Back in our Happy Place- Mackenzie Country

 Catch-up

From Poolburn Dam in Central Otago we returned to Mackenzie Country and to our favourite camping spot at Ohau C camp on the shores of Lake Benmore, for some more fishing & relaxation.  

Sunrise, Lake Benmore
And no, that's not David coming home from fishing, he's still sound asleep in bed!

We also had a couple of events to attend and I was looking forward to taking a few more high country sunset photos although I didn't expect to hit the jackpot when the nor-wester made several appearances. 

The Twizel Salmon & Wine Festival is held at the Meridian Rowing Centre on the shores of Lake Ruataniwha on the last Saturday in February each year and because I knew we'd finally be in the area at the right time of the year, we had tickets! 

If you're in the Mackenzie during February mark the date in your diary. It was a great day out with record crowds, fine food, excellent beverages, awesome entertainment and oh so very hot!

Which contrasted terribly with the following weekend in more ways than one. For the first time in it's 28 year history the Goldfields Cavalcade was being held outside Otago. Twizel was the host town & final destination for the more than a dozen horse, walking & mountain bike trails heading in from all corners of Mackenzie Country. 

But sadly the day after the salmon festival (luckily for them), New Zealand went into Covid Level 2 lockdown and disappointedly the public side of the cavalcade was cancelled. Many of the trails were set to leave their starting points so they carried on but without all the fanfare (school & area fundraisers) along the way. In Twizel, Saturday's Grand Parade, market & Hoedown were all cancelled and as if to add insult to injury it rained heavily for much of the weekend as several of the trails finished their rides.

I was hugely disappointed, after attending the Omakau Cavalcade back in 2017 I was looking forward to watching all the different trails arrive & photographing the Grand Parade. I was even more excited as the final camp & holding paddocks were on Glen Lyon Road, just down the road from Night Sky Cottages & some of the trails would be passing the cottages on their way in from Ben Ohau Range.

I did manage to catch Les Beattie's 'Black Hawk Sheep Rustlers' Cavalcade Trail as they rode into a very wet Twizel on Friday afternoon. It was lovely of them to detour past the Twizel Kindergarten to view the children's banners they'd hung on the front fence, welcoming the trails to Twizel. Hopefully Twizel will be able to host the Cavalcade another year.

I photographed quite a few lovely sunrises from the edge of Lake Benmore, right out the back of the fifth-wheeler ...

 And no that's not David either (still tucked up in bed)

On many of the mornings I only had the ducks for company, can you see her? I don't mind them sitting quietly like this, it's when they decide to race each other up and down the edge disturbing my reflections that I get annoyed with them.

I got my own back though when this one waddled out of the water and settled down beside David's drone one day, just as he was about to launch it. I felt a bit mean not letting her know but I've never seen a duck move so fast in all my life! Don't worry, no ducks were harmed & she came right back out of the water demanding food. 

Campers at one of the nearby permanent summer camp sites had fun painting rocks during their holiday break, the red M&M is my favourite.

There were some interesting weather formations; single columns of rain...

White fluffy clouds & reflections...

...and the infamous Nor'wester, which aside from blowing us inside out put on a magnificent display at sundown. You might think that the following shot is from the same evening as the following photos. They're not, this first one is from the night before. 

After watching the cloud formation through the day I thought I'd race up the canals (12kms in the ute) from Lake Benmore to Lake Ruataniwha to catch the sunset closer to where it sets behind Ohau Range and where the sky is more open. I grabbed my gear and struggled, huffing & puffing, up the small hillock behind the NZMCA Ohau B Camp opposite the salmon farm, to wait for more colour. It didn't arrive much to my disappointment.  Although I still managed a couple of half decent shots, and look at all those motorhomers parked down below! 

It was a different story the next day though. This time I didn't leave it until the last moment but headed off to Lake Ruataniwha well in advance or so I thought so. Not so. The colour started changing ahead of my expected timing and I had to stop beside the canal to take this one before hurrying on. If there wasn't a touch of cloud covering her, you would be able to see Aoraki/Mt Cook way off there in the background (don't forget to click the photo to enlarge).

I carried on & made it to one of my favourite spots overlooking Lake Ruataniwha just in time to be treated to an amazing display of Mother Nature's brilliance. It's hard to believe that all these photos (and the one at the beginning with the ute in it) were taken of the same sunset, the colours changing by the minute.  

Sunset- Lake Ruataniwha

Ben Ohau & Ben Ohau Range

If you didn't know better you'd swear the sky was pressing down on you. 

And then as the sun drops further behind the mountains, and nearly as quickly as it appeared, the colour bleaches out and twilight takes over. 

If you get the chance to view it, there's another spectacle of Mother Nature that happens during March & into April each year. Sockeye Salmon head up the many rivers & streams in the Mackenzie Basin on their spawning run. The waterways are literally alive with fish; splashing, weaving in and out & fighting as they try to hold themselves over the shallow shingle banks while they spawn. From a distance the river is full of splashes as they move over the shingle, their fins & tails often out of the water.

Sockeye Salmon resting in a cool pool

Sockeye salmon are an introduced species and the Mackenzie Basin is the only place in the Southern Hemisphere where you'll see this happening. Monitoring over the last few years has put the numbers between 40,000 & 70,000. While on their spawning run it is illegal to catch, net or spear the fish, or even walk in the river bed and trample over or disturb their nests (redds).

These are not the Chinook (King) salmon that most people are familiar with and are farmed in the canals. These are quite small in comparison although there have been larger ones recorded. I took these photos from near the highway bridge over the Twizel River. Here's a short video too, most of these fish are waiting in the still water, they move back over the shingle at various stages.

I returned to see them several times over a few weeks; there were hundreds during the first two weeks in March, their numbers slowly dwindling towards the end of March & into April. It was also quite a sad sight after a few weeks. The fish die after spawning and dead & dying fish littered the river bed & floated in the water, many had worn down fins & tails and bleached backs where they'd been exposed to the sun in the shallow water. I thought there would be plenty of birds (gulls & shags) feeding on the dead fish but they were noticeably absent.

On a lighter note, I spotted this very cute cria (baby llama) with his mother in a paddock as I passed by one day. There's quite a herd of llama here but they don't come near the road that often. The wind was blowing a gale this day & this little guy was very unsure of himself, quickly looking for Mum if she stepped out of sight. Look at those gorgeous eyes & eyelashes, oh so cute! 

And to finish with, here's one more from that dramatic sunset! It's nature just wonderful. 

Exciting Fork in the Road

Real-time (& a belated Happy New Year!)

Well, you may have wondered where I'd got to after my last post at the end of the year. There we were happily camping at Ohau C Camp beside Lake Benmore waiting for the warm weather to arrive and the crowds to leave when...

Ohau C camp, Lake Benmore

...nek minute (actually 21 days later) we're parked up beside Mum & Dads' house, 1000kms away in an unusually wet Napier, on our way to Tauranga.

Instead of spending summer relaxing, exploring, fishing and photographing some of our favourite and more remote South Island lakes; Mavora, Onslow & Poolburn, we'll be ensconced in a dark warehouse for a few weeks. It's time to sort through our furniture & gear which we've had in storage for the last 8 years. And the reason for the sudden need to do this?

Welcome to our new home town! Twizel, heart of Mackenzie Country and the great outdoors.

Mackenzie Country (aka the Mackenzie Basin or Mackenzie District, and yes, it is a small 'k') is in the high country of the South Island, at the foot of the Southern Alps and part of the South Canterbury region. The Mackenzie is close to my heart and one of my favourite areas in all of New Zealand. Which is just as well, as we have purchased a property not too far from Twizel's town centre.

Kelland Pond

And while I say 'home town' that's not quite right because we'll still do our wandering while we rent the property out for short term holiday accommodation.  And then when we need a break from the road we'll be able to put the sign up for a couple of weeks 'No Vacancy'.

Ben Ohau & Lake Ohau

There is so much to do in the Mackenzie District, it's a very busy and fast growing tourist area. The Alps 2 Ocean Cycle Trail passes by our front gate, there's trophy fishing in the canals and three lakes within close proximity and another 4 or 5 lakes within an hours drive.

There's day walks and tramping tracks, birding and boating. The Mackenzie is also an International Dark Sky Reserve which has great appeal to me; Lady Aurora will never be too far away. Of course I'm in seventh heaven with the photography opportunities; magnificent autumn colours, wild flowers (including those love 'em or hate 'em lupins), snow covered mountains, high country tussock landscapes, big blue skies and turquoise coloured canals and lakes. And dare I mention hoar frosts!

I can't believe that I can now say that Aoraki/Mt Cook is in my backyard, just 45 minutes away.

We'll be back in Twizel in early April to unpack the container and then we'll have a little bit of work to do on the property over winter and be ready to hit the road again late winter/early spring.

I will share more information on the property further down the track, in the meantime I am going to try and catch up on some blogs! (New Year's resolution that begins February 1st!).

Lake Ruataniwha

Along the Canals- Mackenzie Country

Catch-up 

Another hiccup has put me behind again- my computer crashed, well not quite crashed, it was hanging on by a thread and we felt it better to replace it and transfer all my files before it did decide to spit the dummy. And with a new laptop- a fabulous HP Omen- & no, I'm not a gamer- I needed heavy duty & a 17' screen- came a new inverter for the van to power it. Which in turn created a few issues of it's own. 

I'm now back up and running thanks to my wonderful computer savvy husband and I'm thrilled with my laptop. The high definition screen is superb, my photos are now crystal clear and even I am amazed at some of the photos! And the speed that I'm able to process photos is fantastic, no making a coffee now while I wait for a bulk lot to download. So anyway here's the next blog, we're still in Twizel.

Now that I had the hoar frost out of the way (until I find another one), I was able to focus a little more on some of the stunning sunrises, sunsets and winter landscapes of the Mackenzie Basin. This blog takes us along some of the canals, the next one will be around the lakes.

Sunset over High Country Salmon Farm, taken from the NZMCA Ohau B Canal camp.

Obviously there's a reason for all the man-made canals that criss-cross the Mackenzie Basin; they feed the hydro power stations which in turn provide much of New Zealand with electricity. And with power stations come the pylons, hundreds of them. So there's no choice but to make them a feature when taking photos around the Basin.

These next few photos were taken from the top of  the hill which I traipsed up and (slid) down in the freezing cold for several mornings in a row while we were parked at Ohau B. 

High Country Salmon Farm and Wairepo Arm, a large pond that is fed from the canal-

Always look behind you when taking sunrise photos, sometimes the colours are just as spectacular...

... and if you have 360 degree views there's a constantly changing colour and light show going on around you.

The sun rises over Lake Ruataniwha, with Ben Ohau (far left) and the Ben Ohau Range behind.

Twizel township sparkles as it wakes to another spectacular high country day. 

And you'll recall I mentioned attempting to do some car tail-light trail photos using the vehicles heading to the escaped salmon canal when my camera battery ran out. Here's another attempt a day or so later. There weren't enough vehicles in the end to give a good trail of red and you can see my shutter speed wasn't long enough because the lights come to an abrupt halt halfway down the canal! 

And here's three last photos from a very intense sunrise, I know it's going to be a good one when I look out in the early morning gloom and see that the clouds are thick and streaky overhead just before the sun pokes it's head over the horizon. 

There's those pylons again, this time looking like space rockets on a launch pad.

The colours start to leach out of the sky by the time I get back to the van but there's still some awesome colour over the top of the two buses parked behind us, and whose occupants are happily snoozing away tucked up in their warm beds, totally oblivious to nature's spectacle happening overhead. 

As the sun rises, the mist lifts from over the canal to reveal early bird fishermen on the other side of the canal. Camping is not allowed along the canals but a lot of people arrive at their favourite spots well before sunrise.

The sun rises over Ohau B Power Station and the early fishermen who passed by me while I was on top of the hill.

And once again from my vantage point above the power station I can clearly see Aoraki/Mt Cook across the Basin.

The curve of the canal below the power station is hot property, it's where most of the early fishermen head to, chasing those elusive escaped salmon.

On this morning I walked along the north side of the canal to the salmon farm, there were a few people fishing along this side too but only the hardy, as you have to walk to your spot and leave your creature comforts in your vehicle back at the gate. Non- salmon farm vehicles aren't allowed.

It's interesting watching the activity at the salmon farms, although usually they are only feeding the fish; throwing out scoops and scoops of pellets over the top of the large nets that contain the fish. But on this day they were netting the salmon and putting them into bins.

I thought they were harvesting them but it looked like they were weighting & measuring them and then putting them into another bin and then back into the main net again. I'm still not sure what they were doing; maybe milking them of roe? But look at the size of those fish, the poor fishermen nearby looked on in envy at the size of them.

Meanwhile over on the other side of the canal, fishermen were still catching the escaped salmon and discreetly as possible preparing them for their chilly-bins. Though nothing is discreet when you have me on the other side of the water! 

A lot of people park their motorhomes and caravans along the canals while they fish, it provides a place to keep warm, have a cuppa or lunch and for partners to relax in while the other half is fishing. 

David's heart wasn't into canal fishing on this visit and he hadn't been feeling too well- although he did fish from our canal and at Lake Ruataniwha a couple of times, though had no luck. I wanted him to at least give the escaped salmon a go, so he humoured me for all of an hour but still had no luck.

Although he did enjoy chatting to a few of the others about their catches or lack of.

I was looking forward to tucking into some salmon of our own but I did had a backup plan...

...buy some frames from the salmon farm shop! I've only ever bought salmon sashimi and fillets from the shop but they are expensive. Thanks to a tip from Colleen, a fellow motorhomer who we  caught up with in Fairlie you can buy five salmon frames for $10 (they actually gave me six frames).

I took the heads & tails off (you could make a lovely broth from them, I didn't bother this time) then halved each frame as they are huge! Then I simmered them in two batches for about 4-5 minutes each (if that), drained and cooled them and then pulled the flesh off which in fact just fell off the bones. I had enough for salmon potato cakes for dinner that night & a fish pie the next with still enough salmon to fill two medium sized freezer bags. A perfect solution if you don't catch any fish (although a little time consuming to prepare).

A canal that I don't mention often is the Pukaki Canal which runs along the bottom of Ben Ohau Range; it is in fact the one that is most visible to the many visitors passing through MacKenzie Country. The canal exits Lake Pukaki near the lookout to Aoraki/Mt Cook and passes under the highway further down the road. 

From there it flows along the bottom of the range, with a canal road on both sides; one sealed and one gravel. Lake Poaka and a basic DOC camp are off the gravel road; a long, steep rocky descent off the canal wall at one end and a shorter version at the other end. 

Towards the end, another canal which exits Lake Ohau  joins Pukaki Canal and they both flow into Ohau A Power Station which is above Lake Ruataniwha.

There's a large river terrace alongside the power station which overlooks the water flow from Ohau A and also the smaller Ohau River which has a bypass at the Lake Ohau dam wall. 

Both flow into Lake Ruataniwha and on past our camp down to Lake Benmore.

 At the eastern end of Lake Ruataniwha and a short walk from our camp is the Ohau River spillway (look at that colour, that's MacKenzie Country colour right there!)

And the historic Old Iron Bridge which looks a little drab surrounded by a monotone of dry grasses and bare trees.

Unlike the time I shot it surrounded by snow back in June 2015.

The pond did have some unusual reflections but I was too lazy to walk down to see them. 

Back at camp, it seems that this is the story of our life at the moment; on our own at many of the NZMCA camp sites. Just as we like it....most of the time.