Pictures from the weekend

Yesterday was one of those glorious fine Southland days where the air is so clear you can see for miles. We continue to explore the region by car doing day trips as we’re not confident yet to take DREEEM out. The ground around us is drying out nicely but there is more rain coming so it’s safer to stay put for a bit longer.

We went to the Riverton car display and craft market on Saturday. Riverton is a small town on the river mouth on the southern southland coast. The car display was of classic cars – maybe a smaller version of “Beach hop”. Well the amazing thing is that classic cars are cars we have all owned in the past. Of course there was a very strong American car theme down here which suited one of more than the other. Sunday saw us heading to the Gore Rhododendron festival, a picturesque craft day set in the block in the centre of town which is the garden. As Gore is the country music capital of NZ (according to locals) the entertainment was really appealing. With the glorious weather  we decided to head back to the Mavora lakes to take some photo’s. You might remember we tried to get in there in the winter and were blocked by the snow. The extra miles took us past the Air museum just east of Gore where we stopped for a quick look and a lovely lunch. The photo of the train is also taken at this site.

Check out some extra photo’s I have entered in previous entries.

Dunedin

We have just come "home" again after a fabulous three day weekend in Dunedin. We have been meaning to explore up that way sometime and this weekend seemed like the one. We firstly went along the northern side of the Otago Peninsula and "discovered" Carey Bay. Of course that meant stopping at the Carey Bay Hotel for a drink. We thoroughly enjoyed the coast road and Aramoana and the Sealion on the sandy beach. We shopped and dined, then visited the Otago Peninsular. The visit through Larnoch Castle was rather over priced but a oncer and the photos and scenery from there were stunning. We went all the way to the Gannet colony at the end and saw nesting birds and some seals. Today we drove home through Lawrence which is a quaint little old town which began as a gold mining town and has free wifi all through the main street as an attraction to tourists to stop. of course we stopped for coffee and wifi.
Photos to follow.

Warming up

Following our 10 days in the North Island we have returned to a much more comfortable climate down here. Spring must have arrived while we were away. We have been able to do away with some of the insulation we have been using to keep the motorhome warm, we’ve opened up the “climb-through” into the cab and that adds a feeling of more space. We also found yesterday that it was warm enough to leave the door and some windows open all day – what a change!

Overall we have wintered the cold better than we thought. Our efforts to insulate the windows, door and pipes have all been worth while. We are well prepared now for future winters, although we do still think that walls on our awning would be a good investment one day.

Work continues to fill most of my week days and so our adventures are weekend based at the moment. We spent Saturday with Edel and Peter doing the Catlins River walk. We took 2 cars so that we had one at each end and walked from one to the other along the river through Beech forest. The walk took 5 hours (including lunch stops) crossing the river 4 times on swing bridges.  It proved to be a good work out for us as we plan to do more day (and maybe longer) walks while down here.  Needless to say we didn’t go far on Sunday.

Trip North

We have just returned from a glorious 10 day trip north visiting family. We flew Queenstown to Auckland and reverse and had a chance to relish the warmth of the sun as well as enjoying the company of all of our family from Auckland, Clarkes Beach, Te Puru, Tauranga and Cambridge. Thanks to all of you who put us up and put up with us. Special thanks to Tony and Claire for the use of "Bumble", the cramper van. He proved very reliable and certainly enabled us to get about.  Our last day's travel started with a walk to the train station from Craig's, the train trip to Britomart, a bus trip to the airport, a flight Auckland to Queenstown where Rob picked us up and then finally a 2 hour car trip home.
Today it's raining in Invercargill - are you surprised, ...and I was given half an hour warning on return to work that I was required to speak to Mr Tony Ryall (Minister of Health) on the Pre-admision project that I have been running here in Kew Hospital. No pressure!

August update

Well we are in the midst of winter here, the ground is very wet from rain / hail / snow and there is little drying from the sun but springs coming. We know this as the days are getting longer. It's no longer dark going to and from work each day.
The bikes and kayak are hibernating but we did get the tramping boots out again last weekend and walked the tracks on the Bluff hill for 3 hours.  We also appreciate the Splash Palace swimming pool in town with a hot pool and sauna, good on cold days.
We have just bought a slow cooker so if any of you have good recipes to share we would appreciate some.
On the first day we put a beef roast in and it was so good, moist and tender and yummy.

Key Summit

We took the road in from Te Anau toward Milford Sound and parked the car in the car park at the divide.  The climb up through the bush was snow packed and several tree’s had fallen across the track making the progress a little slow. Clearing the bush line we came out to a spectacular snowy mountain landscape. We stopped for lunch after an hour and a half and after a short break made it up to Key Summit.  The 360 degree views of the surrounding mountains and lakes were well worth the climb. What an amazing place all made more impressive as we had been lucky enough to pick a clear sunny day with little wind.  Thank goodness we went yesterday as today is bitterly cold here with snow and sleet showers all day.

Sunday drive

What with all the rain we’ve had, getting DREEEM out and about is not possible due to the wet land between us and the road so our adventures are car based for the winter. This last weekend we took a drive to see Lake Mavora which is off the Lumsden to Te Anau road.  Of course we had just had a week of sleet and hail and so it came as no surprise to see progressively more and more snow as we travelled north and higher in altitude.  However, we weren’t expecting to have to turn back within the last kilometre of reaching the shore. The snow was too deep for the woggie car to navigate. It was however a beautiful day and we were impressed with a local Invercargill family, Mum, Dad and 3 kids who were towing and at times winching their caravan in to the lake edge, through the snow and past fallen trees, to spend the school holidays away from the crowds. They had taken two 4x4 vehicles, one with a trailer and a winch and the other towing the caravan in.

We went on to Te Anau to get photo’s for Sue of the Lake Te Anau with snowy mountains in the background only to find the town in the gloom of cloud, fog and smog from all the chimeys puffing away trying to keep the locals warm.

We headed south through Manapouri and on to Lake Monowai which was in the sun and so managed to get a few photo's which I'll load here as the vodem allows. As we drove in to Lake Monwai we had that "we've been here before" feeling and figured that it must have been at least 16 years ago when we hired a camper van for a tour down here. Of course those trips are always fast and you see so much that unless there are lots of photo's you tend to forget much of it.  Never the less, it was very pretty as you can see in the photo and as it was getting late in the day we didn't stay long.  

Next weekend we're off tramping.....watch out for more photo's.