Into The Interior- Journey to Edoras; Part 2

Continuing on from Part 1

After lunch at Lake Clearwater we carried on up the valley, we've another 21kms of gravel road to travel before we reach the end of the road.

But..it's not long before I've shouted out 'Stop!' (ever so nicely) yet again. These unusual lines have formed in the sheep tracks as the snow has melted away. I think I've mentioned it before, but you may notice a colour difference sometimes in my photos (see above & below). This is due to the photo above being taken through the tinted windscreen of the ute...and me not having time to adjust them all as I process the photos. 

Our next stop is at a lookout point- it's not an official lookout, but going by the rough gravel pulloff area just before the road drops down into the valley, it's a place that many people stop to take in this breathtaking view (click to enlarge).

Ahead of us is the spectacular braided Rangitata River plain, the Rangitata (which means 'close sky' in Maori), is made up of several rivers that flow from their headwaters high in the Southern Alps, that spine of mountains that runs down the middle of the South Island. The eagle eyed amongst you will spot a hallowed Middle Earth location, the rest will have to return to check it out once they've finished reading the blog post.

The Potts River, contained in a deep narrow valley, sweeps dramatically around from our right to join the Rangitata below us.

It's so hard to get perspective in these huge vistas, here's another pano with the road we've just driven down on the right. It's absolutely stunning scenery!

We carry on and as the road (sealed on this downhill/uphill section) drops to the valley floor I can't possibly shout 'Stop!" again so make do with another shot through the windscreen.

We pass by an old friend, the Te Araroa Trail. We've criss-crossed the trail so many times on our journey through the South Island. There'll not be anybody walking it at this time of the year, there are many places that are inaccessible during winter.

We called in to check out Mt Potts Station, a large farm station nestled below the rugged Potts Range and overlooking the river valley.

Mt Potts also offers lodge accommodation and has tent and powered motorhome sites available too. There's plenty of activities to do for anyone staying. During the winter there's heliskiing or skiing at the Mt Potts skifield, farm tours, hiking, fishing, hunting, rafting, biking or just relaxing and enjoying the spectacular scenery. Unfortunately we wouldn't get 'Out There' up the driveway, the overhanging pines are too low.

There's another reason Mt Potts Station is also popular with visitors, along with it being not too far a walk off trail for Te Araroa walkers to spend a night, it's also home to Mt Sunday.

Mt Sunday, that small brown rocky hill in the centre of the valley has been made famous by Sir Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy and has become the El Dorado to die-hard LOTR fans, a must visit while touring the country.

Mt Sunday was the set for Edoras, the fortress city of the Rohan people in the Lord of the Rings. The Golden Hall and surrounding buildings were built at the top of the sheer cliffs, with the gatehouse and more buildings at the foot. And even though the area was returned to its natural state once filming was finished, Mt Sunday still attracts hundreds of people on a pilgrimage, they come to see it, walk it, touch it, photograph it, and then to go home and be able to say they have journeyed to Edoras.

Unfortunately we didn't have the time to walk to the summit of Mt Sunday, a 3km, 90 minute return walk, we carried on up the road stopping again to take in the views. In this panorama shot you can clearly see Mt Sunday in the middle of the river plain. Mt Sunday is a 'roche moutoné', a low rounded hill of bedrock, left behind by a glacier as it's retreated up the valley.

I couldn't get enough of the spectacular views in every direction; just to stand there and take it all in was breathtaking (not least because of the cold air!). 

The sheer vastness and how remote and untouched it was; we are but just small fry in this land of splendour. I love how the mountains rise so sharply from the valley floor. 

We haven't much further to travel before the road runs out. We're heading to the base of that mountain ahead of us. But first we'll cross Jumped Up Downs, those gentle slopes leading down to the braided river below (I wonder how they were named).

Long before Edoras there was Erewhon, a huge 14,000 hectare high country station world famous in New Zealand, and one of the main reasons why people ventured to the top of this valley. Erewhon's name is a play on the word 'nowhere', and it must have really felt like that when early settlers, and then later; farm managers, shepherds, musterers, shearers and their families arrived to work on the farm.

Samuel Butler wrote in his classic novel Erewhon, a great description of this harsh landscape. "Never shall I forget the utter loneliness of the prospect- only the little far away homestead giving sign of human handiwork, the vastness of mountain and plain, of river and sky; the marvellous atmospheric affects sometimes black mountains against a white sky, and then again, after cold weather, white mountains against black sky”. 

We drove through to the turning bay, I'd have loved to have carried on and seen the homestead and farm buildings but I couldn't twist my conservative other half's arm. I had to make do with seeing some of the Clydesdales the Erewhon is famous for in a paddock beside the turning bay.

The Station runs Merino sheep (the only breed that can survive in these harsh conditions), Hereford cattle, deer and has a Clydesdale Horse Stud.

Most of the Station's tractor work is done with a team of of Clydesdales, all the stock work is carried out on foot or horseback and in this unforgiving environment, horses are quicker to ride places and can cross the rivers even when in flood. In the summer the Station offers visitors accommodation, a backcountry farming experience, wagon or saddle rides and overnight treks up the valley. I'm so coming back here!

We head back down the road pulling over to have a cup of tea at the same spot as before, overlooking Mt Sunday. And why wouldn't we?

Well, David would say because it's too bloody cold, there's an ice cold wind blowing so we rug up with jackets, gloves and hats and rather than sit on the tailgate like usual, we jiggle about trying to keep warm and keep our tea in the cup at the same time. I know it's hard to believe it's that cold when you look at the photos, but believe me it is freezing, perhaps 2-3c with a minus degree of wind chill.

At the far end of the valley, the Rangitata River disappears around the end of the mountains on the left and passes through the Rangitata Gorge. Another famous farm station, and twice the size of Erewhon at 30,000 hectares, Mesopotamia Station is on the other side of the river, centre right. Mesopotamia is at the end of the Rangitata Gorge Road, we've not been that far up the road, making it just past Peel Forest when we explored up that side of the river a couple of years ago.

While we were having our afternoon tea we spotted two vehicles driving along a track heading to the top of Mt Sunday. They belong to a LOTR tour company that is allowed to drive to the rock; the vehicles pulled in behind us when we were at the lookout. It's not long before we see little ants walking about at the top of Mt Sunday.

Mt Sunday gained its name because boundary riders from the surrounding high country stations used to meet there on Sundays for a cuppa and a catch up. Makes perfect sense! 

The cold eventually gets the better of us and we hurry about clearing up before climbing back into the warmth of the ute and head off towards home, stopping one more time just before the lookout so I can get a shot of the Potts River Bridge. You can see Mt Sunday, centre right, way in the background (remember to check out the photos I took at the lookout for Mt Sunday too).

Not far past Lake Clearwater, we do a quick drive-by (in and out) to check out two more of the Ashburton Lakes, these ones are side by side; tiny Lake Roundabout...

...and quite a bit bigger Lake Emma, two shallow depressions in the surrounding tussockland.

I wonder if that's the historic musterers/fishing hut across the water, where the old dinghy was based, the one that's now on display at the historic Hakatere farm buildings.

We had a fantastic day tiki-touring, and if you haven't already guessed it, we thought the scenery was absolutely spectacular. We didn't know it yet but this wasn't to be our last visit to the Lakes.

Mt Peel & the Himalayan Lilies

Yesterday we travelled inland for about 30kms towards Mt Peel and the Rangitata River Gorge. Along the way we passed numerous deer farms, David spotted some ears sticking out of the grass as we flew by a large paddock. He backed up so I could get some shots & the fawn stayed very still just like his Mamma taught him to. And soon after this shot he ducked even further down until just the tips of his ears were showing.

A little further on we passed a herd of deer in velvet (well I'm assuming that is what is happening, all with soft downy antlers) what a sight they were, they looked fantastic all moving in unison back & forward along the fence line. Deer are so highly strung, any movement spooked them this way & that. They weren't at all sure what to do; whether to run or come closer.

 

We stopped & had a look at the DOC camp at Peel Forest. What a great camp site this will be to come back to, the river & good fishing on one side, Mt Peel & many walks on the other. AND powered sites too! Now that is a change for a DOC site. We didn't have time for any walks today though, we were happy exploring by vehicle.

On further up the valley we travelled until we reached the high country station Mt Peel, where I'd learnt that there was a beautiful stone church very near the homestead that I could photograph.  It was gifted to the community by the Station owners back in 1869. We spotted it from the road up on a knoll overlooking the river flats and drove on up to it.

The Church of the Holy Innocents, Mt Peel Station

Sadly it had been very badly damaged in the Christchurch earthquake three years ago and the front stone wall had collapsed. Not only had the stone collapsed but the beautiful stained glass front window had been smashed too. It would have been heart breaking to see the damage after the church had stood for so long. Apparently with a lot of fund raising & generous donations the window is being restored at a cost of well over $60,000. Much of the broken glass, some of it just splinters & shards, was saved by the family and used in the restoration.  More fundraising is needed to repair the church though.

There is a very famous New Zealander buried in the graveyard; Dame Ngaio Marsh well known for her crime writing novels. She was a governess here on the station for many years and kept her ties up with the family until her death.

Mt Peel Station is also very well known for it's lilies. In the forest that surrounds the homestead there are thousands & thousands of Himalayan lilies & they are due to bloom over the next two weeks. In fact there is a fund raising open day in two weeks time where visitors can see the lilies and take a tour through the homestead as well. Something that is very rarely done but obviously when there's a need there's a way.

From what I saw of the flower gardens surrounding the beautiful homestead, we caught a glimpse of it on the drive up to the church, they are very well looked after and manicured. There was also a huge vegetable garden at the rear with built up beds, raised boxes & beautiful bean teepees dotted in amongst it, all very English. And around the outside were the lilies en mass through the trees. The homestead was built in 1865 and it & the station have stayed in the same family for all these years.

The lilies are magnificent, apparently they escaped after a conservatory got blown down and have self seeded right through the forest & bush around the home grounds. What a shame we were too early, I would have loved to take the tour & see the flowers in full bloom.

We drove further on until the road turned away from the river, another 40kms on gravel road and we would have reached the well known high country sheep station Mesopotamia (from a Greek word meaning between two rivers). Now that is one place I would really love to visit, I've added it to my list for next time. Across the river and about the same distance into the mountains is another very well know sheep station, Erewhon (the title is an anagram of 'nowhere').

This is as close as we got to the Rangitata Gorge which was a bit disappointing, we did follow a dirt track past the rafting company across private land but that too got a bit rough so we called it a day and turned for home.

We stopped at one of the river tributaries and had some lunch below the bridge, there was an hour long walk along the stream bed up to some falls but we decided it was too hard going climbing over the rocks & river boulders. The water was low, crystal clear & ice cold.

This big fellow was waiting by the ute when we got back to it. The paddock had about 30 bulls in it, half white Charolais & half black Angus, it looked kind of cool, the two colours together. I wasn't game to test out his temperament by patting him; apparently they are very quiet (yeah right!). And I definitely would not have gone near the Angus, they looked mean.

Historic Peel Forest Hall

River bed flower

 We are now in Waimate...

Ealing & the Rangi

It's been a busy few days & I know you'll be keen to see what we've been up to & where we've been. We carried on south after leaving Christchurch to the NZMCA Park at Ealing, a tiny dot on the banks of a huge braided river, the Rangitata, affectionately know to locals as the Rangi.

And as luck would have it, that's a church beside the Ealing Park

Like it's big brother the Rakaia these two rivers & all their tributaries are the life blood of the district. They provide millions & millions of litres of water for the irrigation of hundreds of farms & thousands of acres that cover the Canterbury Plains.

These rivers are snow fed from high up within the Southern Alps and travel 120kms out to the coast. We found it extremely fascinating checking out all the huge irrigation ponds and canals that criss-crossed the countryside. A very fast canal  ran past the back of the Ealing site just across the road from one of the ponds.

Also across the road was the Ealing Hall & this tree which has ended up in the middle of the road. It was planted in 1943 in memory of a local resident who lost his life at age 24, flying a Lancaster Bomber in WW2.

All roads lead to Ealing; three very straight & very long roads ended on the road outside.

Ealing, with only 3 or 4 farmhouses in view, was a very busy place for a Sunday. In fact for Saturday night and early Monday morning too. For most of the day and late into the night milk tankers roared past Ealing, back & forward they travelled, I would say at least 40-50 passes & probably more each day. There's obviously a dairy factory close by and many farms down the roads that branched out from the intersection where we were. 

On Sunday the milk tankers were joined by dozens of trucks carting hay along with hay baling machinery & tractors. We had a huge hedge between us & the road so it wasn't too noisy; although part of that hedge had been uprooted in the horrendous storm that blew across the Plains back in September. Everywhere we travelled you could see the after effects of the storm, hundreds of fully grown trees blown over or the tops snapped off. In some cases whole plantations & long shelterbelt rows of fully grown trees had been uprooted.

We followed one of the roads alongside a canal and stopped often to check out the workings. No matter in what direction you look there are hundreds of irrigators which look like giant millipedes snaking across the paddocks, some had up to 20 sections attached to them. Some move on wheels in a great arch from the hold down point near the canal, others sweep down the paddock in a long line.

We climbed up the rocky face of a very tall stop bank that we came across to find this humongous irrigation pond in the process of being made. This is just one corner of it; I wonder how many litres it will hold once finished.

Traditionally the Plains have been the main grain growing area of New Zealand and while we have still seen plenty of wheat, barley & oat fields, dairying is obviously making big inroads into the district with new dairy sheds & large herds of cows in amongst the green of the crops.

And it's about here that I should be posting photos of our trip out to the Rangitata River Mouth & especially of the Rangitata Huts; a collection of what I'd call small baches/cribs/one or two room fishing huts. But sadly I cleaned the data disk before downloading the photos! I am so mad with myself. We travelled 24kms, from here at Ealing on the main highway, down  to the beach and then raced a storm back to the site. I also can't show you a picture of the layer of hail on our door mat or the hail banked up on the car wipers or the beautiful full rainbow that appeared after the storm passed by. Maybe next time we're in the area we'll take another trip to the Huts, it's a very rugged, wild & windswept coastline but has a huge estuary which would be great for bird watching & apparently the salmon fishing at the mouth is world famous. It's a 2kms walk from the huts along a spit to the mouth, most of the huts had quad bikes outside, it is very hard walking on the large stony banks.

But I can show you a photo of the wild rose that was climbing along the fence between the site & the little church next door.