May 9, 2008 - Greymouth to Picton

May 9, 2008 – Greymouth to Picton

Weather:  Rain on and off, same with the sun.

 

Today was the longest driving day of the trip so far.  From Greymouth to Picton is slightly over 400 km or about 240 miles.  You normally wouldn’t think of this as a long drive but the early part of the trip is getting back over the Southern Alps and it is rather slow going.  Once you get past them it is a straight shot down to Blenheim and Picton following a river valley and an amazingly straight highway.

 

Upon leaving Greymouth we follow the coast north stopping first at the Pancake Rocks. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi from us!

 

These are very unusual layered rocks that look like they were stacked up but are the result of years of wind and sea erosion.  For any geologists reading this I think they are called dolomite rock.  A worthwhile stop and then just a little further we stop at the fur seal colony.  This year there seemed to be more pups than usual and all in all probably more than a couple hundred.  They are fun to watch – some just laying around sleeping in the sun, a mother nursing a young one, a mother apparently weaning a youngster that seemed a difficult task for both as evidenced by a lot of yelling back an forth, one of the younger seals chasing a weka bird over and around the rocks, and some just playing.

 

 

 

 

Contest - count how many there are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the seal colony Hiway 6 turns inland and over the Southern Alps.  Along the way there is a rest area that we’ve stopped at before to stretch our legs.  This time there was a couple there from Nelson, a town at the north end of the south island and not far from Picton.  They had a strange dog with strange coloring. 

 

 

 

 

As it turned out it was part collie and part poodle.  It turned out that the man was an expert woodworker and had worked on shipbuilding (older sailing ships).  They had worked in a Boston on a project there.  It never fails that you meet some really interesting people in the least expected places.

 

As we got closer to Picton we started going through vineyards.  It is an incredible site with vineyards all the way from the river valley to the side of the mountains.  We drove for miles and miles with vineyards on both sides of the road.  There were thousands and thousands of acres of vineyards.  For the most part other than an occasional odd one all the vineyards were expertly manicured with mowed grass between the rows and with the vines all espaliered in line with the rows.  Just beautiful to see.  A lot of these are new vines just a couple of years old and most also have a rose bush at the end of the row.

 

Everyone arrived safely in Picton and it was another good day.

 

Kiwi Word of the Day:  Brekky  -  Breakfast

May 8, 2008 - Fox Glacier to Greymouth

May 8, 2008 – Fox Glacier to Greymouth

 

Weather:  Started out in rain and fog but ended mostly fine 10C.

 

Two days ago we had gotten on route 6 just outside of Te Anau and we have been following it ever since.  Route 6 is the main north-south highway that crosses over the Southern Alps on the north side of Fiordland National Park and then continues north up the west coast of the south island eventually ending in Picton on the northeast corner of the south island.  It is one of the most scenic highway in New Zealand.  The ocean and surf views along the west coast are especially beautiful.  There are very few straight stretches of highway anywhere on it.  On the Queenstown to Fox Glacier part we always have a contest counting one lane bridges between team members.  Even though the team leaders count may not be right it is the right answer for the contest.  This year the answer was 28.  You have to aim well going across because they are usually quite narrow also.  The interesting one’s are where you share the bridge with railroad tracks also. 

 

The Greymouth Top 10 campground is one the nicest campgrounds that we stay at and is right on the beach.  It has nice showers, laundry, TV room, etc.  Plus it’s just a short walk to the beach as it’s in our back yard so to speak.

 

The Rush’s and Joan and I decided to go on a tour of the Monteith Brewery in town. 

 

 

It took about an hour and a half and was quite interesting.  I don’t think that we’re ready to try making any beer at home however, at least not until we study up a little more.

 

 

 

Joan getting fermented.

 

 

 

The yeast at work.

 

 

 

Sampling takes a while.

 

Afterwards we all went to eat at the Union Hotel which was suggested by the tour guide at the brewery.  They have a good buffet there at very reasonable prices compared to other restaurants we have been to here in NZ.  After we were in the restaurant for a while Joan and I were having feelings of déjà vu and that we had eaten in a place just like it somewhere.  They have kind of a unique way of ordering and delivering your food.  Well, long story short,we had eaten there four years ago.  It was a bizarre kind of feeling until we got it all figured out.

 

All in all a good day.

 

Kiwi Word of the Day:  Rattle your dags – Hurry up!

May 7, 2008 - Queenstown to Fox Glacier

May 7, 2008 – Queenstown to Fox Glacier

Weather:  First half of day mostly fine and then rain and more rain.

 

Today’s drive from Queenstown up to Fox Glacier was pretty much uneventful.  We started out in partial sunshine and ended up in continuous rain.  Just north of Queenstown we stopped at the AJ Hackett bungy jumping center but they were just opening up and no jumpers in sight.  It was cold and gloomy so we didn’t hang around.  Since Joan wasn’t interested and I wasn’t interested (too cold, weak excuse huh?) we headed for Wanaka and points beyond ending up at Fox Glacier.  The trip over Haast Pass was wet and rainy but no snow.  We got into Fox in the daylight and stopped by the glacier but we only walked part way to it.  Way too wet.  We couldn’t get any worthwhile pictures.

 

Everyone arrived safely so it was a good day.

 

Kiwi Word of the Day:  Hottie – Hot Water Bottle

May 6, 2008 - Te Anau to Queenstown

 

May 6, 2008 – Te Anau to Queenstown

Weather:  Mostly Fine, 7C

 

Today we drove from Te Anau up to Queenstown which is a relatively short drive of 166km.  We went directly to the gondola for Bob’s Restaurant and purchased the tickets for the team.  Dawn had already made the reservations for us. 

 

 

Kingston Flyer Locomotive - talked to mechanic about an hour.

 

 

 

Downtown Arrowtown

 

 

Kingston Flyer Car

 

 

 

Lake Wakatipu south of Queenston

 

 

 

Rush's enjoying view of Lake Wakatipu

 

After checking into the campground Roy, Marjory, Joan and myself all loaded into our RV and drove up to Arrowtown which is about a 20 minute drive north of Queenstown.  Arrowtown was a gold mining town originally and is a quaint little town now with a lot of nice shops and an interesting museum telling the history of the gold rush in the area.  You can still pan for gold in the stream there and the story is that a few years ago someone found a nugget that they ended up selling on eBay for $12,000.  We didn’t even try.

 

Later it was back to Queenstown and a trip up on the gondola to Bob’s Restaurant overlooking Queenstown.  It’s a great sight at night with all the lights on in the town.  Of course on the way up you can enjoy watching the paragliders floating down to town and the bungy jumpers that apparently try to jump towards the gondola on their giant rubber band.

 

The restaurant was a little disappointment this year as they were remodeling their main dining room and they had put the buffet and dining into a smaller area and no live entertainment.  They still had a lot of food and very large selection of desserts.  We left overstuffed.

 

Life is good.

 

Kiwi word of the day:  Chilly Bin – Picnic Cooler

 

 

May 5, 2008 - Milford Sound Trip

May 5, 2008 – Milford Sound Cruise

 

Weather:  Beautiful (fine as they say here) and about 6C.

 

As a footnote to yesterdays comments about the Croydon Aircraft Co. I wanted to comment that in the shop there was a bright red Beechcraft Staggerwing biplane having it’s annual inspection.  It was also there last year at this time having last year’s annual done.  The interesting part is that the owner is an American and a retired airline pilot in his early 70’s.  He is going to fly it back to the States by way of Europe and take 2 to 3 years to do it.  Would that be an adventure or what?

 

Today we went on the Milford Sound Cruise.  The bus picked us up at the campground at 9:30AM for the ride to Milford Sound which takes about 2 hours.  It sure is better on the bus than driving the motor homes out there.  Then we take the boat which includes a buffet lunch on board.  This trip the weather was beautiful with not a cloud in the sky.  Coming back in the Sound we saw a lot of dolphins, probably 30 or 40.  We had never seen them on the trip before.  No fur seals this time though.

 

 

 

Joan Searching?

With the weather so nice a lot of the charter planes were flying in and out of the Milford Sound airport.  The planes looked so small flying along the vertical mountain faces that line the Sound.  The airport is at the inside end of the Sound and it appears that there is only one chance at landing straight in.  As we were leaving though it appeared that it may be possible to head into the inside end of the Sound and still be able to make a 360 degree turn and get back out.  Very interesting!

 

 

 

 

 

Milford Sound

Life is Good.

 

Kiwi term of the Day:  Knackered - Exhausted

May 4, 2008 - Dunedin to TeAnau

 

May 4, 2008 – From Dunedin to Te Anau

 

Weather:  Mostly fine day (NZ term) cool, about 7C.

 

What an exciting day it was for me (Wayland).  We had stopped a couple of times before at the Croydon Aircraft Co. close to Mandeville on highway 94 in past years but this year was different.  It’s just past Clinton and Gore by the way heading west.  At Croydon they rebuild any antique aircraft made of wood and fabric from the ground up.  There is a building where they do the rebuilding which currently has about 10 planes in various stages of reconstruction.  They also have a new museum building where they have a number of vintage aircraft on display.  I think that I counted around 4 or 5 DeHaviland Moths and 3 or 4 other twin engine vintage craft beautifully restored.  They have a Fox Moth that was the first aircraft used for mail delivery in New Zealand.  All the finished aircraft there are in perfect condition and are flown.  It is really cool to just wander around in their buildings and look at work they’re doing and the aircraft.  They also have a beautifully conditioned grass airstrip that they fly from.

 

What was different this year was it was Sunday, it was a beautiful day, and they were giving rides in a Tiger Moth biplane.  The Moths were post WWI and used by the Brits for training.  This was the day to go for a ride in a Tiger Moth.  Ryan was the pilot in command and sat in the rear seat and I got to ride in the front seat.  This is an open cockpit biplane so Ryan loaned me a leather sheepskin jacket and a leather helmet with goggles.  Very cool attire.  The only disappointment was I didn’t have a long white scarf. Oh well!

 

 

 

 

 

Ryan got me all belted in and then hand propped the engine, yanked out the chocks, climbed in the back seat advanced the throttle and we started taxiing in the grass. Ryan lined it up with the runway, the tail popped up quickly and off we went.  New Zealand is even more beautiful from the cockpit of a bright yellow biplane flying low.  We followed the Mataura River back to Gore where he gained a little altitude and then said over the intercom those great words “you’ve got the plane”.  I did a few turns and some up and down and then at Ryan’s direction headed towards a low mountain ridge that runs parallel to the river.  Ryan took over again and put us at tree top level along the ridge.  He said that many times there are wild mountain goats to be seen there but none today.  As we were heading back to the airport he put the plane into a shallow dive and then pulled up into a loop and then after going around once went directly into another loop.  What a thrill having never done any aerobatics before.  It’s interesting seeing the horizon disappear beneath you then all blue sky and then the horizon appear upside down, then all earth and then the horizon back to normal.  After that a roll and then down into a right hand pattern, line up with the runway, a slip to reduce airspeed (no flaps), kick it straight, and then a smooth touchdown.

 

 

 

Ryan and I walked back to the office chatting about flying and then he put the time in my logbook and signed it.  I have been taking my logbook along to New Zealand every year with just this sort of thing in mind and finally made it.  It has taken a while to get down to earth and wipe that silly smile off my face.

 

What can I say other than – Life is Great.

 

Will tell about the red Staggerwing at Croydon and pilot in another installment.

 

Kiwi Word of the Day:  Bach or Crib – A small holiday (vacation) home.

 

What could be prettier than NZ sheep in front of the Southern Alps?

 

Our team at the Olive Tree in Te Anau.

May 3, 2008

May 3, 2008 – Oamaru to Dunedin

 

Weather:  Mostly sunny and about 5C.

 

Today was a short drive day with only about 120km to go.  The day was nice for the most part with some drizzle but mostly sunny.  We made a stop at the Moeraki Boulders to view these amazing spherical stone boulders.  Most are about 4-5 feet in diameter with some smaller and some larger.  The Maori legend is that these were the fruit that fell out of their ancestors wakas (large sailing rafts or boats) and ended up on the beach and became petrified.  There is a scientific explanation but the Maori legend is better.

 

 

 

Just south of Moeraki we all took the Trotter’s Gorge side road.  We had great views of the gorge as we drove through.  This also gave a little bit of practice driving on narrow curving roads for the team getting ready for Rte 6 over the Haast Pass and west coast.

 

As we headed on down to Dunedin we started seeing snow along the road.  We had never seen snow here at this time of year before.  The residents are saying that they went directly from summer to winter this year.  We are hoping that the snow holds off until we get our touring done on the south island.  Roy, being kind of a warm weather guy, said that he thought since we were going south it would be warm.  In New Zealand the further you go south the colder it gets and the further north the warmer so we’re hoping for warmer weather on the north island.

 

After getting Jack and Shirley’s LP gas smell problem analyzed we piled into our camper and Jay and Joyce’s camper and took a drive up the Otago peninsula to the Albatross Center.  It’s the only place in the southern hemisphere that you can see albatross nesting that is accessible on land.  They currently have three chicks on nests two of which you can see from the viewing blind and one that is over the edge of the hill that you can watch on a video cam.  The last time we were there we saw three or four adults in flight but this year we didn’t get to see any.  Later we were talking to an Australian lady in the campground rec room and they saw adults flying about 1:30PM.  We weren’t there until around 3PM.  Just like fishing – “you should have been here yesterday, two hours ago, etc”.  There is also a large group of shags that nest there.  They build their nests out of mud and grass and very close to each other closer to the water.  The whole presentation done by the Center is very educational.  If you get a chance look up albatrosses sometime and read about them.  Too lengthy to go into here.

 

Coming back to town we drove through the center of town, through the octagon (the center) and then through the Otago University area.  Earlier in the day someone had driven close to there and got into a large traffic jam because they were having graduation ceremonies at the university.

 

 

 

Life is good.