A Fairlie Cold Place- Part 2

Real-time

Contined on from Part 1

While at Fairlie we did a day trip to Timaru to visit, of all places, Super Cheap Auto & Briscoes. David needed a new heavier duty jack, he'd bent the head of the last one awhile ago and it had been a problem when we'd had the blow-out and we also needed a new electric heater, our old one had been dropped and made an annoying whirring noise and then it blew blue smoke (there's a theme going on here....)

After visiting the shops, we drove down to Caroline Bay, apparently the most popular beach in the South Island (it's lovely but I think there must have been some parochial voting going on). It looks nice & sunny in these photos but boy was it bitterly cold.  

And as if to rub salt into the wound, I heard a whole lot of noise coming from a group of people near the container wharf in the far corner of the bay.

The mid winter Polar Plunge was about to happen....brrrrr....

...and just as I zoomed in on the people the countdown started and then a roar went up to go as a small group of people clad in a varying array of costumes and swimsuits raced for the water. After a quick dunk under the water most exited it just as fast. Some very brave people indeed!

We did a loop on our way home, taking some of the back roads behind Pleasant Point looking for a couple of places of interest (as highlighted in one of my map books); Hanging Rock Bridge was a non event. But it wasn't until I got home that I realised it wasn't the bridge that was of interest it was the nearby 'Hanging Rock', a huge lump of limestone overhanging the riverbed (which of course I didn't see). Duh! 

But in my defence, the map book did say 'Bridge', if it had left that out I'd have looked further for the Hanging Rock.

I did love the sign that was nearby. Some wag has hung a rock (in it's own little string bag) off the road sign. 

The other place of interest was the Kakahu Kiln...

... a huge lime kiln that's sitting in the middle of farmland and bush out in the middle of nowhere. This kiln was built in 1876 and was used until about 1900. Lime from the surrounding area was burnt- using coal from the area too- in the kiln. The burnt lime was used for agriculture & in the building industry.

Click on the photo to read more about this fascinating industry and why it didn't last.

There is a 3 hour, 8km part-loop track up behind the kiln, it follows part of the old tramway which brought the limestone chip down to the kiln, passes Balancing Rock (they like naming their rocks around here) and finishes at the Pinnacle Lookout. I walked up the track to check the top of the kiln where I could see a small tree growing out of the centre, along with some long grass. I hope they clear the tree before it does any damage.

We decided the 20 minute Escarpment Walk just down the road would be far enough for us today.

We followed the sheep track across the paddock, dodging piles of poo as we went, to the escarpment where huge boulders are scattered like giant's marbles around the base.

Up close the large boulders are mushroom shaped and eroded around their base, apparently this happened thousands of years ago (and I thought it was the sheep). The area is of great spiritual significance to local Maori. I had a quick look for Maori paintings, similar to the ones we were shown at a secret site when we stayed at nearby Albury Station, but didn't find any. There could possibly be some up in the rocks and caves further up the slope but the ground was very boggy so I didn't explore further.

From Kakahu we continued on along the gravel road until we popped back out onto the main road not far north of Geraldine. And then it was a smooth ride home back along the highway with a quick stop at the viewpoint high above the Fairlie valley. The township is behind those trees, centre right.

Lake Opuha, a man-made irrigation reservoir is just 12km from Fairlie, it's very popular during the summer for water sports and fishing and there are also three freedom camping areas, one we stayed at the last time we visited this area (again in the middle of winter). We drove up to the dam face, we hadn't actually visited here the last time. The water was silky smooth.

Below the dam a narrow gorge channeled the water down to a small pond. We watched a car head down the narrow track over the top of the spillway and then diagonally down the face of the dam and along a dirt road to the pond, it returned soon afterwards. I wondered if there was a picnic, swimming area there. We didn't check it out.

We drove back around to the Bennetts Road boat ramp/camping & picnic area and had afternoon tea just as the sun was about to disappear behind Two Thumb Range.

While we were there two locals arrived and unloaded their jet skies. Our peace & tranquility were shattered as they blasted their way around the lake.

Several days later I drove the loop back out to Lake Opuha hoping to shoot some reflection photos in the late afternoon sun, and also find some rolling farmland before the sun went down. Some of you may recall my reflection photos from our last visit, here's one from the latest visit; pretty similar if you check that link. It's a great spot to visit.

On the way home I stopped on the road beside a newly sown paddock that I'd spotted while driving past with David a few days earlier. I loved the rolling landscape and the shadows cast by the setting sun. 

This one is of the farm buildings, how I would have loved to have actually got into the paddock and found a spot where the composition in both photos could have been better.

I did head around to a side road to see if I could get some better shots but unfortunately the sun had disappeared off the front paddock.  Time to head home...

...although I couldn't help stopping for one last photo at the lookout again, just as the sun disappeared behind the mountains.

As I mentioned in the previous blog, we were due to leave Fairlie on Wednesday afternoon, after the last two tyres had arrived from the North Island and been fitted. Unfortunately there was a hiccup with the delivery and they weren't now going to arrive until Friday morning. One whole week from when we arrived in Fairlie.

Which wouldn't have been a problem had word not got to me that due to the severe cold temperatures and a few days of pea soup fog, a hoar frost was building up in Twizel. Darn! Darn! Double Darn!

Just 100km stood between me and my bucket list photo. For four winters over the last seven years I have hoped for a hoar frost, I've captured a few mini frosts but never the big one, the money shot; bright blue sky and white frosted trees dripping in icicles. They have happened but always where we've not been at the time. And because the roads are usually treacherous to drive during the frost you need to be Johnny-on-the spot to be in with a chance.

As we headed out late Friday morning past Mt Dobson (tyres arrived and fitted), I wondered if I was going to be in time.

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

Lake Opuha Reflections

Catch-up, mid June 

A blog short on words, long on photos!

Lake Tekapo township on a very cold and frosty early winter's morning. 

After a very cold night at Lake Pukaki we had an even colder night at the NZMCA Park in Lake Tekapo. It was -5c outside at 9am, a very cold and miserable morning when the sun isn't shining!

I crunched my way through the frost laden grass to the lake. The dozens of water puddles dimpled across the rocky mud flats were frozen solid. 

In the other direction, looking towards the Southern Alps, the mist rose from the warmer lake water. Black Swans & Canada Geese huddled together in groups along the shoreline.

We had stayed hitched up once again so as soon as we had the van ship-shape we pulled out, heading north and taking it very carefully over Burkes Pass in case of black ice. We had another lake to visit, one we hadn't stayed at before but had passed nearby many times, on our way into and out of the MacKenzie Basin.

Lake Opuha is a 700 hectare man made lake built as an irrigation reservoir for the surrounding farmland in the Fairlie basin. The lake is located 12kms from Fairlie and is very popular in the summer for fishing, boating and watersports. There are three freedom camping areas located around of the lake.  

We checked each one out and decided on the Hayes Road camp at the top of the lake. We were once again the only silly buggers camping and had the place to ourselves.

It was very cold and very still outside- perfect for some winter reflections on the lake. (Remember to click the photos to enlarge them.)

The Two Thumb Range separates Lake Opuha from Lake Tekapo.

The sun made a brief appearance through a gap in the darkening clouds, just as it was due to disappear behind the mountains.

The new autumn grass on the  hills across the lake turned a beautiful emerald green in the golden glow.

The golden hour, that hour before the sun sets has the most perfect light for photography.

It's too hard to choose, I love them all!

Half an hour later the setting sun turned the cloud formation above into an amazing ripple of white, gold and grey.

 And then it was gone. A perfect reward for enduring a very cold day.