Thursday, March 24, 2011

Dog of a Kayak for sale

Well here we are about to start another weekend. Our next few months is going to be a bit more subdued after receiving such a big accountants bill this week. We are still training for the rail trail and coping well with either an hour mountain biking or a 20 km metal bike trail each day.  By Easter we should be good to go.
Lasy weekend we attempted a kayak trip down the Oreti River. We had a stiff southerly wind, on the nose of course, and after 2 hours Warren and I decided that we were too cold and tired to go on. Our kayak was handling like a ferro barge.  We were with Edel and Peter in their slim quick kayaks so they carried on to pick up the car and come back to fetch us. We sheltered on the river bank in the cold for another 2 hours before deciding to start walking toward civilisation. A half hour later we had a short ride with the local cops . They stopped to check out two wet miserable ex-kayakers and promised to come back at the completion of their current job and give us a ride in a warm car to town. However as we walked on and just on sunset, we met Edel and Peter coming back to pick us up.  We were all very cold and tired and we developed a pretty good respect for the water and wind temperatures down here. We are certainly rethinking taking our kayak into the Clutha. We finished the evening with fish and oysters and chips and a port. Very nice.
This weekend will see us in Dunedin supporting Gabby swimming in the Otago champs.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Mack trucks




Weekend photo's





Long Weekends

We have just spent a great weekend with Sue and Peter who are in the midst of their South Island holiday. Last week as I finished work on Wednesday, Warren had DREEEM out on the road ready to head off to Te Anau. Two hours later saw us parked up with Kim and Fred in their POP (Park over property) in Te Anau where we were based for 3 nights. We spent a very touristy few days there. We visited Milford Sound by car as the Homer Tunnel is too low for our motorhome to pass through. We spent a day going over the lake to the Manapouri Power Station ( Eat your heart out Tony!) and we also visited the glow worm caves across the lake from Te Anau.There is much more for us to do around this area and we plan to go back with bikes and kayak one day soon.  Sunday, we came back to Invercargill, visited Bluff and the amazing Richardson Truck museum in town.  Sue and I enjoyed the museum as much as the guys as there were lots of memories there for us with the types of trucks that dad had when we were kids. Reo's, Bedford's, Dodges and even Mack's like the one DREEEM is!  The weather held out well for the whole time and Sue and Peter headed off on Monday to further their travels.
It feels like we are on holiday all the time!  We are planning to ride the Otago Rail trail over Easter weekend with Edel and Peter Kretchmer. That will take us 3 good days and we will take our kayaks as well to kayak down the Clutha River to the dam at Roxburgh. So much to do.....  Obviously we are still enjoying the deep south and all that it offers.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Our first month in Invercargill

Wow, we've been here for 4 weeks already.  We have aclimatised to the weather, (we do wear warmer clothes) it's blowing a howling gale from the north today, similar to the day we drove down here and it's warm. I have to say though that we have had some nice weather as well. We have certainly been using the 4 day weekends to our advantage and have discovered lots of interest down here. As an example, last weekend we took DREEEM up into Central Otago. We had the offer to stay on a property in Wedderburn which is on the Otago rail trail. We spent all of last Saturday at the Ranfurly annual Art Deco festival day which was fabulous. No going home early for us, there was so much going on with parades, locals all dressed in period costume, live music and street stalls. Warren had a go on a penny farthing (successfullly) and we were sunburnt by the end of the day. That night we dined at the Wedderburn tavern which is the one in the photo with our host family.  Sunday had us taken on a 4x4 drive to the top of their 5000 acre farm to admire the view, then some scenic discovery around Naseby and St Bathans, both small quaint gold mining towns.  We must go back for more! We have settled into Edel and Peters back garden and think we will be here for sometime. Edel and I share transport to work and they keep us active on cycling trips (Railtrail planned for Easter weekend), walks and kayaking.