Pix & Travels » Ingrid's Blog

OK what can I say?  It has been an absolute ‘slacko’ day.  We decided to absolutely chill out here and do absolutely zilch.  We only walked up on the hill overlooking the sea.  There we both tried to capture more birds in flight.  Then, of course, yours truly here, spent more time with the Alpacas.  They were not as accommodating today as yesterday.  Shame.  So I dug out the macro lens and walked around the garden.  Plenty of flowers in bloom now.  First day of Summer!

Then after washing clothes, laze about, Terry having another sleep – we finally decided to go out.  Yes, a whole 800 metres up the road and walk to the beach.  There we spent some time patting every dog that walked past us and capture some seagulls, people on the beach.  It was a hot and sunny day today, so hot in fact, that we had to peel our clothes off.

Making our way to another sheep/cattle station, this time near Kurow tomorrow.  See I told you, we are turning country! We really need quite a few chill out days and we really feel like we are on holidays.  The past few weeks have been so hectic that we were starting to feel  zombified (is there such a word?)  OK that is all for today.  Staying and just having toast etc.  See we are very lazy indeed.

As always our mornings are becoming slower with organising our departures.  Does that mean we are finally in holiday mode?  Left our little comfy cottage that was virtually surrounded by sheep, who by the way, kept us entertained for much of our time there.  So us country folks now braved to face city driving once again.  But in reality it was so easy as we finally made it to Dunedin and of course, loved every minute of this gorgeous small city.  We could have easily whiled-away some time here, exploring and photographing this place.  But we had to make our way to our next destination as it was nearly lunchtime already. So much of our time was spent at the Dunedin Railway Station and visiting an Art Exhibition there.  The old historical buildings are just fantastic, incredible architecture to be seen everywhere. Bus loads of tourists being shown around and everyone is in and out, have quick snappies with their little cameras and off again to their next destination.

Mad Betty our trusted GPS navigator kept referring to this place as ‘Doon-a-den’  She is quite whacky at times with the pronunciations of places and roads, even though we selected the Aussie version.  We did try James the proper boring Mr. English and the Female version was no better.  Betty cannot find some of the Street names we enter, but on the whole, she has been fabulous.  I do outwit her often and just enter a township’s name before our destinations, so she points us in the right direction.  She did take us to some dead ends, but in her soft monotonous voice just tells us to do a U-turn.  Why the *&^%#* hell does she not come out with saying….oops sorry, I made a mistake here?  Then we could a laugh at least.

Headed north once more and of course beautiful landscape everywhere, with equally beautiful warm sunny day.    We followed some spectacular coastal areas, passing some beautiful country homes and finally found Fleurs at Moeraki to have our fish luncheon.  This place was so highly recommended…..But sorry to say this, we really felt it was the biggest rip off in the cost of the meal we had.  Can you believe it that a tiny potato as an extra, cut in half cost $10!  How ludicrous is that! The fish was excellent and the veg accompaniment, but how can you justify something like that?  This fishing village is in a lovely area and I think it is one of those places that are just ‘fashionable’ and frequented by the yuppies to say they had eaten at Fleurs.  The very quaint rustic charm did lend itself to some fine photography and of course I had fun with the seagulls there. The option of eating dessert was out of the question and the waitress kindly mentioned to just drive up the road to Hampden – it has a place with the very best icecream ever! Did not know where exactly this little find would be in this little township, but soon enough we found a bus with lots of young holiday makers gathered by the roadside all eating icecream.   A single serve NZ $2.50 was the largest icecream ever! Obviously this is one place that word of mouth has put on the map.  Cars galore stop, run in and all come out with this more than adequate dollop of ice cream, to only dash back in their cars and keep on heading back on their journey.  We, for one, just stayed and observed the people, thinking to ourselves, how on earth do they manage to drive without all this deliciousness dripping over their clothes and new car interiors?

Unfortunately we had missed the coastal road much of the way, which in hindsight was very regrettable.  Terry stayed mostly on the highway and as per norm, every other car must do the speed limit + !!  There are a lot of impatient drivers here.  Took little detours on country roads, which makes it much more pleasurable for us sightseers, but today we were caught up with road tarring with short hold ups. There are a lot of road works going on in the least expected places throughout NZ.  But we finally found our Farmstay – half way between Duntroon and Kurow.  Thankfully we had pre ordered our dinner here, so could relax and chat with other guests, backpackers and their grand children. Oh it was bliss to have a normal gorgeous satisfying roast dinner!  How we have missed such simple luxuries in life.

Today was like a lay day and just peruse the immediate area.  A couple of pack packers staying at the farm decided they wanted to join us on our day’s outing.  So we decided to make our way to Oamaru township.  We missed this yesterday as we took a little diversion on another country road.  We were not disappointed for what a little treasure this place turned out to be in the Waitaki District. On the way we passed so many antique cars.  There must have been a special rally on and Terry was in awe once again about the immaculate little old vehicles kept in New Zealand.

We missed the Christmas Parade that was on which was a shame.  But the beauty of this place with wonderful 19th century architecture was fabulous. It would have taken us days to actually photograph the many sights of this interesting place.  The historic buildings are created out of limestone which was obviously easily carved to create these long lasting buildings. Apparently the local limestone was quarried near Weston and is known as Oamaru stone and most of the streets are named after rivers in England.

The Harbour and Holmes Wharf were equally as enjoyable.  The water being an impressive turquoise blue with our very sunlit day and dotted white clouds.  The wind, however, still had quite a bite to it and chilly.  We missed seeing the yellow eyed penguins as they do not tend to come out until the evenings.

So we made our way back to our Glen Mac Farmstay.  This time we decided to head across the Waitaki River and turn left at Glenavy.  We followed the river for many kilometres and came out at Kurow.  Tomorrow we will stop at this tiny township for some more provisions to take to our cottage by Lake Ohau.

Left our little farm-stay quite early this morning to make our way back to the mountains and lakes.  The area is quite dry but as we kept heading west it became greener and more lush.  We passed a couple of dams and hydro-stations before we turned right at Omarama.  We found our way quite easily to our log cabin at Lake Ohau.  The dams, rivers and lakes are all light turquoise in colour and absolutely amazing to see.  The mountain tops in the distance still have some snow, though the days are becoming quite hot. It was sunny all day with the magical white fluffy cloud formations in the distance.  Apparently there will be a front moving in, so we had to make the most of today.

Drove to Twizel and then took the road to Aoraki/Mt Cook.  We followed the fabulous Lake Pukaki all the way.  The water again was this brilliant turquoise colour that kept begging us to stop and photograph.  Not just us, but every other tourist on this road as well.  Tourists are in abundance once again, either traveling by car, campervan, buses, bicycles or motor bikes.

We could see that Mt Cook was still heavily covered in snow and we were fortunate to see the summit cloud free today.  Though the clouds were threatening to cover this majestic mountain, but luck was on our way.

We headed back to Twizel to do our grocery shopping for our 2 day stay in our gorgeous log cabin.  Love it here.  It is absolutely so serene, peaceful and very beautiful.  The grounds around the cottage are totally covered in Lupins, from soft lilac, the odd white/cream, pink and an abundant lot of purples.  The pine trees are part of the backdrop with another mountain in front of us holding our interest.  This beauty I think is ?Ben Ohau/Ruataniwha – 1522m high, and so striking with these incredible patterns of every tone imaginable.  Obviously, these must have been carved into the stone by a lot of snow and ice over the years.  The Ohau Range is behind the cottage and this has many tall mountains as well.  I think if we lived in NZ it would have to be by the lakes and moutains of this amazing place.  On one side is the small Lake Middleton and Lake Ohau is not far from us in the front.  We will investigate these a bit more tomorrow. Otherwise we will just enjoy our little interlude here.  Might wash, tidy the car, sort out clothes etc.

Bird song is plentiful, but one little bird just flew into the window and I fear he is not in a healthy state.  Rabbits are coming out everywhere, and I keep forgetting to mention that they are in plague proportion in NZ.   Just like the introduced Possum, but I have not seen any live ones, only many squashed ones on the roads.

Tonight, I actually cooked a full meal.  We bought one huge fillet of fresh Salmon from this Salmon Farm…………oh and let me tell you it was absolutely delicious, with more for  lunch tomorrow.

Terry has nearly finished the crossword of the latest Women’s Weekly, I cannot do much on the internet as there is no connection to speak of.  Will have to try again later tomorrow to find a spot.  Otherwise…we are out of touch for a few days.

Just popped into the resort down the road and purchased some internet time….gee whiz, that is becoming desperate to keep this blog updated daily 😉

What did we do today?  Well not much to speak of really.  We relaxed most of the morning as the day started off overcast and quite cool.  Watched a hideous movie and had the odd little nap doing so.  Emptied the car, sorted out clothes, washed clothes ie. after figuring out how to use the machine.  Terry spent many hours watching little rabbits hop all over the road or drive way.  Talk about little things amusing you these days!  Guess that is what holidays are all about.

Finally we decided to go for a short drive around.  Ohau village is a very small estate – would not want to guess how many little houses are here: Maybe 30 max.  Some of these little places are built out of solid pine logs and are cute.  Would not last too long in Australia due to white ants, but there aren’t any here (too cold) Obviously there are some permanent residents here, but I see that most would be holiday/ weekend cottages.  Would love to see this place in solid snow!

Then we ventured up the road to Lake Ohau Lodge.  There I could buy some internet access to upload yesterday’s blog.  Had a great cappuccino there and enjoyed the lake view and mountains.  The mood changes frequently with dark clouds shrouding the mountains most of the day.

Returned and visited Lake Middleton which is behind the pine trees of little log cabin.  It is small but many school children were there having fun with various water sports.  Fields and fields of Lupins and yellow flowers wherever the eye goes.  Amazing, but can appreciate how these flowers are in plague proportions.

Tomorrow we will make our way to Ashburton. On our way we will have a last look at Lake Pukaki and then onto Lake Tekapo, before traversing more beautiful scenic country roads.  To think there are only “4 more sleeps” and we will be home in very hot humid Cairns.  Time did fly, but in hindsight this has been quite a long, enjoyable and very memorable holiday for the two of us.