The Great Escape- Coromandel

Catch-up

Port Jackson did at least put on 4 or 5 days of calm, sunny weather towards the end of our three week stay. But the weather turned to custard once again on the Friday before the long Queens Birthday weekend.

Port Jackson

It rained on and off for most of the day on the Friday and then throughout the night when the wind also joined the party. We pulled the slide out in early on Saturday morning as the wind increased. It was blowing straight down the beach and catching the slide out awning which is sprung loaded; it tends to tug at it and release it with a thump and a bang.

We do quite often pull the slide out in when it's really rough weather, we don't like the stress and strain the wind puts on the slide; it is a relatively large (and long) slide-out compared with some and we have room inside to carry on 'living' so it's not an issue. We also sleep better at night knowing we are fairly stable no matter what the weather throws at us. We've had a few wild rides during our time on the road, none more so than one particular night at Elaine Bay in the Marlborough Sounds.

By late afternoon we were debating whether to shift off the beach site and move to the back of the camp to get some shelter from the small trees but in the end decided to stay put. By 10pm the wind was a howling gale and the noise on the roof from the rain was horrendous. But when we looked outside and caught the horizontal 'rain' in the torch beam it turned out it wasn't rain at all, we were being sand-blasted by the sand off the dunes. We quickly decided to shift before it got worse as real rain had now joined the melee. It was pitch-black outside but we managed to get ship-shape and hitched up within 15 minutes and quickly moved over to trees where we rocked and rolled the night away (luckily David had already packed the Takacat away before the weather changed).

The rain bucketed down during the night and it didn't let up until late Sunday morning. I decided to take a drive down to see how the Pahi Stream had coped with the deluge. The usually gentle flowing stream crosses a shallow ford and flows out into Port Jackson Bay near the start of the camp.

Never mind the stream, what about the ford! It was a raging torrent; and it had already dropped quite a lot leaving a tide line of debris along the grass and across the road. 

The two 'rooster tails' you can see on the far side in the photo above (click to enlarge) and below are the marker posts for vehicles to cross the ford.

As I watched, a couple of fairly large logs and an uprooted small tree went bobbing past and disappeared under the frothing water  at the bottom of the ford.

The stock fence, hanging off a wire across the stream, was taking a beating as the water and debris rushed past on its way to the sea.

Just in case you're thinking "Well, that doesn't look like too much water, I'd be able to drive through it", take a look at this video I did. Pretty impressive huh?  

Down on the beach near the mouth of the stream uninviting waves of  'brown soup' carried some of the debris back into shore.

As I drove back towards camp I though I'd go and see how the other ford was fairing (the one on the way to Fletcher Bay that can cause trouble for bigger vehicles). I stopped on the rise above the beach, to take a photo of the dirty water line creeping across the bay. By late afternoon the whole bay was brown.

It was no surprise to find the Fletcher Bay ford overflowing too. A couple of tourists are stuck on the other side; they've been at the Fletcher Bay camp and were heading back to Auckland. They'll not get through this one today, luckily they have a campervan and supplies and are quite happy staying where they are.

I tell them more rain is due so to cross as soon as they're able to. I leave them kicking a hacky sack about and head back to camp.

The weather forecast for the coming week is not the best with more wind, thunderstorms and heavy rain due from Tuesday onwards. We think we'll leave in the morning (Monday) but decide for sure when we wake up.

The morning dawns fine and calm although it looks like the rain is on it's way; we are in two minds about leaving but in the end decide we'll go. We don't want to be caught up here until the end of the week once the weather packs up. By the time we're ready to leave it's late morning and the rain starts (big fat plops) just as we say farewell to Ursula & Frederick at the camp office. And there's a couple of far away claps of thunder. Ominous signs...

The camp ford has dropped dramatically...

...and we head on through and turn left to head up the long haul to the top...

...when all hell breaks lose! A weather bomb hits directly over the top of us, lightening flashes through the gloom and the thunder booms not a half second later, wind whips around the rig and it's bucketing down; the wipers can hardly keep up.

David has the Ranger in 4WD & low range and it slowly hauls the van up the steep (and now slippery) incline- as dozens of flashes and thunder claps carrying on around us. We get a slight reprieve from the rain as we pass under the trees and then near the top the rain is suddenly replaced by dirty great hail stones! There's nowhere to pull over and David daren't risk stopping in case he can't get away again. 

The relief at finally reaching the top is short-lived as we round the corner and start to head down. We nearly get wiped out by a speeding car. Luckily we're only just moving and have stopped well before she slams on her brakes and skids towards us. She backs up and we shout at her to slow down, the conditions are treacherous. And to put her bloody lights on too!  

The road is awash with rivers of water...

...as we crawl towards the 'big drop off corner'. We round it safely and heave another sigh of relief.

This is the same view on a more pleasant day!

The rain eases a little and the gap between the lightening and thunder grows so we know the storm is moving away. Dozens of dirty brown streaks flow into the sea as old & new waterfalls and streams cascade down the hillside.

David has to avoid several small slips and a lot of debris that has fallen onto the road along the way, and we have to stop to move this fallen branch. 

This ford has reasonably clear water still flowing over it, the rain storm mustn't have hit up in the range above yet, although it's raining lightly down here.

We pass more vehicles coming towards us than we've ever passed on this road before, all heading towards Port Jackson. I know we were mad but I wonder what has possessed all those others to drive to Port Jackson on a day like today- Queens Birthday Monday of course!

The ford before the camp would have been raging again and no one would have been able to drive over it. In fact the woman who slid to a halt at the top of the hill has now caught us up coming back; we let her pass, she still has no lights on and is driving way too fast.

The storm hasn't finished with us yet, it catches us up and it's bucketing down again (along with lightening & thunder). Its the first time I've seen water over this small ford.

But many of the culverts are blocked by debris and the road has started to flood in areas...

There are several larger slips closer to the road end although they look like they might have happened earlier in the weekend. Unless someone is carrying road cones on their back seat.

Finally and with a great sense of relief we reach Colville. Talk about testing our nerve, David did a grand job driving but we both comment that we'd not want to do that trip again in a hurry. Talk about extreme conditions, at least we know we could do it if we did get caught out somewhere. 

And so much for shooting the Colville Store on a fine day. Oh well, I'm sure we'll be back again....just earlier in summer next time.

It rained all the way to Coromandel Town and in fact there was more debris over the road on this last section than we'd seen on the Port Jackson Road. The rain was still torrential as we pulled into the NZMCA Park, the grounds saturated and flooding so we backed in beside another motorhome on the little bit of hard still available. We had a cup of tea and then looked at each other and said 'Bugger this, let's get out of here'.

We pulled out and headed around to the nearby Long Bay Motor Camp, where we'd also stayed on our last Coromandel visit. And where we'd be able to plug back into the grid and not have to worry about our power usage. Generators aren't allowed at the Coromandel NZMCA Park and we were low on energy and with the sun certainly not looking like it was going to show itself anytime soon this was the best option. And in fact we stayed for 6 days in the end, enjoying a bit of sun after the storm cleared.

And we were once again parked up in the perfect spot for some magic sunsets...

From Long Bay we headed back to Mt Maunganui for a few days to catch up with the family.  This time parking in the Ocean Camp section and having the place very nearly to ourselves for the four days of our stay. Hard to believe I know!

Then is was on to the NZMCA Park at Taupo for a few days...

...to catch up with good friends Amanda & Paul who we hadn't seen in a long while. They were heading through to Tauranga for a few weeks.

We were lucky enough to be given a rainbow trout by a passing fisherman, so David smoked it and we had trout and bubbles for lunch. Never mind that it was bitterly cold outside; good food, fine wine and great company were worth the discomfort. Truth be told, neither of us wanted smoked fish smell inside the van; I was still trying to rid ours from the fish I'd cooked a few nights previous.

From Taupo it was back to Napier where we're now parked up on the concrete pad beside Mum & Dads' once again. Once we return from Melbourne we'll stay put as we have a couple of important family functions happening so it'll be a few weeks before we're on the move again.

This'll be the last blog for a short while- travel well, stay safe and keep warm!

Kaikoura- Too Cute for Words

Normal transmission resumes.....

We took the Inland Road from Hanmer Springs to Kaikoura even though the forecast was for rain and snow showers as the alternative route direct to the coast via Waiau was closed on SH1 due to a truck crash and with the driver missing we weren’t too sure when it would open again. The cloud was low, the road winding & wet and we passed a grit laying road maintenance team waiting for the inevitable snow but we managed to get through with just a couple of snow flurries along the way. Unfortunately we missed the fabulous views of a snow covered Mt Lyford and the surrounding range although we did catch glimpses of how low the snow was at various points along the way.

As we drove through a twisty bit of road I spied a sign post for “The Doone Grave”, I let out a yell to stop and my ever patient (suffering) husband managed to pull the rig over further down the road (actually I say "over" but what I mean is "to a stop", we were in a twisty bit and there was no shoulder so he stopped it in the middle of the road on a stretch where he could see oncoming cars.  I ran back up the hill to where I’d seen the signpost and scrambled over a stile and up the hill a little way to find a special gravesite for an little girl called Alice Doone. This was a grave not for a well known settler or famous explorer like others I've seen, this was for an ordinary little girl who died in a tent in the rugged back country wilderness.

The Doone Grave- In 1887 during the construction of the road from Waiau to Kaikoura there was a contractors camp situated on the Whalesback. Willie George was the camp cook, he lived in a tent with his wife & daughter Alice who was 1 year 10 months old. Alice fell ill & before a doctor could be brought from Waiau she died. Rev Campbell, the Presbyterian minister rode many miles over rough country to officiate at her burial on the roadside.

After the camp moved the site was neglected until a Captain AW Owles from Christchurch, who travelled the road frequently on business, made it his objective to raise money to have the grave fenced. Today a stone marks the grave which is enclosed by an iron railing with a post & wire fence surrounding the plot. In 2007 locals took up the challenge to tidy up access to the site so anybody could visit.

In Kaikoura we once again stayed at a NZMCA Park, this time part of the Kaikoura Trotting club grounds which are located in South Bay. Definitely not the best park we’ve stayed in, it was very cold as the sun (when it made an appearance) disappeared behind the large hill in the early afternoon and the snow on the surrounding mountains sent a very chilly breeze down to us at sea level. Can you see the “Out There” poking out from behind the trees on the far right. The one good thing about the site was that the Kaikoura Coastal Walkway had an entry point right beside the site. I took this photo from the steep stairway behind the site.

We went for a drive into town to find that there were black storm clouds approaching from all directions. This was looking out to sea from the Esplanade.

I was hoping we wouldn’t get caught out in the rain as we drove around to Kean Point where I wanted to say hello to the seals again. The reason we are heading north via Kaikoura instead of travelling over the Lewis Pass to the Tasman area was in fact because I want to see the seal pups in the Ohau stream. You’ll remember we missed them on our way south back in November, they had already weaned and gone to sea.

Looking back towards Kaikoura town with the mountain range behind covered in cloud. The cloud lifted the next day to reveal a heavy dump of snow on the mountains.

There was great excitement (from me) as we passed the little pond beside the road just before the point and I spotted half a dozen seal pups frolicking about in the water in amongst the ducks & geese. I hadn’t expected to see any seal pups here but then remembered that I’d read somewhere that seals had started to breed at Point Kean only recently. These pups would probably be around 4-6 months old.

We parked up in the car park as there was no stopping along the pond edge. I ran back along the boardwalk to the pond but not before being startled by a grumbling noise underneath. A troll? No a seal pup that had been sleeping and hadn’t taken too kindly to being disturbed by a couple of girls ahead of me. I stepped out onto the road and he mock charged me. He was a very aggressive little fellow and luckily a little bit too fat to squeeze out onto the verge and road.

A little further on I found more  pups hanging out in a tree right beside the boardwalk, they’d climbed up into the low branches and were resting up after their antics in the water. There were still three or four pups left in the water playing and chasing each other although a couple decided they’d had enough and climbed out just after I arrived. Across the water on the sand bank between the pond and the rocky beach and beneath the scrub were also a dozen or more pups sleeping. A seal pup crèche!

These two pups left in the water were very fast swimmers, racing up and down the pond, turning tight corners at each end and racing each other back to the middle where they’d have a rumble, twirling over & over each other. There were dozens of Welcome Swallows sweeping over the water and each time one came close to a pup, the pup would launch itself out of the water and try to catch it then chase after it down the pond. Just like a pup(dog) or a kitten playing. They were just too cute. I think their eyes must have something to do with it, they are so huge, great big round orbs peering at you.

It was low tide and while I was taking the photos of the pups David had gone exploring out on the rocks. He came back to get me as he’d found a lone pup right out by the waves. There were quite a number of seals out further but most were across a deep channel. A few people were also exploring the rock pools.

It wasn’t long before we located the little guy that David had spotted, he was sheltering under the rocks not far from the surging tide. He was a friendly little chap and we had to keep retreating so he couldn’t  get too close.

And what a little cutie he was, my heart melted especially when he looked at us with those huge eyes. He wasn’t at all afraid and stuck his nose out and moved closed any chance he got. I know they survive well in this environment but I couldn’t help wonder how they manage it, such tiny little vulnerable creatures, all by themselves on the big rocks and crashing seas with marauding male seals about as well.

The mothers are at sea feeding and are gone for 2-3 days at a time, I wonder how they find their pups when they come home. This little guy was very agile climbing up and over rocks, crossing small pools and popping out through gaps in the rocks, all the while checking to see where we were. I wonder where he heads to when the tide comes in and why he isn’t in the creche with the other pups. Perhaps he knows Mum will be home very soon and is waiting at the water’s edge for her.

How big are those eyes! Mind you they look a little scary here.

He looks a little sad here don’t you think?

I could have stayed and shot photos forever, or at least until it was dark (or the tide pushed me back in) but in the end our little mate went swimming in a big pool, disappearing under the bull kelp. We headed back to the car as the dark clouds closed in and big fat spots of rain started plopping all around us.