Starting Homeward – Ashburton

We left Tekapo at our usual relaxed time of day, and after having a coffee in town, and disposing of our rubbish, we headed down the familiar road towards the east coast, but this time I really wanted to visit Ashburton as a part of the trip. In years past I regularly travelled to Ashburton to work at the Canterbury Flour Mill, and I want to see what is there now. In addition to that, I wanted to revisit Ashfords, who are in a complex next door. Bruce wanted to re-visit Valley Brewing in Geraldine to get some more dark beer, so those things determined our route for the day. The final factor in our trip was the weather.

It rained all night last night, but it had settled to being very overcast this morning. The forecast was for heavy rain later in the afternoon, while the forecast for the Christchurch area was much better. That made the decision to move on somewhat easier.

It was great to be able to let the dogs loose in the dog park before we left and they had a great time playing with a black and white spaniel cross. We had another look at the lake, and while the cloud hung low over the hills and the lake was very still, the shores were a bit muddier due to the much lower water levels. Regardless, it was still very beautiful. We never fail to marvel over the brilliant blue colour of the water. Even when the skies are grey, it is still a beautiful colour.

It was a bit of a shame that when we reached the Valley Brewery in Geraldine, they had sold out of the dark beer that Bruce liked so much. He had to settle for 3 bottles of their red variety. Still, he was happy enough with that, and we took advantage of their large carpark and made ourselves some lunch before heading on towards Ashburton.

As a town, Ashburton does not look to have changed much, but I was a little shocked at the difference in the mill. There had been a fire in the mill a couple of years after I left there, but I had not realised it was the old heritage part of the mill that was destroyed. You can see the comparison between old and new below.

The mill is now producing specialty stock food, but it is disappointing to see how much junk is all around the site and how uncared for the place looks. I hope the 45 guys that worked there are doing well where ever they are now.

Next door we went to Ashfords. They are based in what used to be the Mill Master’s house many , many years ago. Next door is their big factory where they make spinning wheels and looms. Their wool shop is wonderful, and they have their own brand of wool, as well as a large selection of New Zealand wools that I often find hard to get. I refuse to buy Australian wool if I have an alternative. I ended up coming away with wool for grandsons, grand daughters and even some for myself. That should keep me occuppied for a while. I also enjoyed looking at their looms and spinning wheels, and a whole range of silks and other materials that they make available for crafty people to use in their creations. You don’t see a lot of that stuff in other places.

They also have a lovely cafe on site, and I had many lunches there over the years, but we did not stop there today.

We elected to carry on to our camp for the night, back at Weedons Park just outside of Christchurch. The weather was still quite dismal, although not actually raining, and it was getting  late, so we did not continue on out tour of Ashburton. Neither did we stop in Rakaia, or head out to the mouth of the Rakaia River so Bruce could have another go at catching a salmon. All those things will have to wait until we come back for another visit.

We did however, cross over the Selwyn River which was just a dry river bed. It was interesting that there was a documentary on tv tonight about the demise of the Selwyn River, due partly to global warming and climate change, but also partly due to dairying. It seems criminal to us that all this water can be taken from our aquifers (2000 litres of water to produce 2 litres of milk). If the land has to be irrigated to produce grass for dairy, then maybe dairying is not the right industry for this area!