Winter Wonderland in the Ahuriri Valley

Catch-up; I don't know, I think I'll give up apologising for the lack of blogs and how out of date they are and just do them when I can. Sorry *hehe*

This blog is from the July 2021, right in the middle of  winter when we visited the DOC camp at the top of the Ahuriri Valley. Oh what fun!

With a few days of winter sunshine forecast for the middle of July, we decided to head up to the top of the Ahuriri Valley for another visit. The valley is located on the north side of the Lindis Pass, about 20kms from Omarama in the Waitaki District.

The Ahuriri River & valley- spot the hut?

We were under no illusions of how cold it might be, the photo on the back of our rig was taken there a few years ago when we woke to a -16c hoar frost.

We were more worried about how Birchwood Road would be after recent snow fall. It’s 24 km of gravel to the camp and the last 4km are not maintained by the council. The first 20kms are not so smooth to travel either but at least there would be no dust.

The road passes through two farm stations, Longslip Station & Ben Avon Station. Birchwood Station used to be at the end of the road until it was returned to the Crown and is now part of the Ahuriri Conservation Park. 

The exclusive 5 star luxury lodge, 'The Lindis', is located on Ben Avon Station, the large steel sculpture at the gated entrance to the lodge makes for a dramatic sight in the expansive landscape as you make your way down the valley. The lodge can't be seen from the road here but if you look over the Ben Avon wetlands on your way back out of the valley you can see the contoured roof of  the lodge nestled into a dip in the landscape. It overlooks the Ahuriri River.

Driving the road was an adventure in itself with mud, snow & ice covering much of it's length and progressively getting worse the further into the valley we travelled. There were many ice covered & water filled pot holes. Some we avoided as it was hard to tell how deep they were or if there was thick mud underneath. 

Others we smashed through, the cracking ice making a satisfying sound as it was spat out the sides of the rig. 

Water flowed off the mountains in random places crossing the road and freezing in amongst the tussock and gravel rock slides creating large ice rinks to cross. 

The Ahuriri River; calm & reflective, meanders its way down through the valley. It's a great trout fishery but it's out of season so there'll be no fly-fishing this time.

Finally we made it to the park, opting to open the gate rather than drive through the last large icy puddle over the cattlestop.

We set up camp right beside the river in our usual spot just as the last of the sun disappeared out of the valley, climbing  Mt St Mary and turning the air from pleasantly crisp to frigid cold. Time to crank up the diesel heaters as the last of the day visitors heads back to civilization leaving us to enjoy the solitude & stillness of the approaching night.

A photo of the photo taken in nearly in the same spot. We met a 4WD vehicle somewhere in amongst the mud & ice as we travelled in and stopped to let him past. The driver had guests on board from The Lindis and he wound down his window to ask if we knew what we were doing & where we were going (David often answers this question with ' We're looking for a McDonalds'), this time we said 'We sure do, look on the back of the rig as you pull away'.  

The crisp winter air makes for crystal clear night skies; here's the Milky Way rising over Mt St Mary. The pink tinge is airglow; luminescence of Earth's upper atmosphere. 

The next day dawned bright & sunny so we decided to head further up the valley, test out David's 4WD skills a little more...famous last words.

We pass the old Birchwood Station homestead & cottage on our way, they're located in that clump of trees (back centre) in the photo above. 

Birchwood Station Cottage

Once through the front yard of the homestead and over the cattle-stop the condition of the road and the accompanying '4WD Access' sign says it all. It's now a 4WD track and ice and snow cover much of it.

We pass the 'Spadeline', if you haven't read the blog link on our first visit which I posted near the beginning, here's the explanation; ....this is the remains of a controversial boundary fence and spade line between the provinces of Canterbury & Otago. The spade line was actually dug out at the time and the indentation is still noticeable in places. The boundary line was drawn using a ruler, it didn’t allow for natural features or the rights of established run holders (and it's still a bug-bear for some people today, I'm regularly contacted by people telling me I've got the wrong province when I mention parts of this area).  

We stop at one of my favourite scenes to photograph; the striking green growth on the edges of a stream that snakes its way across the large wetland to the Ahuriri River. 

And then it's on to the serious stuff; 10kms of slippin' and slidin' to the end of the track; the water, snow & ice getting deeper & slipperier the closer we get to the head of the valley.

There have been several vehicles along the track already; we pull over & wait for a couple of them to come past. 

One couple have decided they can't risk going any further and have turned around and heading back out, another have parked up & the kids are having a snow ball fight. The last kilometre or so is rugged, the track is mostly frozen solid with compacted ice and heads down a long slippery slope towards the river before turning and crossing several water filled rock slides & deep washouts. We're bounced about the cab as we cross over them. 

We stop to talk to a couple of hunters who have pulled over to let us past near the Top Dingleburn hut track. 

They'd stayed at the hut the night before & had been hunting further up the valley earlier in day, they had found no deer but came across a couple of thar near the river on their way back to their vehicle.

Eventually we made it to the end of the road where we parked up and had a late lunch; a very welcome  cup of soup & ham sandwiches!

I thought I might do the 3km walk to Canyon Creek but soon realised that would be impossible, the track was a frozen skating rink with a fast flowing stream tracking along underneath the ice. I tried walking along the edge but the snow covered tussock mounds had me dropping into hidden holes filled with water and ice so I gave that away, promising myself to return and walk the route in the summer.

We head back home trying to remember the course we'd taken at each obstacle or choosing a new direction if it looks better.

Poor David, he was beside himself when we got back & he saw the state of the ute. I mean what did he expect? 

When he hadn't come inside after the sun disappeared, I stepped out to see what he was up to. Spare water pump, two flexi buckets of water and he was washing all the mud off! I asked him if he did realise that he still had another 24kms of mud to travel in a day or two. 

I should have known better, he has been known to get the water blaster & generator out to clean the ute after crossing over some particularly dusty or muddy roads before. 

Molesworth Station

 We enjoyed another gorgeous winter's day before heading back out of the valley (click on the photo to expand). 

While we were having lunch a vehicle arrived and we thought we had neighbours for the night when two guys put up a teepee tent behind us. We commented that hopefully they had plenty of winter woolies with them because the night time temperatures had been dropping to -6 to -8c while we were there. In fact they were doing a photo shoot of the tent for some advertising and were packed up and gone before the sun disappeared. Back to having the place to ourselves!

The next morning (another glorious day) we headed out, back past the icy bogs now not so frozen after a steady stream of visitors to the valley.

Over the frozen rock slides...

...breathing a sign of relief once we reached the Ben Avon Wetlands and the road proper. Just corrugations & potholes to content with for the reat of the journey.

Footnote- we have just spent another fews days up the valley in a totally different season. I'll post that blog next so you can see the comparison.

Winter in the Mackenzie- Part 1

 Real-time

There's something magical about winter in the high country. If you're hardy enough to see past the regular heavy frosts, cold temperatures and odd foggy day, you'll be rewarded with an ever changing view of a stunning landscape. From spectacular sunrises & sunsets to snow covered mountains, big blue skies, crisp sunny days, hoar frosts and magnificent cloud formations, every day is different. 

Sunset- Ben Ohau Range, Twizel

Not to mention the crystal clear night sky. The Mackenzie Basin is one of the best places in the world to view the amazing night sky and winter happens to be the best time to view the world above us. The galactic core of the Milky Way galaxy is visible from the months of February to October in the Southern hemisphere and during the mid-winter months of June and July, the core is at its brightest. If you're lucky you might also see Aurora Australis, aka the Southern Lights, which can sometimes be seen dancing on the southern horizon during the long clear nights of winter.

Fog surrounds Night Sky Cottages

Fog is a regular visitor during the early days of winter when the land is cooled overnight after the warmer days of late autumn & early winter. Fog bows appear as the sun rises and the fog rolls in. I've seen several on our usual travels but this winter I've been lucky enough to see three or four over our back fence. Because fog water droplets are very small, fogbows have very weak colours or no colour at all, this is when a fogbow appears white, they're sometimes called white rainbows.

Fogbows don't last long, they're gone as soon as the fog obliterates the sun & blue sky. 

When the fog clears this is the view we have from our back fence; Ben Ohau (on the right) and the Ohau Range at the rear. Lake Ohau is tucked in between the two.

I did say you need to be prepared for cold temperatures didn't I? We had several days of -11c frosts.

After finding the laundry frozen one morning I purposely hung more out the next night so I could take photos of the frost on the pegs.

And then after some of my Facebook followers told me of childhood memories of clothing snapping in half in heavy frosts, I tried it with a tea towel. It rolled up instead.

The frosts made interesting patterns on spent flower heads, leaves and other items around the garden, including plenty of cobwebs. That made it easy to see where they were to clean them off.

After chasing hoar frosts around the South Island for four of the last five winters, I had my own mini ones right in my back yard! Click the photo to enlarge.

As I've already mentioned, the sunrises and sunsets have been spectacular and so varied. 

Sunset Over Ben Ohau Range

I was setting my alarm to catch the sunrises for a few weeks during the middle of winter, every morning was so different and the colour was often gone within minutes as cloud rolled in or the sun rose higher. The infamous Canterbury Nor'wester provided some fabulous cloud formations (centre left) at sunset.

I held my breath waiting for the first snow to fall around the cottages. And when it arrived (June 6th) I was like a kid in a candy shop. It blew in from the south gently splattering on the window, building up  to a noisy crescendo and filling the window pane with icy crystals. 

It fell for a couple of hours and then by mid afternoon it had melted back into the landscape.

The next snow fall was on the first day of spring (September 1st), this time a little heavier.

Night Sky Cottages

But it too was gone by late afternoon. It's been a very mild winter in the high country this year, the surrounding mountains were looking a little barren until another recent spring dumping.

Snow settles around Kahu Cottage

At 720 meters above sea level, Lake Tekapo usually sees more snow than it's sister village Twizel (at 480m) and just 50kms down the road. When snow fell at lake level in mid June I took a quick drive over to Lake Tekapo to shoot some snow photos. 

The snow was fast disappearing but I managed to get some lovely photos-

'That' Church, sans people- Church of the Good Shepherd, Lake Tekapo

NZMCA Park, Lake Tekapo

And clockwise L to R- Lake Tekapo pedestrian bridge, my favourite Patterson Ponds & Two Thumb Range, the iconic Irishman Station letterbox, top end of Tekapo Canal, where very large fish are being caught and where next year this section of the canal will be closed for fishing during winter, families enjoying their hire motorhomes and fishing the Tekapo Canal and the last one, more from the Tekapo Canal.

I was delighted to come across this huge snow-kiwi while exploring, a clear path led me right to its location. The body had been rolled along through the snow, around a corner and down a slope, picking up everything in it's path including all the rabbit poo!

I love it how I'm now able to claim Lake Tekapo, Lake Pukaki and Aoraki/Mt Cook as being in my backyard.

Sunset over Lake Pukaki 
Aoraki Mt Cook is hidden under the dark cloud at the far end of the lake

I took the following two photos at either end of the same day; the moon sets behind Ben Ohau Range as the sun rises. The pink hue on the snow is known as alpenglow. Alpenglow is an atmospheric optical phenomenon which makes mountains appear to glow in a light pink or red hue. It occurs just after the sun sets or just before it rises.

Pukaki Canal & Ben Ohau Range

And at the other end of the day, the sun sets over Lake Ruataniwha (I'd been to Timaru and back in the hours between).

Lake Ruataniwha

It's not just snow & frosts during winter in the Mackenzie Basin, many days are sunny and settled. These big blue sky days are perfect for reflections on the many lakes and waterways around the high country. These ones from Lake Ruataniwha's 'Lagoon'- 

And this one from Kellands Pond-

Several times during the very cold frosts, the willow trees across the road that line the banks of the Fraser Stream were coated in frost icicles for most of the day. This localized hoar frost looked very pretty but with no blue sky it was hard to photograph.   

Although on one morning I had a hunch that the fog was about to clear so I headed off down the road towards the Pukaki Canal which is at the end of our road. As I neared Ben Ohau Station the fog started to swirl and lift and I was able to capture some of my favourite photos from this winter.  

Ben Ohau Station, Twizel

The station's merino sheep weren't too impressed with being interrupted from their silage breakfast though.

Ben Ohau Station's historic shed

The long grass and fences along both sides of the road were coated in ice; there's more build up when the moisture laden fog blows in over the open paddocks.

Loch Cameron is also at the end of our road, the trees on the little island were coated in frost.

I stopped to take some photos overlooking Fraser Stream from up on the canal road. I live by the motto of  'always taking the photo when I see the shot'. I never think to myself, I'll get that on my way back or after I've finished my lunch etc. Which is just as well.

I followed the canal road along towards Lake Ruataniwha and found a completely different world just 5 minutes down the road. Any fog that had been around had retreated and there were no signs of a hoar frost either. I turned around and headed back home passing Fraser Stream again, the hoar frost now completely gone from there too. 

Ben Ohau & the Ohau River

To be continued- My dream comes true; A Five Day Hoar Frost