Blogs from Central Otago, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 6

With heater running all night, we awoke next morning to a warm comfortable motorhome. That was until I opened the door and stepped outside onto a layer of lovely white fresh snow, and the temperature touching around minus three degrees. Even though it was so cold, the sun was shining bright causing the snow to melt very quickly. With such a beautiful morning, we were anxious to get on the road early to take full advantage of the magnificent weather we were lucky to be experiencing. After a quick breakfast, we were on our way to Mt Cook. The road out of from Lake Tekapo took us across the MacKenzie basin, an elliptical intermontane basin,lying between towering snow covered peaks. After travelling about 50kms through the basin, we were again gobsmacked as we turned a bend ... read more

CROMWELL Our home for the next 4 days in Cromwell was the Police Holiday Home , as the weather had turned a little bit cooler it was nice to be out of the caravan and staying in a home. It was intended to be a relaxing time but we did manage to get in some local 4WD trips and a trip to Queenstown. The new Cromwell town is situated on Lake Dunstan which is a man made lake as a result of the Clyde Hydro Dam damming the Clutha and Kawarau Rivers. The original Cromwell town was flooded by the dam and the new town was built many meters higher up on the flats. Its a great small modern town with a nice center mall. Nearby the Bannockburn sluicings are evidence of the fact this once ... read more

MT BUSTER AND MT KYEBURN Last year when we were staying at Naseby one evening it turned very cold and we awoke the next morning to a dusting of snow on the Mt Ida ranges behind the Motorcamp, we looked up out topographical maps and tried to work out a way of getting closer to the snow. Mt Buster just in behind Naseby is where it all seemed to have happened, so we rugged up and headed off towards the Mt Ida Range to see how close we could get. On that occasion we stopped at the Little Kyeburn stream and took photographs, but agreed that when we came to Naseby next we would ezplore this fascinating area. In the meantime we have learnt of some amazing gold workings on Mt Buster at about 4500 ... read more

We have had our minds blown by wildlife and the harsh winds hitting the south Island of NZ direct from the Antartic. The Van is still going just about and we are in high spirits. Carrying on from the last entry we gave the new wheels a good old wash down and filled her up with supplies from NZs equivalent to Lidl, PAK N SAVE. On the first day's voyage we didn't get too far from C Church, about 50 KMs to be exact to the Banks Peninsular. It's a mountainous region originally formed from 3 large Volcanoes and makes a marked contrasts to the the super flat land which typifies the region of Canterbury. There are two main settlemets on the penisular. The first Lyttleton is the main port for C Church and was the ... read more

So after a nice two days off with many kms and petrol, we were back at work switching from peaches and apricots to cherries in full swing. With the new direction, we also got new work mates. It could have started off more smoothly; the first two days with the new crew were rendered useless as the graders were not doing a good enough job for export standards. Therefore, on the day we were supposed to have off, Christina and I got to come back to unpack, re-sort, and re-pack all of the cherries. Although very similar, "resort" and "re-sort" have very different meanings!!! It was a great way to get more intimate with the cherries because the first time they go through there isn't really a chance to say 'Hi' to each of them . ... read more