Nine Weeks In Napier- Part 4; City at Sea

Catch-up; and I've been waiting a long while to post this one. 

Remember I said on one of my Tauranga blogs, I'd love to see 'Ovation of the Seas'? Well it just happened that she was due in Napier a few days after we arrived.

I thought I'd head to the Bluff Hill Lookout to see her arrive, the lookout not only overlooks the Port of Napier, it has wide sweeping views out over Hawke Bay; south to Cape Kidnappers and north to Mahia Peninsula.

Due to the congestion around the lookout caused by sightseers on the narrow roads, during her last (and first) visit to Napier, all the immediate roads were closed to traffic. This meant a walk of about 1.5kms up hill and down dale to reach the lookout. Ovation wasn't due to arrive until 7am but I got there well in advance so I could see her come around the Cape and head across the Bay to the port.

There were quite a number of ships and commercial fishing boats at anchor offshore, I guess they had to wait their turn until after Ovation had berthed and her few thousand passengers has disembarked and gone for the day.

Once Ovation reached the breakwater two tugs steamed out to meet her. 

Here's something random for you; I have a personal connection with Napier Port's breakwater. Some of the rubble used to create the breakwater, once surrounded my childhood swimming pool. Much of breakwater rubble was once part of the Park Island 'Old People's Home' which collapsed in the 1931 Napier Earthquake. It then became the HB Hospital Board Farm which Dad managed for over 20 years. 

Most of the ruins were bulldozed over the sides of Park Island though some of the concrete foundations were left behind. Dad layed a floor and sealed one of these large concrete foundation squares to form our swimming pool. Many years later all the rubble (including the swimming pool) was transported to the Port to form the breakwater extension. You can read more about the farm (which is now Napier's Western Hills Cemetery) in this blog I did on a Living Memory

My sister Gaelyn, in the concrete foundation swimming pool

Moving right along (don't forget to click on the photos to view them in more detail)....

Logs waiting to be exported look like piles of toothpicks.

At 168,666 tonne, Ovation of the Seas is the fourth biggest cruise ship in the world and the biggest ship to visit New Zealand. She carries 4905 passengers and 1500 crew. 

Once the tugs reached her, they helped her maneuver around, ready to be backed into port.

There was a strong wind blowing and a low tide, the bow and/or stern thrusters on the ship stirred up the sea bed. 

There was about a 40 minute delay as they waited for the wind to drop and the tide to lift a little before Ovation...

...was carefully backed into her berth

A very long line up of tour and shuttle buses patiently waited to escort the passengers off the wharf...

Napier Port's tugs look like little egg cups compared with Tauranga's tugs and especially as they bobbed about in the churned up water.

Some passengers chose to stay and make use of the onboard facilities. The stand up surfing pool was popular and as soon as the ship had docked the waves started rolling. Ovation also has a sky diving simulator, rock climbing wall, dodgem cars, a circus school and an observation gondola on a hydraulic arm that rises 90 metres above the ship. I left before that was raised; you can see it in the photo above, at the front of the ship.

And wouldn't you know it, after closing the surrounding roads and making me walk all that way, there were only about a dozen people at the lookout and half of those were locals out on their morning strolls. And the only vehicles that made it to the top contained council workers who'd talked their way through the cordon!

One last photo looking out over the old port settlement of Ahuriri and the Ahuriri estuary to the hills of Poraiti behind. Before the 1931 earthquake, the inner harbour reached the base of the hills, the seabed rose 2 metres during the 'quake exposing most of the middle ground you can see here.

Perfume Point (a popular freedom camping spot in Napier) can be see on the right , the finger of land sticking out into the bay.

Footnote- I'll be out of internet range for a couple of weeks or so, so apologies but no blogs for awhile.

The Remote Ahuriri Valley- Part 2

Continued on from Part 1

Several times during the night I opened the door to check on the magical scene outside. In the crisp clear atmosphere of the high country, millions of twinkling stars greeted me, sparkling their way in a great swathe across the sky to form the Milky Way. I was also greeted by two Paradise Ducks gently honking at me in alarm, as they rested on the gravel beside the river. 

The temperature outside dropped sharply through the night, ice forming on the handrail, the steps and along the sides of the van. There was going to be a beauty frost in the morning. Thankfully the diesel heater kept us toasty warm until we went to bed, and then we left it running at about 12c overnight, just enough to keep the chill from the interior.  

We always turn our water pump off overnight and tonight we'll also drain the water from the pipes, there's likely to be no water in the morning due to it freezing somewhere in the workings. Most of our pipes are towards the centre of the van and protected with corflute covering underneath, it's only in heavy frosts that we've had it frozen. So far we've had no damage *touch wood*.

A winter wonderland greets me when I look outside at daybreak, the river is a cool green, the side streams and pools are frozen, stones and rocks have a thick layer of ice over them. The ducks are still honking at me and are now keeping warm by swimming in a large pool on the next bend.

The tussock grass is white and laden down with ice crystals. I check the temperature gauge and it reads -16c. The coldest we've experienced since we had -12c in the Maniototo a couple of times, it's very cold especially and with no sun to warm us up yet.

The few matagouri bushes growing on the side of the river bank are covered in ice crystals too.

Finally, I have myself a mini hoar frost.

It's just as well there's no one about, I'm stomping about taking photos with my trackies tucked into David's oversized gumboots, wearing my fluffy white dressing gown (blending in very well), fingerless gloves (good for photographers), and a thick black woolly beanie. 

The beauty of the valley is breathtaking...literally! (click the photo to enlarge. You can also open any photo to view more detail, just remember to use your back arrow to return to the blog or click the x in the top right to close the photo)

Even the Crack Willows across the river are coated in white.

The sun starts to creep down the range in front of us around 8:30am...

...but it'll be another two hours before the valley is filled with sunlight. Here are a few more photos to enjoy while we wait.

I think that is Mt Enderby at the head of the valley.

It's coming! So close, yet so cold!

Finally the sun pokes a point above the mountain, I spot it from inside the van and quickly grab by camera and race along the river bank, fiddling with settings as I stumble through the icy tussock in my oversized gumboots. I'm trying to keep just a tiny spark of sun on the edge of the ridge so I can capture a sunburst before the whole sun appears over the top. It rises pretty quickly when you don't want it to! 

For sunbursts, the trick is to have a very narrow aperture (large f/ number); the blades on the aperture inside the lens close down to form the sunburst and also a narrow aperture doesn't let the extremely bright light of the sun in....as long as you keep most of the sun hidden. You can do this during the day too by hiding most of the sun behind a tree trunk or branch. For those that would like to know, the settings for this photo were  f/22, ISO200, 1/50 sec- handheld too. I tend to do most of my shots handheld, I'm in too much of a rush to worry with a tripod most of the time. 

With the sun comes the big wet, as many of the ice crystals on the tussock start to melt.

Here are a few more photos now the valley has filled with sunlight

The photo below made it onto the TV weather....I actually sent it by mistake, it was meant to be the one above.

And as predicted there was no water flow in the van come morning. Even our water bottles inside the ute had frozen solid. It pays to have a spare container of water available inside for ablutions (boil some hot water) and flushing the loo. Hot drinks aren't a problem for us as we have a separate drinking water container but if you use your tank water for drinking make sure you have spare available if you're camping in extreme conditions over winter. There's nothing worse than not being able to warm up with a hot drink! 

We eventually pulled out around lunch time. Most of the tussock is now weighted down with water droplets. If the sun doesn't get too warm before it disappears over the mountains and the weather stay cold and clear, these droplets will form into ice crystals again overnight and moisture in the atmosphere will also settle and freeze on them too, and so grows the ice that turns the landscape into one long hoar frost.

It was a surprise to see that one of the streams we crossed on the way out, had frozen edges even though it was quite fast flowing.

Further down the valley we spotted a helicopter, and as we got closer, could see these guys sorting through their deer kill. One guy was wielding a large knife in one hand and holding a hind quarter in the other. Using my photos I counted roughly 30 deer. 

We're back at the bottom of the valley, ahead of us is the plateau we camped on the first night...

We stop so I can check out the abandoned musterers or fishing hut we could see from our first camp site. 

There's access from the road down to the river beside the hut.

We head back to civilization, and as soon as we turn onto the main road, we have a steady stream of trucks, hire campers and cars passing in both directions. The spell is broken. 

The Remote Ahuriri Valley- Part 1

Real-time- it's been a few days since the last blog and I always feel a little guilty about the delay. Some weeks blog posts just flow and other weeks they tend to be start, stop, get distracted, start, stop get distracted affairs. I've just had a one of those weeks!

We left Lowburn heading north up the eastern side of Lake Dunstan and over the Lindis Pass for one last time, we're not sure when we'll be back down this way again, it's time to explore further north. Just before we reached the Summit (where I took this photo), snow flurries began splattering the windscreen. I thought it might have been the start of a heavy fall but sadly it had petered out by the time we pulled up.

At the bottom of the Lindis and 20kms from Omarama we turned hard left into Birchwood Road and headed up the Ahuriri Valley. This 24km gravel road follows the Ahuriri River all the way up the valley into the Ahuriri Conservation Park. From there, there's a 8km 4WD track to the end of the road. The last time I stopped to look down this road, the mountains were covered in snow and it was piled up half a metre deep on either side of tyre tracks through the middle, it was the time of  'the big snow' when I drove up from Winton to check it out.

With the outside temperatures being so chilly now we're into winter (8-10c is a good day), we like to be set up with the diesel heater pumping well before the sun disappears over the mountains. 

About 8kms down the road we decided to pull in and camp on a small level plateau overlooking the river, we'd carry on up the valley in the morning.

I gave David a bit of a ribbing after we'd set up. Of all the places and wide open spaces we could have chosen and we park right beside a bloody power pole! In defence it was the only area where we could look over the river.

We woke to a light frost in the morning and the sun hiding behind the mountain across the river from us. When it did finally reach into the valley we had an amazing view up the braided Ahuriri River valley. This is the river that passes the Omarama Clay Cliffs and runs alongside the DOC camp we stay at near Omarama. The river is also smothered in lupins in spring, although luckily not all the way up here. Yet.

As we headed on up the valley, the cloud had settled along the mountain ridge but there are still a few glimpses of snow along the tops. We pass one of several access points into the conservation park, it's hard to believe that over the range from here is the top arm of Lake Hawea, very near the entrance to Haast Pass, which by road is a very long way away. This part of the track is also part of the Te Araroa Trail, New Zealand's walking trail from the top of the North Island to the bottom of the South Island. We've crossed it on numerous occasions while out exploring.

We know that there are some large high country stations down the road, Ben Avon, Longslip and Birchwood (no longer operating), but are still surprised to see a lovely large new home tucked in under the range, this is a pretty remote area with a hostile winter environment. I later find out that it's a hunting lodge and clients (mainly from overseas) pay thousands of dollars to stay, hunt & fish in the Ahuriri Valley. And to think that we can just drive in, set up camp and do exactly the same should we wish to- though not the hunting bit of course! And I'm not so sure we can arrange the helicopter rides either! 

The Lodge overlooks the beautiful Ben Avon Wetlands, which are just starting to freeze over. Any waterfowl settled on the pond has been forced into a deep corner. They start milling about and stressing out so we leave them to it and carry on along the road.

We finally reach the park boundary where we find a place to park right beside the river. There's not another person in sight and we have the whole valley to ourselves. 

What an absolutely magical place. If only it was the fishing season, once again there are a dozen or so trout swimming through the crystal clear waters right below us. The Ahuriri is an internationally renowned fly-fishing river.

After we'd set up, we headed off to explore further up the valley. The gravel road ends near the old Birchwood Station homestead, stock yards and a 1930s farm cottage. Birchwood was purchased by the Nature Heritage Fund in 2004 to protect the natural landscape and secure public access up the valley, it had been farmed since 1873 and was once described as being more suitable for keas (our cheeky mountain parrot) than sheep.

We're now on the 4WD track although it's not too bad, just some lumpy parts, a few mudholes and a couple of big shingle slides to cross, the rest is slick dry mud. We come across another familiar sight, the 1861 'Spade Line'.  This is the remains of a controversial boundary fence and spade line between the provinces of Canterbury & Otago. The spade line was actually dug out at the time and the indentation is still noticeable in places. The boundary line was drawn using a ruler, it didn’t allow for natural features or the rights of established run holders. We last crossed it when we explored along the edge of Lake Ohau, near Twizel.

We stop to take in this fabulous view across the valley, the emerald green waterway snakes it way across the tussock plain towards bare willows and the river on the far side of the valley. Aside from the stunning green colour which grabs your attention, look at the colour and texture on that mountain too.

Stands of remnant beech forest and large gravel slides line the valley walls. I suggested to David that it would be great fun to toboggan down that trough in the gravel. It's hard to get perspective here but that is a large mountain with very steep sides, those are very tall trees and I'd probably get swallowed up in the gravel coming down at a breakneck speed! It's fun thinking about it though.

We stop to check out DOC's Ahuriri Base Hut, there's a car parked nearby but no sign of occupants. They're probably walking one of the many tramping tracks in the area. 

There are several huts in the mountains above this hut and several more further up the valley. Tramping, mountain biking and horse riding are all encouraged in the park; there's a horse holding yard near the hut. 

Though motorbikes and 4WDriving is not encouraged and there is a barrier across the end of the road. This is as far as we'll be going today.

We turn around and head for home, stopping here and there to check for birds and views.

It takes a few seconds to spot 'Out There' in this vast river plain, we blend in very well against the tussock (click to enlarge)

Zoomed in....

The valley and surrounding mountains turn a stunning colour as night falls and the temperature drops sharply as day turns to night. Both heaters are cranked up, keeping us snug and warm inside; they are certainly going to earn their keep come morning...

To be continued...Part 2