Advertisement
Published: September 20th 2014
It has been nearly 12 months since our last ‘holiday’ and so it is time to recharge the work batteries and take a break.
This time we are off to the South Island and plan a quick circuit of the island starting and ending back in Christchurch and getting as far south as Alexandra for the spring Blossom Festival while staying with Chris and Marilyn(Chris being Gretchen’s brother)
Our dear friends Ruth and Owen turned up at 6.30am this morning to chauffer us to Tauranga Airport in readiness for our flight to Christchurch.
The Bombardier Q300 is no Airbus A-380 which we flew to and from Europe a year ago and we squeezed into seat 13 A & B(didn’t realise airlines still used ‘13’ in their seat numbers)right in the back of the plane, any further and we would have been sitting amongst the luggage. Gretchen quipped that she had never heard of an aeroplane flying backwards into a mountain so the rear seats must be the safest on board!
The climb out of Tauranga was interesting to say the least and as we turned south above our home we both lurched forward to grab the seat
in front of us as the Q300 rose suddenly and then dropped just as sharply.
Once the pilot levelled the plane out the ride became more comfortable although there were ‘lumps and bumps’ all the way until we broke through the cloud approaching Christchurch and then the last 15 minutes were as smooth as.
Everything is close by at Christchurch airport and it was a short walk to the Tiida Nissan rental car and we were on our way.
With a need to carry some groceries with us we had to find a supermarket to stock.
The GPS played ‘dumb’ and couldn’t find a supermarket within cooee of the airport and before we turned right to head west to the Southern Alps and the West Coast.
We were aware of a supermarket in Riccarton and so took a short detour to do the shopping.
With all the essentials in the boot we headed due west and it wasn’t long before we were stopping at the best photo and video spots along the way.
Fresh snow on the mountains made the ever changing scenery around each corner just that more delightful to view and
we both agreed that we would be more than happy to have this scenery with us all the way to our destination making the drive absolutely stunning.
By the time we reached Arthurs Pass our empty tummies were telling us it was well past 1pm and lunch was needed.Howevere we had enjoyed a lunch meal at the historic hotel at Jacksons which is situated about 20 odd kilometres beyond the Pass and we decided to hold out until we reached there.
We took a stop at the top of the pass overlooking the impressive viaduct that was constructed several years ago to take the road away from the hillside that was a regular problem with shingle slides.
As we got out of the car we heard the unmistakable squawk of the Kea, the NZ native parrot, which loves to hop around on the roofs of cars picking at anything it, can get its sharp beak into. Luckily the two birds stayed up on a power pylon while we enjoyed the views and they left our car untouched.
We didn’t hang around too long, for although the air temperature on the Canterbury side of the island was
relatively mild, there was a sharp wind chill at the summit of the Pass and the warm car beckoned as the breeze took hold.
We drove on towards the historic hotel at Jacksons working out between us what we would have for a light late lunch.
How crestfallen we were when we followed a car in front of us, passengers like us ready for a bite to eat in the historic pub, only to discover the place shut up looking like it hadn’t operated for some months.
What to do! In the middle of nowhere, as far as places to eat was concerned, and both of us as hungry as.
So we bought plan B into place and rather than travelling up the right hand side of the Grey River towards Reefton we headed over to the left and made for the ‘big smoke’ of Blackball!
With the smell of coal smoke, from open fires in the houses along the main street into the ‘town’, immediately noticeable when we opened the car door we entered the bar at the ex ‘Blackball Hilton’(the Hilton Chain complained and the hotel had to drop the ‘Hilton’ prefix).
You always know when you stand out amongst others in a strange place and the public bar ‘Blackball Hilton’ was no different..There we were in our tidy Tauranga street clothes and sneakers and there were the locals dressed in their dark green bush shirts, muddy trousers and gumboots.
However we enjoyed the Monteiths beers and hot chips served up niftily in a wire chip basket cradled in last week’s local newspaper. Mind you anything would have been tasty as it had been 9 hours since breakfast and our last food intake!
Although we voted last weekend in the National Election knowing we would be away from home on the day we had also given thoughts to making a special vote on the road somewhere today.
Well, it was probably just as well we did vote last weekend and not leave it until we got to Blackball. A quick look inside the polling booth revealed a complete lack of voters while we were in town. Perhaps it was because the competitor hotel to the ‘Blackball Hilton ‘was having its last day in business today and all the action was inside their public bar.
We were starting to
wilt a bit and yet we still had another 120km to go to our destination for the next 2 nights and so we hit the road again speeding(within the 100kph limit)through the wide Grey River valley past acres of dairy land looking lush and fertile towards Reefton.
We took a short detour up and back down the main street of the town that had the first public electricity in NZ before we entered the lower Buller Gorge and onto another photo stop at the lookout towards the local feature of Hawks Crag, an overhang of rock that proved a challenge for road builders in the area. As you drive under the overhang you realise that the road is only one lane wide and it was just as well that there was no opposing traffic as there hasn’t been almost all the way from when we entered the foothills of the Southern Alps. This has been one of the outstanding features of the day, other than the stunning snowy scenery, the very obvious lack of opposing traffic on the road when compared to what we might experience in driving say from Tauranga to Auckland.
We picked up the key
to the house we are renting at Waimangaroa, at the foot of the Denniston incline, where in the hey days of coal mining, the full coal trucks used to charge down the hillside on a narrow gauge railway from the mine to the railhead just north of Westport.
We have a full size house, much bigger than the one we live in, and all the mod coms we need for what should be a comfortable 2 night stay in the Buller.
Now to settle in and see what the country decides about who will govern for the next 3 years........................................................over a bottle of sav blanc (for us that is)
Advertisement
Tot: 0.094s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 13; qc: 30; dbt: 0.0665s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
KJ
non-member comment
On the road again
Between the brevity of Facebook and the detail of the blog I will have my own virtual holiday with you for the next 10 days!