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

Moa Creek Cemetery- Ida Valley

Catch-up, late March 2016

A few days after our Upper Manorburn road trip we did another long day travelling a circuit that took in the Ida and Manuherikia Valleys in Central Otago. We'd travelled both valleys on previous visits but there were a few places we hadn't stopped at before, and one place that had been closed which we'd put on our 'must visit on a return trip' list (I have a few of those!). It was a lovely warm late summer's day which also made it much more pleasant exploring. 

Here's the first of a few 'shorter' blogs on the trip (yeah right), we stopped at a number of places and they all deserve their own spot in the limelight.

Moa Creek Hotel (former)

Our first stop was at Moa Creek, we've stopped here and passed by on a number of occasions on our way to Poolburn Dam. The old Moa Creek Hotel stands on the corner of  Poolburn Road. I'd looked for the Moa Creek Cemetery previously but couldn't locate it. This time I wasn't leaving until I found it. 

There are no sign-posts but by scanning the nearby paddocks with my binos, I located a tiny hill with, what looked like headstones on top, with an information shelter roof at the base. Problem though, it was across a large paddock of knee-high (and higher in some places) lucerne with no visible track. 

There was nothing for it but to 'bushwhack' a route through on a more or less direct line, which was fine until I came to a large boggy patch and then a pond, both surrounded by lucerne double the height. I heard a few scurrying noises as I moved through the crop, a duck flew out once, but I tried not to think about what the others might be. Heavy dew made it hard going and soon my legs and boots were soaked. Eventually the soil soured, the crop thinned and was patchy near the cemetery, making it much easier to walk.

After 30 years of neglect and with the threat of the historic cemetery being reclaimed by the land, a restoration project was instigated in 2010 by the descendants of those buried in the cemetery.

Although it would seem that the lovely wrought-iron gate is not stock proof- a pallet protecting the entry into the cemetery!

I hope you can read the information panels- they're not the best quality but I know there's a few people out there who like to know all the background history- hi Dad!  (Click on the photo to enlarge).

As is also the case with many of the early cemeteries, the Chinese had their own section, here it's at the foot of the hill.

Some of the Chinese headstones were located at the Alexandra Museum and were returned to their original positions.

At the top of the hill the graves don't look towards Moa Creek...

... they face north, taking in the magnificent view right up the Ida Valley to the Hawkdun Range.

A wrought-iron fence surrounds the MacIntosh family plot which takes a commanding position on top and at the front of the hill.

Stabilization of MacIntosh Memorial Column was done as part of the restoration work.

Some of the grave sites still need a bit of work and it's a shame the weeds and rabbits have made themselves at home around and under the plots. It'll not be long before the cemetery succumbs to the ravages of time once again.

New Zealand's pioneer families certainly had a lot of heartache.

It's just as well some of the headstones have holes drilled in the stone to form the letters, it looks like a dark filling was then inserted in the letters (which has now fallen out of most of them). It's a pity this wasn't done on a lot of the headstones I've seen at old cemeteries where the words (and history) have long faded away.

I took a few last photos and fought my way back through the lucerne to the road where David was patiently waiting for me.

We headed off, north up the east side of Ida Valley coming across a flock of sheep being moved, along the way.

The dogs were whistled in to push the sheep over to the left and the shepherd called out that we'd be right to head along the verge to get past them. 

Trouble is, once the dogs set about barking, the sheep took off at a gallop and stretched so far out that we had to take evasive action to miss a deep overgrown drain that suddenly sprung up in front of us towards the end. A sharp yank of the steering wheel to the left by 'Possum Bourne' and we just cleared the culvert, very nearly bowling a couple of sheep in the process. 

Leaving the flock behind we carried on up the road passing the historic Ida Valley Station woolshed on the way.

Our next stop was at the famous Idaburn Dam which looked totally different to our last visit when it was full of water and nearly frozen solid.

It was a shock to actually see how shallow the pond was and to even see half a dozen sheep grazing on the surface towards the back.

The ice had started to melt around the edges on our last visit and we were concerned about people walking on it or attempting to skate (we could see recent blade marks). But having now seen the depth, it wouldn't have been so bad after-all if they had fallen through the ice while skating (just cold legs & a bruised ego).

A Frozen Idaburn Dam- August 2015

The Idaburn Dam appears in a number of TV ads and is often shown when there’s a hoar frost in the Maniototo. It’s also the home of the Roaring Game, that ancient Scottish sport of curling and is famous for the Bonspiel, the grand tournament which occurs when (and only when) the ice reaches 14cm thickness. That’s when the Ice Masters put out the call to curlers nationwide to come and play within 48hrs- an event I'd love to capture. Perhaps next winter we'll be somewhere close and I'll hear the call too.