Finally We Have Snow- Maniototo

Catch-up

From St Bathans we moved just 40kms east to the small Maniototo town of Ranfurly. I was still hoping for my blue sky hoar frost and the weather was certainly miserable enough for it. With bitterly cold temperatures, frosty mornings, snow flurries, dull brooding skies and no sign of the sun for several days it certainly felt like something was brewing. 

That's us, way over there- 'Nigel No Mates'- with the NZMCA Park totally to ourselves all week. This happens to us regularly when we spend winter down South. I'm sure we must be mad and for a short time I did wonder if we were. It really was no fun outside but at least we were toasty warm inside.

I said we had the park to ourselves all week. Well, that wasn't quite true. We did have this colourful character (and his lovely partner Lou) as neighbours for one night. Sean left his trademark rainbow stripes on the water tap post before leaving the next morning. 

While we were waiting for the weather to do something other than be grey and miserable we did a 270km round trip to Dunedin for the day. My laptop had been playing up for a few weeks, it was definitely on its last legs and we were worried it would suddenly crash and then I'd be lost without it for however long it took to buy and set up a new one. So when David saw a special deal on the one he had his eye on, there was nothing for it but to drive to Dunedin. We did a loop driving through to Palmerston, onto Dunedin and then home through Outram & Middlemarch. 

I'm now the proud owner of the latest HP Omen laptop with a 17" screen, which I need for my photo processing. This laptop is used by gamers (video games played online). It's built super tough which is just as well, I'm very hard on my laptops, this is my third laptop in 7 years on the road. For the geeks amongst you it has a 6-core Intel i7 processor, 16GB of memory & a 1TB hard Drive, whatever that means, I just know it's super fast! (and uses a super amount of power too!)

Finally the weather broke and while there wasn't my longed for blue sky hoar frost there was a reasonable dump of snow. Though sadly not in Ranfurly. 

I didn't have to travel too far up the road though to find the white fluffy stuff & a patch of blue sky.

Crossing Idaburn at the top of the Ida Valley.

Ponds and waterways beside the road were not quite frozen over; in this one you can see tracks at the back where ducks have paddled through the ice slurry.

Some paddocks where pristine white, others had livestock patiently waiting for their winter feed to arrive. It wasn't only the farm stock waiting for their food, in one yard I saw a cattle beast carcass on the back of a large trailer. As I approached two hawks lifted off from it. Perhaps it was dog tucker, but the hawks were certainly having a good feed before it was moved. I did get a photo but I won't post it here.

Farm tractors had made a mess of  the snow in the gateways to the farm's silage & hay storage areas.

I drove as far as the Home Hills Runs Road turnoff; the road that lead us on our epic Hawkdun Range journey just four days earlier.

What a difference! I'd have loved to have driven down it a little way but thought better of it.

There are several old buildings at Hills Creek that are great photo subjects and especially when there's snow about. I thought this cottage was unoccupied until I saw a person move past the window (and spotted the new roof when I looked at the photo later). I don't usually make it quite so obvious when I take photos of people's houses.

This stone cottage will be very familiar to anyone who travels SH85 between Ranfurly and Alexandra. There's no chance of missing it, it's front door opens just about onto the road! It would make a lovely cottage if only the road wasn't so close.

And this historic former school house has had a tidy up since I last took it's photo. I guess the next time I stop there'll be someone living in it.

It was time to head for home when a rain storm I was watching at the bottom of the valley suddenly sped up and was heading straight for me.

The next day I drove the loop from Ranfurly to Kyeburn, on to Danseys Pass and back through Naseby to see whether there was any snow out that way. 

Kyeburn Diggings- sluice and dredge sculptured cliffs

Danseys Pass was closed due to snow but there was only a dusting on the Kakanui Mountains which hadn't fallen down at road level. I turned around at the same place we did a few years ago when we were out chasing snow. I wonder if they're the same sheep! 

Kakanui Mountains- 8 August 2019

Kakanui Mountains-  1st August 2015

I drove back through Naseby and thought I'd check out a road to a dam I'd seen when passing it the day before. West Eweburn Dam is at the top of the Maniototo Valley, it sits below the Ida Range and is on the edge of the Naseby Forest. The 6km gravel road was very corrugated so I took the dirt track beside it, as had others before me.

I drove to the end of the track, crossed a ford and even though there was a rough track up to the top of the dam wall, I thought I'd walk the rest of the way just in case I came to grief. From the top of the wall I could see the Mt Ida Water Race winding it's way around the hill on the right towards the dam and then passing below me on its way to Naseby after exiting the dam. 

See the ute? 

West Eweburn Dam was very pretty, and so tranquil with the snow covered mountains reaching down to the water on the far side of the dam.

Someone else thought this place was very special too. A memorial seat was tucked into the corner beside the dam outlet, with a perfect view across the dam. What a lovely place to rest and reflect.

West Eweburn Dam was built in 1898 to store water from the 112km Mt Ida Water Race (the longest water race in NZ). The dam held the water before it continued onto Naseby where it was used by the gold miners. The water race is now used for irrigation. The water exits the dam over a small weir and then through a narrow gap/hole (couldn't quite see) in the rocks.

Relics from the past lie beside the nearby stream. 

I passed by this lovely fellow on my way up to the dam. He was chained to a fence beside some stock yards. There was no stock or people in sight and he jumped up wagging his tail as he watched me drive past and disappear down the road. He was still there an hour later when I came back down so I stopped to say hello. He was very happy to see me but I didn't go too close in case he was scared. 

I felt a little sad for him as it was getting cold & late and he couldn't move much on his short chain.  He'd obviously been left behind while the farmer shifted their stock. Just as I pulled away, a flash mud splattered SUV passed me & pulled in, he was getting a ride home in style.

Ranfurly's weather did improve eventually. Just as it was time to leave and head back to Cromwell. We still didn't have any mates to share it with though. 

As we headed off  back over familiar roads, the Ida Range looked magnificent. The snow so white & smooth on the mountains, just like icing on a cake.

The roadside snow had mostly melted away as we drove back through Idaburn, with Mt St Bathans looking very nice up ahead of us.

The Hawkdun Range was also looking pretty spectacular with it's snow white covering too.

It would have been fun had we been up there when the snow came, we might have frozen our butts off and not have got out for a few days but boy, would I have some great photos!

A Treat at the End of the Road- Central Otago

Catch-up; Late March 2016

Well, I didn't quite get this batch of back blogs done before it was time to pack up the van, say our good-byes once again to Mum & Dad in Napier, and hit the road. We're heading south this time, at a snail's pace. Heading south, back to the South Island for some more adventures but doing a little beach hopping along the east coast on the way. 

So here's the last of the Central Otago blogs from our day trip around the Ida Valley, and funnily enough, this was the one I really wanted to tell you about because we found an extraordinary sight at the end of the day (and at the end of a road).

After a delightful afternoon at Hayes Engineering exploring the wonders of yesteryear we carried on north a few kilometres before stopping at the historic Gilchrist Store in Oturehua for an icecream.

The shop was closed when we drove through here last August so this time I was able to take some inside photos of the general store (after asking of course).

Many of the shelves had grocery items from the past stacked along them.

You could certainly spend a wee while reminiscing and still miss some of the displays which were tucked into all the nooks and crannies. It was actually hard to decide what was for sale and what was on display.

That's now three historic general stores we've visited in the South Island; the other two being Hodgsons of Murchison and my favourite, the Langford Store at Bainham in Golden Bay.

Our next stop was at the site of the old Golden Progress Mine where the quartz reefs of the Oturehua field were worked on and off from 1868 to 1936. The size of tailings left behind suggest that the mine was one of the bigger ones in Central Otago.

I left David in the car reading his virtual paper while I made my way up a narrow gully full of shady poplars. I scared the living daylights out of a number of sheep resting in the shade but not before the first of them nearly tripped me up as it made a dash for freedom up the hill. I would have thought they'd heard me crunching through the leaf litter, I could certainly smell that they were nearby.

A restored miners hut sits near the bottom of the gully where once there were a number of huts and a hotel, the Withers Pub. 

Across the 'lane' from the hut is the remains of the Mine Manager's house.

A track leads the way up to the head of the gully, past the tailing mounds and on to the poppet head and mine shaft.

The 14 metre high poppet head sits over the mine shaft which is 45 metres deep. This is a very rare relic, it's the only poppet head left standing in Central Otago. The poppet head supports wheels which ran steel ropes that hoisted the gold bearing ore to the surface. The metal cage sitting beneath it was used to move miners, equipment and ore up and down the shaft. The boiler powered a winch that pulled the steel cables through the wheels.

This is looking back down the gully from the tramway track where once the ore was carted in trolleys down to the battery to be crushed.

The battery, which was removed to another mine, was once supported by the concrete blocks here and powered by this second boiler. I always find these sites fascinating, reading the information boards and imagining the frenetic activity that would have been going on in this now peaceful valley.

Our next stop was along the straights at the north end of the Ida Valley, to take a photo of the Hawkdun Range. The range made famous by NZ painter Grahame Sydney. I can understand its appeal, it's a fairly uniform row of mountains that stretches like a backbone across the landscape separating Central Otago from the Waitaki District. It looks really impressive when it has a coat of solid snow om it too.

The Hawkduns are on one side of the road and the old Blackstone Hill (aka Hills Creek) School, is set back off the road and tucked into some pines, on the other side. The school which was built in the 1890s and closed in 1949, looks to be fighting for survival. This is one of the few remaining buildings in Hills Creek left over from the gold mining era when there were also 13 hotels operating in the township during its heyday. 

We take the loop road off SH85, there a couple more stops I want to 're-do', we're heading for the hills...

...back to St Bathans and the Blue Lake. I want to see if the scenery and lighting are any different to my last photo shoot of the lake back in early August last year. There's a slight ripple and the sky is just as moody as on our last visit. I'm happy with the first visit shots but I take a couple of quick shots for old times sake...

...and we carry on down the road leaving St Bathans behind. The sun has lit up these 'Badlands' cliffs that border a wide gravelly river bed. They remind me of the Clay Cliffs at Omarama but are not on such a grand scale and also look like the Cathedral Cliffs at Gore Bay in North Canterbury.

We take one last detour (can you hear David protesting?). It's just a short dead-end road to the tiny settlement of Cambrian, the 'Village of Trees'. We've visited it before, it's a quirky & creative little settlement (Grahame Sydney lived there- there's that name again) but I wanted to see if there was anything new now that it's a different season. 

I spotted these old cars in a shed at the end of the road so I take a photo while David is turning the ute around. I hear someone calling out and down the road comes a wily old 'hippy' guy followed by two well toned younger guys who I find out are Woofers. They've been doing some planting and clearing down the road. The old hippy (and he is, he tells me) says he's got something that might be of interest to me seen as I'm taking photos.  

He leads me across a grassy woodland area, around a corner and over a small bridge which crosses a tiny stream and there stretching off into the distant is the most amazing sight...

...a mass of mauve; thousands of false autumn crocuses, aka meadow saffron.

My hippy man proudly tells me I'm the first person to take photos of his flowers this season, they've only come out en-masse in the last couple of days. He also tells me not to tell too many people, he doesn't want his peaceful little village overrun with tourists! So don't go telling him I sent you there. 

Hippie guy has been a very busy man now that he has put down his roots, there's a few hectares he owns at the end of the road and he's converting them all to woodland gardens, and visitors are free to wander. He's planted crocuses everywhere, right up the road edges, in another forested area where on our last visit there were masses of bluebells. 

He tells me he decided the bluebells had to go and he's replaced them all with the crocuses. They do make an amazing display but it seems such a shame that they only last for a short while- a fleeting moment in time. If you are in the area mid to late March do check out this stunning display. And once again we're thrilled to find a hidden gem while out exploring.

As we walk back to the road, I stop to take a photo of the old stone cottage where the Woofers are staying. It's just as well I only had eyes for the cottage because David alerted me to the fact that I might be taking a photo of the stark-naked Woofers who are standing under their outside shower right beside the cottage! And no I didn't mange to get them in the shot....sorry ladies. 

The Complete Ida Valley Loop