Motueka

After another rainy night, we packed up our camp in Murchison to keep heading north. We had learned by experience that Murchison is not a particualry dog friendly town – there are no walks etc. where we could take the dogs and walking by the road is unpleasant with the huge number of trucks that pass through. Therefore, the dogs had to wait for their walk this morning.

We took State Highway 6 up as far as Kohatu. We had travelled part of this road before, but this time we intended veering off to take the lesser travelled road directly to Motueka. The road works were still everywhere so the trip needed a bit of patience.

However, it wasn’t long before we found a lovely little riverside park to take the dogs for their first bit of exercise. The park was beside the Gowan River, and as usual for rivers in these parts, it was crystal clear. The river bed was made up of stones of many hues and colours – some solid colour, some speckled and some stripey. I don’t think the dogs appreciated them though.

The terrain in this area is very hilly and there is a lot of forestry, but also farming in the valleys and wherever there might be a bit of flatter land. There were a lot of old decrepit buildings, such as the one above, although not many as beautiful as this one.

We stopped for a coffee at a lovely cafe at the turn off to Motueka, at a place called Motupiko. It seemed a very popular place, and they had the best cheese scone that Bruce says he has tasted. Doesn’t say much for my efforts huh?

Once passed this turnoff the scenery started to change. We saw lots of hop farms, with their very tall frames. It appeared that the harvest was complete, because the frames were pretty much all we saw.

When we visited the Monteiths Brewery they told us they got their hops from the Nelson region, so I guess this is the area. It seems like big business here because there were acres and acres of them. We also saw a tobacco farm which was quite large. However, although there were many hop farms and there was only the one tobacco farm that we saw.

We also started seeing a lot of pip fruit orchards, with trees absolutely laden with red apples or buerre bosc pears. We stopped at one orchard that was advertising blueberries and purchased a large punnet of those. However, right by their gate was a sign for the Pokororo swing bridge so we left the motorhome in their carpark and went for a look.

The river it is crossing at this stage is the Motueka River. The swingbridge seems to be foot access to a couple of properties on the other side, so quite an expensive form of access I think.

The river is quite swift at this point, but remains very clear. I am not sure about the purity of it though, because as we were walking back to the motorhome the orchardist was busy spraying his trees. We were trying to time our walk so as to minimise our exposure to the spray and I think the farmer must have seen us. He was passing in his ute but stopped and told us that the spray was calcium. He said any spraying done after Christmas is usually calcium as the soils here are very deficient in both calcium and boron. I felt a bit better about it after that.

Motueka wasn’t far from there and the first place we went to was to my Auny Ellie and Uncle Gerald’s. Luckily they were home and we spent an hour or so with them. Uncle Gerald has recently had surgery, so I wasn’t sure how well he would be. I was pleased to see that he was in better health than I had seen him for many years. He tells me that there is more surgery coming though.

We camped up for the night at Marchwood Park based in the old A&P groundsnear the airport and it was a delightful place. The next morning we had a bit of a look around the town and then made our way to the port and the beach. Talleys has a big presence here at the port, but we found our way to the public area and went for a walk.

There is a nice walkway alongside the harbour, but what also took Bruce’s fancy is that they have built an ocean swimming pool. After the dogs had chased sticks and chased each other, Bruce decided he would have to try out this pool, so it was back to the motorhome to get changed and then off to have a swim.

The dogs then had one final swim before we had to go in search of a coffee.

It wasn’t long before we were refreshed and stocked up with fresh fruit and veges and some other necessities, and ready to tackle the legendary Takaka Hill on our way to Golden Bay.