Journeys End

Well it’s all over (for now!) spending our last day in Picton we sat out in the sun and enjoyed the last  few hours of a great holiday.   We have seen some amazing sights and met some wonderful people.   Now we just have the ferry journey to go and again the weather has come up trumps and the sea looks reasonably calm.

Nice Day in Picton

Farewell to the South Island

A few statistics on the trip.   The black lines are where we went.

We travelled a total of 6624 km,   3739km with the caravan on the back.

Total fuel used was 977.67 litres at a cost of $1627 .67 (dearest was Karamea at $1.84/litre!)

Overall accommodation cost was $848.20 at an average nightly cost of $10.09.   We managed that by avoiding motor camps where possible and staying at :

9  x NZMCA Parks, 2 x freedom Camping Areas, 18 x Low Cost Parks, 6 x POP’s, 10 x Motor Camps, 2 x clubs.    (Now try and tell me that NZMCA membership isn’t worth the cost ! ! )

So that’s it for a little while, thanks for following the blog – until next time !

Nearly at Journeys End

Leaving Nelson today for the drive to Picton and the ferry tomorrow.   A distant view of one of the Navy Patrol vessels just entering Port as we leave.  

  The road takes a good few twists and turns as it climbs out of Nelson and over the Richmond Range.   The hills seem endless but finally we descend into the Rai Valley and on towards Picton.   The road signs gave us an overall mileage of 139km but our GPS was about 30km less so we decided to follow that.   It turned us off into Queen Charlotte Drive for a lovely scenic drive along the side of Queen Charlotte sound.   It was very narrow in places and the winding road made the journey hard work.   It would be a lovely trip just in a car but I probably wouldn’t do it again with the caravan on the back.

Arriving finally at Picton we stopped for a quick photo at the lookout and watched the Bluebridge ferry arriving while the Interislander was preparing to leave.

The Trans Coastal was ready to leave (another train trip we would like to do) so we watched that, bought some lunch and had a look around Picton (that didn’t take long) – most of it was shut !

Trans Coastal

The Picton War Memorial

We are staying at a motor camp for our last night in the South Island just up the road from the terminal.   We are leaving on the Kaitaki tomorrow at 1:05 and should be home by 5pm.

Mucking About in Nelson

Another brilliantly sunny day today and we drove into Nelson City for a look around the shops.   We have decided not to do the normal sightseeing things as we intend to return to this area next year and will have a good look at all the normal tourist things then.   So today was a wander through the CBD and a stop for a nice coffee.

We followed this with a visit to Burnsco Marine where I found a good 48 LED outside light for the caravan.   Eventually I will get most of the interior lights changed to LED’s.

Panoramic View of Nelson Inlet

Tomorrow we head even closer to home as we relocate to Picton ready for the ferry on Monday  – we will definitely be returning south next year if we can.

Motueka to Nelson

A pleasant stay in Motueka and somewhere we must revisit at a later date, just a lazy day wandering round the shops after our visit with Terrence and Mavis yesterday.   We had joined the other travellers at the Marchwood Park A&P grounds this morning.

Marchwood Park

This another good stop which has a large number of motorhomes and caravans wintering over in the relatively warm Tasman weather.   The camp is located on the edge of Motueka airport so there is a constant stream of entertainment taking off and flying in.

Dropping in for Tea !

Pauline and I are moving on ahead of the others now and will relocate to Nelson for a couple of nights before catching the ferry home.   We all went out for a farewell dinner at the Motueka Hotel and a had a nice meal and drink or two before meeting back in Robin and Jennys caravan for a drink.

Farewell Dinner

We will miss the company of the others but it is nice that we were able to stay with them for the majority of our trip instead of having to race ahead as we thought we might have to do earlier.

We arrived in Richmond just 10 mins from Nelson and into another Racecourse, another place popular for wintering over and getting quite busy for those enjoying that lifestyle.   Richmond is a lovely satellite town outside Nelson and it enjoys good weather, shopping and a relaxed lifestyle.

Richmonds’s Main Street

Across to Motueka

Yesterday (Tuesday) Pauline and I headed off earlier than the others as we were driving direct to Motueka without stopping at Tapawera which  the others intended.  The  drive from Murchison to Motueka was stunning going through a valley beside the river with beautiful Autumn colours on the roadside trees and a hint of snow on the mountains in the distance.

We had decided to go on ahead to visit our friends who used to live in York Bay in Wellington and who relocated to Motueka some years ago.   Terrence and Pauline and I had many a good time sailing together on Wellington Harbour in either Terrence's trailer sailer or ours.   We duly parked up their driveway and spent the afternoon “jawing” about the good times we used to enjoy when sailing was the main hobby.   Terrence cooked us an excellent roast meal followed by a lovely dessert from Mavis, we were really spoiled.

We have now caught up with the other two travellers at the A&P showgrounds at Motueka.   We are going to go out to dinner tonight as it’s our last night travelling with them.   We need to keep moving to get back to Wellington by next Monday or Tuesday so will move to Nelson for a couple of nights before going to Picton and the Ferry.

Murchison

Yesterday we headed off in not very good  weather and drove back up the valley from Reefton to Inangahua Junction.   This is a nice drive and from there into the Upper Buller Gorge for the trip to Murchison again a nice scenic drive.  Not a lot of places to stop safely through here but we got a good view of the Inangahua earthquake slip up on the hil as we drove through..
Murchison has a very good NZMCA POP located in the town centre with all the facilities available except power on good hardstanding, a credit to the team who put it together.

NZMCA POP 1512 at Murchison

Pauline wandered into the Museum while doing the Laundry in the local laundrette conveniently located next door.

Murchison Museum

We checked out the isite and the ice creams at the cafe – quite good !

Today was a lazy day just hanging around the camp followed by a walk up to look through the local shops.   The second hand shop had to be seen to be believed there was so much stock in there of every type.   A very good hardware/convenience/drapery store completed the walk around apart from a couple of amusing plaques on the wall of the store and local hotel.

  The Hotel took a good hit during the 1929 Murchison earthquake and ended up on a good 18 inches lean until with local ingenuity and no sign of CERA, the EQC or Government  the locals using block & tackle and chains winched it back into an upright position. 

Murchison Hotel (on the Level)            

Pauline has heard from Hutt Hospital that she has to go in for a pre op assessment for her hip operation on 9 may prior to the Op on 31 May so our trip is nearing it’s end fortunately only about a week earlier than intended.   Tomorrow we are heading right through to Motueka to catch up with friends who used to live in Wellington.   The others are stopping halfway to Motueka and we will catch up with them the following day

Through the Buller Gorge to Reefton

Well we’ve finally left Seddonville and headed back, retracing our route to Westport where a good shop at the Supermarket was required and a large diesel refuel.  At last the diesel has dropped to a reasonable level from it’s $1.84 a litre in Karamea!

A nice drive through the Buller Gorge with the river showing good activity after the heavy rain over the last few days.   The overhanging cliffs above our heads were spectacular but I wasn’t able to stop for a photo.   We drove off the main road the 28km to Reefton where we intend to stay at the Racecourse, another POP in the NZMCA Travel Directory.

Into the isite to see whats about and to read the information on forests and mining in the area.

       Reefton Rail Station               Broadway – 1st to See the Light

Reefton was the first town in NZ to get electric light in 1888 after the formation of the Reefton Electrical Transmission and Lighting Company in December 1886.  The scheme involved diverting part of the Inangahua river into a water race at Blacks Point.  It took 20 months to build the water race install the machinery and wire the town.   Total cost was $7000.   After a few trials and tribulations 130 lamps were installed in locals houses by Mid September for 1 pound a time by the local tinsmith. 

Today (Saturday) we went back down Broadway to the Bearded Miners Company, Gavin,Peter and Geoff are “in residence” all year and welcome visitors to their replica miners hut in the centre of town.

 

These gents are quite happy to sit and “chew the fat” on the history of Reefton and anything else you want to talk about.

From there we headed up the road to a cafe where we understood we could get “the best Whitebait Fritter on the Coast”   Unfortunately it didn’t live up to expectations, was quite tasteless and very expensive – nothing like the lovely ones we had in Greymouth at the Wild Olive Cafe behind the Royal Hotel

Tomorrow off to Murchison.

All Dressed Up and Nowhere To Go !

A little disappointing today, we drove to Granity where we had arranged to be picked up by Outwest Tours in their speciality Unimog for a tour of the Stockton Mine, a normally 5 hour tour.  The Unimog duly arrived and we were dressed in hard hats and hi-vis vests and initially headed to the Ngaukawa coal transfer station.

Rosetta our tour guide for today was concerned about a hot smell from one of the wheel rims and called her brother-in-law out for his opinion, the consensus was that there was a problem and after talking to her boss the tour was cancelled.

We were given plenty of interesting information on the coal transfer station

 Ngaukawa Coal Transfer Depot

and the workings of the mine by Rosetta who had worked for 4 years driving trucks up there.  She was a (scuse the pun) a mine of information.  Anyway the decision was made to cancel.   Two of the mine employees offered to take us to the top of the hill in two 4wd vehicles as a consolation so in groups of three off we went.   

The coal is trucked to the top of the aerial ropeway by trucks and dumped into hoppers where it gets washed and reduced to 3 cm bits before being dumped into bins on the aerial ropeway for the journey to the bottom.

Down This Side to the Transfer Station

                 Looking Back from Station 5 to the Truck Dumping Point

Each bin has a capacity of 1.5 tonnes and the ropeway (about 2.5km long) runs 24/7, a lot of coal being moved to the railhead at the bottom where up to 5 trains each with thirty wagons take the coal over the Arthurs Pass to Lyttelton.

So although a little disappointed about the cancellation it was still made interesting by Rosetta and the two mine employees and turned out to be an interesting day after all.

Dawn in Seddonville

Today is ANZAC day and we all got up at 5am to join the thirty or so locals for their dawn service.   The service started some years ago when one of the locals used to climb the short distance up to a set of memorial gates with his daughter to remember his father.

The Seddonville Memorial Gates

He was asked by another local if he would like company each year and gradually over the years it has turned into a regular ANZAC day event with more and more locals attending.

We were assured we were welcome and turned out for the  remembrance service.   It has grown now to have 3 pipers and a drummer who travel up from Westport and a trumpeter from Carters Beach.

The day started crisply cool as we formed up on the road about 500m down the hill from the gates.   We set off behind the pipers and were treated to a nice informal remembrance service at the gates.   Following the reading of a couple of poems the ode and the playing of Reveille we filed back down the hill and returned to the hotel for a welcome drambuie made and supplied by one of the local residents.   This was followed by a lovely cooked breakfast.

A nice way to remember the fallen from all wars.

After another lazy morning  we drove down to the Mokihinui Estuary on another beautiful West Coast day.

Return to Seddonville

After our trip walking around the arches and caves of Karamea we decided today would be a rest day and apart from a quick trip to the shop we spent the day lazing around reading in the sun.  Not a bad day to spend a Monday !

This morning (Tuesday) we return to the Seddonville Hotel for a couple of days where we are going to join them for the dawn service on ANZAC day.   A fairly low key affair here but attended by about 60 of the locals and a bagpiper and bugler followed by a cooked breakfast at the Hotel.

The road back is quite steep, winding and long and before descending to Mohikanui summits at 450m before a sharp descent to the turnoff to Seddonville.

                           Bell Bird                                      Fantail

Didn’t take any photos today (for a change) so here’s some of recent birds taken at Kohaihai at the start of the Heaphy Track