Blogs from Amberley, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania

Onepunga Farm is about 4,000 acres with the mountain behind seen here covered in the southerlie cloud. There is a swath of limestone along one side and the house is built in the valley to avoid the prevailing nor westerly wind. Thats my nephew Zander with me in the old landrover....... read more

We finally bought a car and as a result we also bought a whole load of camping equipment and headed north to Waipara for the weekend of Tim's birthday. Waipara is the nearest wine region to Christchurch, and at less than an hour's drive is an amazing place to have on one's doorstep! We set up camp on Saturday lunchtime at 'Waipara Sleepers' a BBH backpackers where you can sleep in old railway carriages, right in the heart of wine country. After the tent was up and all our other kit was verified as working and being complete we set off for the 25 minute walk to the Mud House Winery for a birthday lunch. Unfortunately, the 25 minute walk was down State Highway 1 and was quite a hairy experience, involving a very long and ... read more

With our first wedding anniversary safely tucked away, it was time to move on in the campervan once more. Today we followed the advice of the elderly couple we had met by the seal colony a few days ago and headed to Amberley Beach where we were promised a campsite with toilets and electricity for just $8 per night per pitch. Could this be too good to be true? On our way to Amberley, we took a brief detour to Gore Bay to see the Cathedral Cliffs which we marked on our roadmap. It took a while for me to persuade Glynn to traverse another gravel road after all the bad experiences he's had with them so far but my perserverence paid off. The cliffs were nowhere near as spectacular as I had hoped but the ... read more