Family & Invercargill

Well it’s been a few days since my last post & while we don’t seem to have done much it’s felt like we’ve been very busy!

We are ensconced in an inner city camp ground here in Invercargill just a short walkable distance from the family(not that we’ve walked yet). The small camp ground is perfectly adequate, set back off the road with tall shady trees, very good amenities & with a few semi permanents down along the back fence which is where we are parked at the moment.

 

 

The hosts are fairly new to the campground and are in the process of beautifying the grounds with plenty of plantings. It’s a very busy park with lots of people passing through it nightly. We yet again got caught out with our satellite dish & TV reception when we first arrived. We backed in to our site straight but unfortunately the neighbours trees blocked us so we had to pull out and reposition, hence the odd angle we are on.  A caravan next door (on our right) left this morning and we’ll be shifting in there for the rest of our time once the lawn has been mowed. 

 

And wouldn't you know it, it's like coals to Newcastle. Right over the back fence is an old abandoned church!

 

 

The family, David’s daughter Rachel, her husband Cameron & the children, Ollie (6) & Ruby(4), were pleased to see us and we were thrilled to finally see them again after 8 months & also see their “new” home & city nearly three years after they shifted down here. It was reassuring for David & great for us to see how well they have settled into life in the deep south, they used to live half a kilometre from us in Tauranga so it was a big wrench for us all when they left.  I love that the kids are rolling their rrrrs just like true Southerners.  

 

We spent the first few days catching up with them, relaxing & getting the van back into ship-shape order. We also did the necessary appointments; hair & dentist (David broke his tooth, & I chipped one) and finished our Christmas shopping. Not long after arriving Rachel & Cameron took us out for a welcoming coffee at the award winning café The Batch (shouldn't that be The Crib?), very pleasant too and then on a mini tour of Invercargill pointing out all the landmarks & places we could visit when we were ready.

 

 

We checked out E Hayes & Sons, a Southland institution & an early version of the department store or as they claim “the ultimate bloke’s tool shop” with something for the ladies too. Located within the store are plenty of old motorbikes, cars, tools etc on display with pride of place being taken by The World’s Fastest Indian, Burt Munro’s bike which  broke the land speed record in 1967  at Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, USA.

 

 

We also visited Ollie’s school and Ruby’s kindergarten. Twice. The next day we went to see Ruby’s Kindergarten Christmas show, what fun that was, sitting on the small chairs with the rest of the parents watching the littlies perform “A Pukeko in a Ponga Tree”. All dressed up as one of the items in the song or holding props that they’d made themselves which represented some of the others.  It was super cute!!

 

That's Ruby in the red twirling her pois

For my overseas readers here’s the lyrics, a pukeko is our native swamp hen, a ponga is a tree fern, kumara a sweet potato….you get the idea (I’ll let you google the rest)

On the first day of Christmas
 My true love gave to me
 A pukeko in a ponga tree 
On the second day of Christmas
 My true love gave to me
 two kumara
 And a pukeko in a ponga tree 

On the third day of Christmas
....
and so on, until... 

On the twelfth day of Christmas
My true love gave to me
Twelve piupius swinging
Eleven haka lessons
Ten juicy fish heads
Nine sacks of pipis
Eight plants of puha
Seven eels a swimming
Six pois a twirling
Five - big - fat - pigs !
Four huhu grubs
Three flax kits
Two kumara
And a pukeko in a ponga tree!

I’d have to say Invercargill is a lovely city. There are lots of heritage buildings from the Victorian, Edwardian & Art Deco eras, with plenty of beautiful old villas & houses too. There are also loads of green spaces including, what must be the jewel in the crown, the very large Queens Park right in the centre of the city. Fortunately for Invercargill, when the John Turnbull Thomson the Chief Surveyor laid out the town in 1857 he had the foresight to set aside 81 hectares (200 acres) of land  for the park. There’s now an 18 hole golf course, animal park, aviary, sculpture park, formal gardens, band rotunda, fitness trail, children’s playgrounds and the Museum which is located near the grand entrance to the park. The city itself is easy to navigate around as the area is very flat and the roads criss-cross each other at regular intervals. So once you get your bearings (David is still working on that one) it’s only a matter of turn right, right, right & you’re back home.

The historic 40 metre high Invercargill Water Tower dominates the skyline, it was built in 1888/89 to support the city’s first high pressure water supply tank. It is still used as a backup for the city’s water supply and able to provide enough pressure should the electric supply to the modern pumps be interrupted. Sadly public admission to the top of the tower was stopped in early 2012 due to the earthquake risk.

We did have a good laugh during the week when David locked himself out of the van while dressed only in his dressing gown. It’ll take awhile for him to live this one down.  I had gone off to town to get my hair done & locked one of the doors while David was still in bed. When he got up he checked & of course it opened from the inside so he thought it was now unlocked. He went off to the shower locking the other door & it wasn’t until he returned that he realised the door I had locked was still locked, from the outside!

There he was with just his dressing gown on, no phone, no key, no undies, and on a very windy day. He sheepishly went to the office & called Rachel from there to see if she could pick the key up from me in town. Not possible, Cameron was out with the child seats in the car & she had the kids. Lucky for him Doug our campground host offered to drive into town and collect the key. You can imagine my surprise when Doug suddenly appeared beside me in the salon- a very flash salon- where I was sitting with colour in my hair and looking like I’d stuck my finger in a power socket. I thought to myself “hmmm….this is not quite the establishment I’d have thought Doug would get his hair done” Doug has wild hair & an even wilder beard! But the funniest thing was that David had to hold the fort in the office while Doug was out. He was wishing like hell that nobody turned up to check-in (or out) while he sat there in his dressing gown stark naked underneath!! 

We had the kids overnight on Saturday while Rachel & Cameron celebrated an anniversary. The kids were also very keen to stay overnight in the “kamprvan” (Ollie wrote this on the fridge diary) and it was hard to contain their excitement. It nearly didn’t happen, on that day at least, as the weather was shocking; cold, heavy rain & lashing winds overnight but it cleared a little in the morning so that was good. First they wanted to take us to the museum to show us Henry(a famous tuatara) & the other tuataras too. The museum has an active tuatara breeding programme & we managed to spot quite a number in amongst the undergrowth. The rest of the museum displays were very well done too & we all had a great time.

Back at the fifth-wheeler we settled in for the night with plenty of DVDs (thank God for DVDs) and the kids had a ball & were very good. We transferred the sleeping kids from our bed onto the beds in the lounge once we went to bed & I laughed when Ruby was telling her Mum the next day that she got a fright when she woke up in the night & “I was in bed in the kitchen!!”

Budding young birdwatchers

Yesterday we all went out to the farm, about 30 minutes away, to put up the tent for Rach, Cam & the kids ready for Christmas night. The farm, a large dairy farm, is where we are going for Christmas Day and belongs to David’s nephew James & his wife Darnelle with their four children. This is also where David’s sister Jackie & husband Bob (James' parents) are parked up in their motorhome (you’ll remember they surprised us at the Newhaven Holiday Park in the Catlins on their way south). We are taking the fifth-wheeler out there to join in the festivities too.  The only fly in the ointment at the moment is the weather, it was very hot the first couple days after we arrived but since then it’s been raining & windy off & on most of the time, and quite often very cold. The forecast says clearing & sunny so we shall see.

After we left the farm we did a side trip out to the coast to a familiar spot, Fortrose, it’s where we had lunch on the Friday we left the Catlins & just before we arrived in Invercargill. As it’s turned out we drove right past the road to the farm and didn’t know it. We wanted to check the freedom camping spot out to see if it was suitable to visit with the family next month for a few days. It was blowing a gale & bitterly cold totally different to the day we had lunch. We drove up onto the headland where the estuary & river mouth entered the sea & it was wild.

We also got a huge shock when we realised we were right on the cliff edge, an edge that looked like it regularly broke away. It was scary & exhilarating all in one standing there getting buffeted by the wind.

The trees tell the story......

As this’ll be my last post before Christmas I’d like to take the opportunity of thanking you all for reading, following & commenting on my blog & hope that you have enjoyed (and will continue to enjoy) your virtual tiki-tour. David & I would also like to wish you and your families along with all our family & friends a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year. Happy & safe travels wherever in the world you may be.

Merry Christmas my friends

 

 

 

 

Wind Farm & the Wairarapa

We didn’t leave last night’s spot by the Manawatu River until early afternoon, we woke to a rather cold & bleak day after yesterday’s brilliant blue sky and warm sun. The cloud hung low on the range above us and the drizzle came and went in fits & starts.  We took our time in getting ready as we knew we only had about 60kms to travel today. David went for another fish until the drizzle became persistent & we were a little worried we might not get good traction in the long grass pulling away from the river bank so we headed off just after lunch, lunch being the time of the day not the meal we should have eaten. As it was we didn’t have any lunch today, we kept saying we’d stop at the next rest area but it didn’t happen & before we knew it, it was late afternoon and then we were thinking about where we were going to stop for the night. Once again we had a couple of places in mind and once again they turned to custard.  

But before we headed south on SH2 we took a small detour up to the top of the Saddle Road, an alternative route over the range to Ashurst & Palmerston North, to visit the Te Apiti Wind Farm lookout. From our camp site down by the river we were overlooked by 3 turbines a little further up the valley & just the blades of another one right above us at the river.

What an impressive sight they were as we wound our way up the Saddle and once at the lookout it was quite a surreal getting out of the ute beneath one of the huge monolithic turbines and hearing the deep “whoop, whoop” of the blades going round. And as if to prove the point that they are in the right spot, a bitterly cold & ferocious wind was whipping across the ridge. All around us marching across the rolling hills were dozens of turbines. 

Meridians’s 55 Te Apiti turbines are on this side of the gorge and cover 12 square kms with another 134 turbines belonging to Trustpower stretching off into the distance southwards, those cover a staggering 700 hectares of land.  The turbines are 70 metres high and each of their 3 blades is 35 metres in length. It was a pity that we didn’t have a nice sunny day & blue sky to view them but we’re fast learning you have to take each day as it comes and make the most of it as we never know when we’ll be back this way.

Further south & well on the way to our next overnight stop there was one stop we had to do for the obligatory photo,  the "World Famous in New Zealand" Tui Brewery at Mangatainoka.

And it wasn't, we drove straight on by.

Blink & you'll miss it. Eketahuna that is. From the far reaches of my memory I recall this was a standing joke that as children we told each other even though my family would have only passed through the tiny country settlement once or twice during our childhood.

And here we are in Eketahuna where we are staying for the next two nights, in a quiet grassy & tree lined District Council campground down by the river. $6 per person per night unpowered, find yourself a site & the manager will be around in due course, he lives off-site. We’ve tucked ourselves into a small grassy alcove with tall trees cocooning us on three sides and a winding mown track through the bush behind that leads down to a rough path along the river bank.

We seem to have the habit of picking secluded spots under or near trees and forgetting that we need a clear view north if we're wanting the satellite dish to pick up TV for us. We decided we could do without it tonight and will move the van around the corner tomorrow.

The bird song is amazing & tonight David took his head torch out looking for birds & found instead, just 10 metres or so down the track, a large possum with her joey riding on her back. Next time I will have to take my camera with me as they did look in spectacular condition and stayed still in the light for quite some time. What a pity they are such pests. 

We are here because our “Bible”, the NZMCA travel directory which as members we have access to, has put us crook once again. The directory lists over 6000 overnight camp sites (& dump stations) up & down the length & breadth of New Zealand and we had selected a couple to check out near Mt Bruce Wildlife Centre, which we are going to be visiting on Sunday. And in fact one of the sites was at Mt Bruce itself but as I soon found out, when I called ahead, the directory wasn’t correct. There definitely was no staying in their back yard! The lady I spoke to suggested we could stay in the ANZAC Bridge reserve just up the road but when we got there we found that it was just a small pull off area behind the trees & with no room for a rather large fifth-wheeler!

 The ANZAC Bridge was built in 1922 by a local resident Alfred Falkner as a memorial to the local people who served in WW1, and also because there was a real need for a bridge at this spot, as fording the Makakahi River could be dangerous after rain. In 1956 a new bridge was built but thanks to local appeals the Anzac Bridge was preserved as a memorial and it's where ANZAC services for the district are held here every April 25th, ANZAC Day.  

There was also another place listed with coordinates about 10kms from Mt Bruce and towards the coast. We thought as we were nearby we might as well check that out so off we drove through narrow country roads until we turned into a metal road with the final destination a couple hundred metres along & what looked like a nice grassy patch inside a small fenced pine plantation. 

Hmmm…..the gate was securely locked and although it didn’t look like part of a farm there was no way in and no way for us to turn around so we continued on until we found a gateway & did a U turn (so manoeuvrable is this fifth wheeler) and decided we’d had enough of traipsing all over the countryside and headed back up the road to Eketahuna & the campground we’re now parked at!

Although we arrived here to be confronted by a few dozen teens in and around the ablution block & out playing ball on the grass along with a few caravans & tents dotted down the far end of the camp. While checking out the rates in the kitchen one of them informed David that they were here to celebrate two birthdays. Oh-oh…a noisy night ahead. When the manager arrived later to collect the fees he informed us that he was staying in one of the cabins to keep an eye on them & that they had been here a couple of years ago celebrating the same birthdays and had been very well behaved. In fact we hardly heard them. That was until a thundering haka rung out at some stage late into the night followed by the loudest firework display I have ever heard. This morning is was all quiet on the Western Front when we left for the wildlife centre at 10am and they were gone by the time we got back later in the afternoon.

The remains of an old swingbridge just behind our campsite