Gabriel's Gully, Lawrence

I got a bit ahead of myself with all the excitement of the Oyster Festival & the storm so I’m now stepping back a week or so to catch up on the blogs I missed from our last camping site at Grays Dam, Gabriel's Gully in Lawrence.

What a beautiful spot, it was very pretty with the trees at the end of their autumn colours & the grasses & reeds reaching right down to the pond’s edge.



Backlit trees at sunrise on the pond

It was a quite a small pond with just a few water fowl making it their home; a pair of coots, a couple of shags, a few welcome swallows and a lone female paradise duck that kept me awake for most of the first night. She was calling for her partner and I felt very sad for her, David found some fresh empty cartridge cases on the ground & we can only assume that her mate was shot by some lazy scumbag who couldn’t be bothered driving out of town to a legitimate place to go duck shooting.

Unlike other ducks, Paradise pair for life & she was calling for him all night & all the next day. Female paradise also have very loud calls. At one stage another pair flew in, the male ahead of his mate and the pond female got all excited doing a head bobbing swim all around him. Until the other female landed when all hell broke loose. After a good scrap between the females the other pair flew off & our female resumed her calls. It was with great relief when I got up on the third day to see that overnight a lone male had flown in and taken up residence with the female. She looked very happy swimming around the edge showing her new mate the best places to feed. Peace was restored to the pond.

Other than the quacking duck it was a very peaceful spot, we stayed for 3 nights and on each there were 2-3 other RVs sharing the clearing at the end of the track with us. Gabriel’s Gully is named after Gabriel Read who discovered gold there in May1861. This was the beginning of the Otago Gold Rush, by July there were 150 men working the gully and by September over 6000 people were camped throughout the gully in amongst the diggings protecting their small claims.

By the end of 1861 there were over 10,000 people on the goldfields, imagine 10,000 people, tents and dirt piles spread out down the gully shown in the photo below. Except that the valley floor is now a lot higher than it was back then. Water races from local rivers & dams (Grays Dam included) fed water into the area to wash the hillsides away into the sluice boxes to recover the gold. Gunpowder & dynamite were used to break up the rock. The tailings slowly filled up the valley floor.

Grays Dam is at the end of the bottom track that disappears out the left of the photo (a photo taken with my cell phone while on the 90 minute walk around the gully)

Across the gully and at the top right of the photo above is Blue Spur. Blue Spur settlement was originally at the head of Gabriel’s Gully on the flat but when that ground was needed for mining the township was moved to the top of the ridge away from the flooding & mining. The town prospered from 1864-1868 with two of every type of store to service the miners, a school opened in 1867  (it was closed in 1925) and during the 1880s when Blue Spur had a population of 500, there were over 200 pupils & five teachers. Today all that remains of Blue Spur are these two buildings one a residence & one the butchers shop.

Just one gully away from Gabriel’s was Weatherstons goldfield, discovered not long after Gabriels and claimed to have had more gold recovered in a four week period than Gabriels. Over 1500 miners flooded into Weatherstons within a few days which led onto Weatherstons being known as the gayest & noisiest town on the goldfields. It also suffered the fastest reduction of miners when news  came through that gold had been discovered near Dunstan further inland.

Today Weatherstons is well known for its mass plantings of daffodils and 100 year old rhododendron bushes along with the ruins of the 1884 Black Horse Brewery. The brewery was once Otago’s most successful provincial brewery and that was during prohibition. In 1923  the brewing rights were purchased by NZ Breweries, the brewery closed down & the workers offered work at Speights Brewery in Dunedin.

On one of the information boards was this photo of the ladies pushing for prohibition, looking at some of those faces I doubt anybody would want to give them a kiss anyway!

The daffodils were first planted in 1895 and it was thought that over 1 million bulbs were planted during the first few years covering 10-15 acres of the hillside beside the brewery. No expense was spared and  prices as high as £100 were paid for single bulbs from the Netherlands. Incredible when the average wage was only around £5. People came from far & wide to see the daffodils when they were in bloom, the flowers were also picked by school children & sold for charity. In 1912 the first train excursions from Dunedin arrived; 2 trains of 13 carriages each organised by the Dunedin Horticultural Society. In 2005 the daffodil fields were once again opened up to public display, the first time in 50 years.

It's a pity we visited the ruins at the beginning of winter, the site didn’t look that attractive with bare trees, wet & muddy ground and overgrown abandoned buildings although the lovely red of the hawthorn berries added a bit of interest & colour.

And I was finally able to grab a shot of another New Zealand native that not too many people would have seen or know about. This is a Brown Creeper (Pipipi- can you guess the sound they make?) and they are actually quite common throughout the South Island but are very hard to see (and photograph) as they flock & move quite fast through the tree canopy feeding and calling to each other. Against the light of the sky they could be mistaken for sparrows. This isn’t a great photo but at least I have a record until I can get a better one!

In an old farm yard near Weatherston I spotted this; I wonder where the lion escaped to……

And once again after an afternoon of exploring we got home in time for me to catch some reflections-

And finally I need to add the photo that is the blog header at the moment (it'll be gone soon). I also sent this photo off the NZMCA for their "I Love Winter" photo competition and they made it their Facebook header.......

.......which actually replaced my Lake Dunstan storm photo!

Wind Farm & the Wairarapa

We didn’t leave last night’s spot by the Manawatu River until early afternoon, we woke to a rather cold & bleak day after yesterday’s brilliant blue sky and warm sun. The cloud hung low on the range above us and the drizzle came and went in fits & starts.  We took our time in getting ready as we knew we only had about 60kms to travel today. David went for another fish until the drizzle became persistent & we were a little worried we might not get good traction in the long grass pulling away from the river bank so we headed off just after lunch, lunch being the time of the day not the meal we should have eaten. As it was we didn’t have any lunch today, we kept saying we’d stop at the next rest area but it didn’t happen & before we knew it, it was late afternoon and then we were thinking about where we were going to stop for the night. Once again we had a couple of places in mind and once again they turned to custard.  

But before we headed south on SH2 we took a small detour up to the top of the Saddle Road, an alternative route over the range to Ashurst & Palmerston North, to visit the Te Apiti Wind Farm lookout. From our camp site down by the river we were overlooked by 3 turbines a little further up the valley & just the blades of another one right above us at the river.

What an impressive sight they were as we wound our way up the Saddle and once at the lookout it was quite a surreal getting out of the ute beneath one of the huge monolithic turbines and hearing the deep “whoop, whoop” of the blades going round. And as if to prove the point that they are in the right spot, a bitterly cold & ferocious wind was whipping across the ridge. All around us marching across the rolling hills were dozens of turbines. 

Meridians’s 55 Te Apiti turbines are on this side of the gorge and cover 12 square kms with another 134 turbines belonging to Trustpower stretching off into the distance southwards, those cover a staggering 700 hectares of land.  The turbines are 70 metres high and each of their 3 blades is 35 metres in length. It was a pity that we didn’t have a nice sunny day & blue sky to view them but we’re fast learning you have to take each day as it comes and make the most of it as we never know when we’ll be back this way.

Further south & well on the way to our next overnight stop there was one stop we had to do for the obligatory photo,  the "World Famous in New Zealand" Tui Brewery at Mangatainoka.

And it wasn't, we drove straight on by.

Blink & you'll miss it. Eketahuna that is. From the far reaches of my memory I recall this was a standing joke that as children we told each other even though my family would have only passed through the tiny country settlement once or twice during our childhood.

And here we are in Eketahuna where we are staying for the next two nights, in a quiet grassy & tree lined District Council campground down by the river. $6 per person per night unpowered, find yourself a site & the manager will be around in due course, he lives off-site. We’ve tucked ourselves into a small grassy alcove with tall trees cocooning us on three sides and a winding mown track through the bush behind that leads down to a rough path along the river bank.

We seem to have the habit of picking secluded spots under or near trees and forgetting that we need a clear view north if we're wanting the satellite dish to pick up TV for us. We decided we could do without it tonight and will move the van around the corner tomorrow.

The bird song is amazing & tonight David took his head torch out looking for birds & found instead, just 10 metres or so down the track, a large possum with her joey riding on her back. Next time I will have to take my camera with me as they did look in spectacular condition and stayed still in the light for quite some time. What a pity they are such pests. 

We are here because our “Bible”, the NZMCA travel directory which as members we have access to, has put us crook once again. The directory lists over 6000 overnight camp sites (& dump stations) up & down the length & breadth of New Zealand and we had selected a couple to check out near Mt Bruce Wildlife Centre, which we are going to be visiting on Sunday. And in fact one of the sites was at Mt Bruce itself but as I soon found out, when I called ahead, the directory wasn’t correct. There definitely was no staying in their back yard! The lady I spoke to suggested we could stay in the ANZAC Bridge reserve just up the road but when we got there we found that it was just a small pull off area behind the trees & with no room for a rather large fifth-wheeler!

 The ANZAC Bridge was built in 1922 by a local resident Alfred Falkner as a memorial to the local people who served in WW1, and also because there was a real need for a bridge at this spot, as fording the Makakahi River could be dangerous after rain. In 1956 a new bridge was built but thanks to local appeals the Anzac Bridge was preserved as a memorial and it's where ANZAC services for the district are held here every April 25th, ANZAC Day.  

There was also another place listed with coordinates about 10kms from Mt Bruce and towards the coast. We thought as we were nearby we might as well check that out so off we drove through narrow country roads until we turned into a metal road with the final destination a couple hundred metres along & what looked like a nice grassy patch inside a small fenced pine plantation. 

Hmmm…..the gate was securely locked and although it didn’t look like part of a farm there was no way in and no way for us to turn around so we continued on until we found a gateway & did a U turn (so manoeuvrable is this fifth wheeler) and decided we’d had enough of traipsing all over the countryside and headed back up the road to Eketahuna & the campground we’re now parked at!

Although we arrived here to be confronted by a few dozen teens in and around the ablution block & out playing ball on the grass along with a few caravans & tents dotted down the far end of the camp. While checking out the rates in the kitchen one of them informed David that they were here to celebrate two birthdays. Oh-oh…a noisy night ahead. When the manager arrived later to collect the fees he informed us that he was staying in one of the cabins to keep an eye on them & that they had been here a couple of years ago celebrating the same birthdays and had been very well behaved. In fact we hardly heard them. That was until a thundering haka rung out at some stage late into the night followed by the loudest firework display I have ever heard. This morning is was all quiet on the Western Front when we left for the wildlife centre at 10am and they were gone by the time we got back later in the afternoon.

The remains of an old swingbridge just behind our campsite