Queenstown winter festival

As usual we made a last minute decision and on Friday decided to come up to Queenstown for the festivities. Despite there being no snow, there are many people in town and lots of good entertainment, none the least is people watching.  We arrived in time for the very impressive fireworks display on the lake edge, great for all apart from a 3 year old grand daughter who didn't appreciate the very loud thundery bangs as the fireworks explode. The visual was spectacular, the best I have seen for a very long time.  Each day we have walked into town from Rob's which is only a short stroll in to town, today we watched the crazy folk who enter the birdman competition and try to fly off the wharf into the 12 degree lake water. Crazy but great fun to watch. The jetboat racing was fabulous and we were standing far enough away not to get showered in water. One of the smaller jetboats sunk with 5 people and a dog on board which halted the show for a while as they scooped them up with rescue craft.
It's back to work for me tomorrow but Warren plans to stay on to spend the week helping on the building site which is Rob and Tetli's new house.

Stewart Island

We have just been to Stewart Island for the weekend, the first time to the Island for us. Stewart Island is an eco-tourism destination known for its thriving bird and marine life. We left home with Edel and Peter on Saturday morning, a cold windy morning with hail stones still lying thick on the ground from the overnight fall. The comfortable trip across on the ferry took an hour as we motored at 22knots in the Real Journeys catamaran.  On arrival to the motel where we had booked another hail shower hit, this time the hail was horizontal but thankfully brief and the sky cleared for us to take a boat trip across to Ulva Island, a bird sanctuary with very nice walking tracks. No-one lives on the island and so for the 4 hours that we were there, we were the only people there. The first bird interaction was with wekas on the beach. They are flightless birds also called wood hens and about the size of a domestic chicken.  They came running up to us and provided good photographic opportunities for Warren as they showed no fear at all and followed us about.  There was lots of other bird spotting, some birds we had not seen before such as the South Island Kaka, a brown parrot with a grey head which we also saw in the town feeding from the veranda of a local house. We stayed overnight and then after a wander about “town”, a pub lunch and a game of pool we headed home. The ferry trip home a bit more exciting with 50 knot winds through the Foveaux  Strait and a 3 metre swell. How we appreciated being in a bigger boat than Scot Free!

Back home now we plan to settle down a bit for the winter, although this week Warren is off to Queenstown to help build Rob’s new house.

Winters coming

The hail stones that fell through the night are still frozen on the ground this afternoon.  The weather forecast says we should get a high of 11degrees but the temperature display in the car says 1 and in town says zero so it’s a bit chilly!

It’s raining and the locals say if you wait for the weather to be good you will never get out and do anything so yesterday we donned warm clothes and rain coat to go for an afternoon walk on the South coast. The whole idea was to support Peter who has just had his varicose vein surgery and needs to walk.   It was a good walk along the coast and back via a forest road and the hot coffee afterwards was great.   On Friday Warren and I packed our tent and walking shoes and headed out to Hauroko Lake. We had a good walk along the lake edge and part way up to the lookout but we’ve still got a bit of the north in us and we decided late in the afternoon to pack up the tent and head for home, largely due to the rain and cold.

There is still a lot for us to do here and we have plans to head up to Queenstown next weekend for Warren’s big birthday and then the following weekend we are going over to Stewart Island taking advantage of a locals discounted fare offer on the ferry.  We had quite a list of things to do while here and surprisingly we have been here for three and a half months already so we can’t let the moss grow. Having said that DREEEM catcher might not be going far for a while as the ground between us and the road, which is probably 50 metres across the lawn from us, is very wet and soft from the rain. Our house could be settled here til it dries out.

Work is going really well and I am enjoying both the organisation and the people. It is much less stressful and being part time is great. 

Apologies to all who think we have vanished from contact. Our internet coverage is very limited. We find our phone connection variable and of course need the 3G for internet access.  We can still pick up emails and text on the iphone so long as we wait for the signal to come in so you can still get us.  I also check the emails from work but don’t tell them.

Otago Rail Trail

We have just had a fabulous weekend in Central Otago with Peter and Edel Kretschmer.  We left home Friday morning and drove to Clyde, the start of the Rail trail journey.  Cars were parked and baggage labelled for the shuttle to deliver to our accommodation each night, Warren collected the passport for stamping at the stations along the way and we started out on our trusty bikes.  Initially it was quite cool and we hadn’t gone far before some of us added gloves and another layer of clothing. These lasted only until the day and the bodies heated up somewhat.  Those of you who have completed this journey will appreciate the beauty that Central Otago, from what was a previous railway line, has to offer and being autumn the colours of course were really spectacular and reminded us of Wyoming in the fall.

We were very lucky that Peter had booked a perfect weather weekend.  Cool mornings, clear days and no wind.  Since our booking was at relative late notice, our days were longer than some as there is limited accommodation along the way. The trail is 155 kms long. We left Friday and had booked the shuttle trip back for Sunday, “be there by 2pm for loading”, we were told, so we really only had two and a half days.  There were plenty of scenery stops and photo opportunities along the way which doubled as rest stops, during the first 2 days. Cycling through the gorges we went through tunnels, over rail bridges and viaducts and also stopped off at historic sites along the way such as the original site of the E H Hayes engineering works (where every farmers wire strainers were made).

We were very pleased to have spent time training for this and it certainly showed. We “smoked” many of those in front of us each day as we maintained a steady pace.  Sunday we left a bit earlier and were on the trail by 0830. With less scenery on this last 55kms we made very good time and covered the distance in just over 3 hours.  What amazed me was that the shuttle took two hours to drive us back to Clyde!  That really put the distance we had travelled into perspective.

Luckily we had no mishaps along the way.  The bikes and the bodies coped well and the satisfaction at the end was huge.  Our passing message -  If you think you will do the “Rail Trail” one day, you need to get on with it, you won’t be disappointed!

Mack Maintenance

Today Warren finished the water tank repairs. We have had a leak in one of the fresh water tanks for sometime and felt that we needed to attend to it.  The tank is plastic and built to fit around the driveshaft so not an easy thing to get to.  Thanks to true Southland hospitality (special thanks to Neville and Barbara Stirling) we have been able to put DREEEM over a pit, take the tank out, have it plastic welded and return it to it's original position. Warren would say "not that easily" but it's done and now we hold all the water going into the tank instead of loosing lots. We (well Warren) also replaced the radiator fluid with anti-freeze in preparation for colder days.  That means we have spent a few days away from our base in Makarewa but tonight we are back here again, good as new.
Since the last post we have spent  a weekend in Dunedin at the Otago School swimming champs with Gabby. Go Gabby! She did so well!  We  checked out the Cadbury factory while there and also discovered that we know very little of Dunedin so at some stage we will need to go back and explore.  We are only a week away from Easter break and so have been putting in some kms on the bikes getting fit. We will let you know how we go....

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.