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Published: March 15th 2007
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PICTON TO HANMER SPRINGS VIA MOLESWORTH STATION
Sheryll and I for ages have wanted to drive the Molesworth Station Road which is about 198 Km s long and runs between Blenheim in Marlborough and Hanmer Springs, the road is shingle all the way and is the access road for New Zealand's largest cattle station, "Molesworth Station". Molesworth covers approx 180,000 hectares and is home to New Zealand's largest herd of cattle, the road is only open to the public for a few months of the year.
On Saturday the 4th of March, after packing up the 4WD and loading on our mountain bikes we said goodbye to the kids and left Auckland headed for Paraparaumu to visit with my Mum before catching the Ferry from Wellington to Picton the following morning at 2am.
The Ferry crossing on the Arahura was very smooth, Sheryll was impressed as she does not take kindly to sailing and she hadn't been looking forward to the crossing as past experiences had left he feeling very unwell. We arrived in Picton at 5.30 am and slept in the car until sunrise before moving on, I awoke with a stiff neck and sore back from
sleeping in such a cramped position.
The sun was coming up and the harbour looked beautiful in the early morning
The turnoff to the Molesworth Station is about 20 km s out of Blenheim and we were soon on our way up the Awatere Valley in the early morn.. The trail was originally used by the Maori to travel
from the West to the East Coast and then on down through the Southern Alp's passes.
The mountain ranges on either side of us were huge and we felt dwarfed in the valley..
The road passes several early accommodation houses and the original Molesworth Station Homestead which was built in 1865, it is of a mud brick design and has been restored by the Department of Conservation, we spoke to the ranger there and he told us that in the last year there had been 253 frost's recorded out of the the 365 days. It makes you wonder how they owners and staff managed to keep warm and cosy without the modern methods we now have.
We climbed a hill behind the old cottage to look over into the present cattle yards of the station in time to
see a helicopter take off , no doubt checking on cattle or assisting with some farm duties
After leaving the cottage we were held up for half an hour as a herd of cattle were being moved towards us down the road, he shepherd asked us to wait till they passed, this was a great photo opportunity, though the cattle were a bit frightened by my presence.
The road winds it's way on up the valley towards the top of Wards Pass at 1145 meters which affords a great view back down the valley again.
The next point of interest is the old Acheron Accommodation House, another example of a mud brick house that has been restored. We wandered through the rooms and got a hell of a shock when a possum moved in the rafters above us. There were wild black currant and gooseberry bushes around the cottage and we managed to find the last of the gooseberry crop and had a feed on the porch of the cottage.
The road carries onto Hanmer Springs this time through the Clarence River valley and you have the choice of descending to Hanmer Springs either over Jollies Pass
or Jacks Pass, we chose Jollies as the next morning we would be back on the dusty roads again, this time heading north-west over Jacks Pass into the Clarence River Valley again and on our way over the Rainbow Station road to St Arnaud in the Nelson Lakes Nation Park at the headwaters of the Upper Buller river.
Our accommodation that night was at the YHA Kakapo Lodge in Hanmer Springs
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