Back Across The Strait With Two Bags of Fish And Chips and Then North to Lawrence

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We are starting to wake up later each morning it seems on this Grand Tour of the South Island and this morning was no different.

However we were awake in time to see the sunrise over the Mutton bird Islands to the east of Half-moon Bay, and it was a stunning one at that with the orange sky throwing a special light over the water of the bay.

As we were in no hurry because our flight out wasn’t until 12.30pm we enjoyed a bit more time in bed listening to the radio and eventually thought we should get ourselves going.

Check out time was 10am but we stretched that a bit as we didn’t think the cleaner would be here bang on check out time and we had explored all there was down in the village.

Checking in at the airline depot which also serves as the Post Office we got to meet the policeman who was left in charge of the Post Office when the person doing the counter took a load of passengers up to the airstrip for a flight at midday.

Then as the van returned with the load of inward passengers it became clear as to why the policeman had been at the depot. Trevor Mallard, Parliament’s speaker and a person under scrutiny from the opposition for comments made under Parliamentary Privilege on Tuesday, got out of the van with a woman we presume was his wife. There was a brief interaction between Trevor and the local policeman and they both went off in different directions. We assume the policeman will now know where Trevor and his wife are staying and can therefore keep any enquiring reporters away. Not that it is likely a reporter will have followed him all the way to Stewart Island given that the media don’t seem to be that interested in his carry-on in Parliament on Tuesday.

We suspect that Jacinda had suggested he get out of town, Wellington.that is and get as far away from reporters that he can until the ruckus dies down.

Our pilot, Fraser, introduced himself as we boarded the van with the three other passengers to be taken up to the airstrip.

Fraser took the front passenger seat in the van and the smell of 2 neatly wrapped bags of fish and chips from the local Kai Kart wafted through the van.

When Gretchen queried him when he would have time to eat them while he was flying the aeroplane he explained that he was taking both packets back to Invercargill Airport with one of the packets being for the pilot that had left half an hour ago. He just hoped that that pilot wouldn’t be ready to return to Stewart Island with another load of passengers before we landed back on the mainland.

It seemed obvious he had done this carting of freshly cooked fish and chips back to the mainland before as he didn’t seem to be concerned that they would require some reheating before being consumed, even with just a 15 minute flight ahead across the strait.

There was no waiting around when we reached the airstrip and we got ourselves into the two seats behind the pilot where there seemed to be much more leg room than the rear seats we had on the way over. A quick briefing on how to get out of the aeroplane followed. Not that we thought what he had said would be of any use to us if the ultimate happened.

It looked to be perfect flying conditions and now all we had to do was get Fraser to get enough revs up to lift off before the end of the tarmac.

With the two packets of fish and chips in the ‘co pilots seat ‘we were off charging down the tarmac and lifting off just metres before the runway ended and the bush line began tumbling down the hillside.

We banked fairly sharply left and it didn’t seem to take long before we were cruising just above the cloud which appeared to be a bit lower than when we arrived into Stewart Island 3 days ago.

One must marvel at the ability and knowledge a person requires to be a pilot and especially one who doesn’t have a co-pilot to help him out reading all the dials and making sure everything on the dashboard is as it should be.

As we crossed the coastline we felt that in an emergency landing we would or might stand a better chance than coming down in the strait although landing on even one of the many straight roads didn’t look to be an option given that most of those roads were lined with trees which would probably well and truly rip the wings off.

Before we knew it the Invercargill Airport runway was ahead of us after dropping speed we made a smooth landing and taxied to where we could get off in front of the terminal building.

Fraser said that because an Air NZ jet was at the other gate he had to guide us into the terminal and with that he disappeared with his two packets of fish and chips under his arm.

It is odd that even after just 3 days away from our parked car in the airport car park that we weren’t too sure which row it was in, not that the rows had a number or a letter on them making identification easier.

Once the Corolla was located and we packed the suitcases into the boot we were off on our way north to our next overnight stay in Lawrence.

Finding our way out of the city was easy with all of the main roads being long and straight and with Highway 1 under our wheels we quickly cleared the outer suburbs of Invercargill and were motoring along under clear skies with the idea to have a coffee stop in Gore, an hour or so up the highway.

On our way and approaching Edendale there seemed to be a bit of air pollution that wasn’t down to the overhead weather and after passing the large and impressive dairy factory it became evident what was making the atmosphere smoky. There was a large burn off in a paddock near Mataura and the northerly breeze was pushing the smoke south along the wide fertile valley that the highway ran through.

As we drove into Gore we found a café just adjacent to the Flemings mill established in 1878 and still has the painted figure of Sergeant Dan emboldened on the wall 3 stories high.Stg Dan was created by the Fleming family in 1920 for the Creamoata porridge made from local oats and sold throughout NZ.Today the brand is owned by Nestle and Creamoata is no longer made although they do turn out something similar under Uncle Toby’s in Australia. However it was great to see that this icon still remains on the factory wall despite the building looking a bit worse for wear.

With another couple of cheese rolls under our belt and a coffee top up we set off from Gore still on Highway 1 for a few kilometres until we turned left onto the even more rural road than Highway 1 had seemed, onto Highway 90 with Raes Junction the next point to make a turn.

After the relatively flat run from Invercargill to Gore the road became more undulating with the Blue Mountains out to our left as we approached Tapanui.

The name Tapanui might not mean a lot being a small farming community in Northern Southland but it does have a similarity to the current COVID19 scourge in that in the 1980’s a number of locals in the town suffered mysterious flu like symptoms and the condition known as ‘Tapanui Flu ‘was born.

At Raes Junction we turned right onto Highway 8 and sort of headed back on ourselves to the Otago town of Lawrence arriving while there was still some daylight for us to find our accommodation up on the hill overlooking the town.

There were two reasons for making Lawrence an overnight stop. First it was about half way to Lake Tekapo, our next destination, and also because this is Gretchen’s ancestral base as one side of her Scottish heritage family built a home here in the late 1800’s and it had recently left the family ownership as there was no one left of the family owners in the area to try and maintain the home which was in serious disrepair and a very large piece of land that needed to be cared for.

Before it got dark we took a quick drive by and were very pleased to see that the new local owners look like they have started a restoration of the house even though it will be a long job. They had also cleared much of the undergrowth on the section to make access easier.

There was no one around but we will call back tomorrow just in case there is someone to talk to and find out what is planned.

We ended the day with dinner with the locals in the public bar of the Coach and Horses on the main street of the town.

All in all it had been a long day and we were ready for a good nights sleep.

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