground. 

With heavy frosts every day, temperatures at -5c to -8c overnight and hovering around zero for most of the day, with the occasional morning of fog, and bitterly cold temperatures all day, everyday, we began to wonder if we'd made the right decision to come south again for winter. 

We wondered if we were getting soft in our old age; 18 months has passed since we were last down here. Or maybe we'd acclimatized to the brilliant 6 months of warm sunshine we'd had up north over the long hot summer. All I can say is thank God for out diesel heaters, they certainly earnt their keep keeping us toasty warm inside, and also for the luxury of being plugged into the grid. The electric blanket kept the chill away overnight.

But we did have frozen water pipes three days running which didn't defrost until early afternoon. I think we've only had frozen pipes for 3 days in total over the whole of winter previously. We always turn the water off and open the taps at night so no damage is done but it's frustrating when you don't have water when you want it. And even colder when you've got to visit the campground showers instead of your own one in a warm van.

We were a bit perplexed about how cold is was until we read about a very unusual weather system at play. The severe cold temps were caused by very high air pressure which went as high as 1036hpa, this was well above the average for June and nearly a record. If it had been summer it would have been a very hot week. The highest air pressure ever recorded in New Zealand was 1045.9 in Wellington in 1889. Since then the closest near record was 1040hpa recorded in 2010. Little did I know it but this weather system was also hard at work mixing up a hoar frost in Twizel. A hoar frost that I am determined to photograph this winter and one of the main reasons we are in the South Island.

Over the weekend David decided that we really should replace all four tyres on the 5th-wheeler; the remaining three had a fair bit of tread on them but he wanted to keep the tyres uniform & consistent. So on Monday morning he called over to Carters again and ordered the other three tyres. Unfortunately two of them had to come down from the North Island and wouldn't be here until Wednesday morning (which actually wasn't too bad a service) That was ok by us, we were happy to wait. We had power. And we had pies to sample! 

Fairlie Bakehouse is well known for it's tasty pies, 'Bakers not Manufacturers' is their tag line. Ask on-line where the best pie is in New Zealand and you're not only bound to start a riot but everyone thinks they know who bakes the best. Fairlie Bakehouse is consistently up there at the top of the list with one or two others. And especially their signature pie (actually they have a few)- Pork Belly with Apple Sauce & Crackling. And yes, that is a piece of crunchy crackling on top of the pastry. 

In summary, let's just say the Pork Belly wasn't our favourite, it came a close third behind the Venison & Cranberry and the Salmon & Bacon Pie (an odd combination but it works). Although the traditional mince & cheese was pretty tasty too....then again, the butter chicken or creamy free range chicken.....

Suffice to say we were all 'pie-ed' out by the time we left Fairlie. And I don't even like pies!! 

While in Fairlie we spent most of our time in doors keeping warm, catching up on computer work (and sampling pies!) We did try to walk some of them off by taking the riverside track beside the camping ground but found it to be rather muddy and not too inspiring with bare willows, overgrown blackberry and old mans beard covering everything in sight. The walk was over 6kms long to the end and then you could walk back along the main road to the town. 

After a couple of kilometres we turned around and walked back the way we came although we did loop through the Domain on the other side of the campground and found a frozen ice skating rink which doesn't look like it's been very well loved in recent years.

In fact the last time the ice was thick enough to skate on was 2015 and that was three years after the previous time.  The rink needs a constant -10c to keep a solid base, which, with the temperatures we'd been having, explains why it was quite firm at the moment. The stuff you can see on the surface is  weeds of some sort that were growing in the base of the pond and are now stuck in the ice. 

To be continued... Part 2

Port Hills- Dyers Pass and Gebbies Pass

Catch-up 

Before we left Christchurch I managed to do a quick tour over the Port Hills through Dyers Pass to Governors Bay and then back to Weddons via Gebbies Pass, roads we hadn't explored on any of our previous visits to the city. I was waiting for a fine day, but in the end I had to do it on another not-so-great day similar to the one I had when I explored Godley Head at the other end of the hills.

First stop was at the very busy Sign of the Kiwi cafe, an iconic Christchurch landmark; built in 1916-17 as a staging post and opening as a tearoom and rest house. The cafe was closed after the 2011 earthquake and didn't open again until January this year. Just a month later it came very close to being destroyed in the massive Port Hills fire.

I drove along the Summit Road and up to the top of Sugarloaf where another iconic Christchurch symbol is located; the radio & television communications tower.

From there the views are expansive out over the city, across the Canterbury Plains to the Southern Alps behind. In the foreground the regenerating hillside is slowly recovering after the devastating February fires raged out of control and burnt over 1650 hectares of the Port Hills. The Sign of the Kiwi is located just out of sight to the left, where the two sections of the Summit Road meet (click to enlarge).

Parts of the badly damaged Adventure Park including the chairlift can been seen across the valley.

The dead pine trees are slowly being removed.

The fires were ferocious and burned on both sides of Dyers Pass Road and also jumped the Summit road below and burnt up to where I'm standing.

Here's a photo taken during the fire from below, Sugarloaf and the communication tower can be seen at the back, on the left.

I carried on a short way past Sugarloaf until Governors Bay came into view down the inside of the Port Hills rim. I'm heading to the other side of that first finger of land and crossing over Gebbies Pass at the lowest point of the hills behind.

I then returned to Dyers Pass and drove down to Governors Bay, stopping to take a photo of the Governors Bay Jetty (see it in the photo above?) which looks a similar length to the well known Tolaga Bay wharf, north of Gisborne. It was closed and in need of repair; a noticeable section in the middle sagging into the tide.

Next stop was the historic St Cuthbert's Church which was built in 1860. 

It was extensively damaged in the September 2010 earthquake and had only just reopened after a major rebuild.

With the temperature dropping and the day not getting any brighter it was just a few quick stops at places of interest as I wound my way along the very tight and winding roads that follow along the edge of Governors Bay...

...until I reached the old Blacksmith building on the corner of Gebbies Pass Road where I turned inland... 

...and found two more churches to add to my collection- St Peters Anglican Church at Teddington...

...and the Anglican Church of the Epiphany in Gebbies Valley, which must have one of the most elaborate belfries in all of New Zealand's country churches.

And then it was home to Weedons, to pack and prepare to move on out.