Tag: camping

Gabriel’s Gully

by awayfromhomenz

After leaving Kaka Point and Nugget Point we headed inland again, and had a one night stay in Balclutha so I could buy a couple of balls of wool – I wasn’t happy with the ones I had purchased in Ashburton. From there, the next morning, we headed further inland towards a place called Gabriel’s Gully.

It is said that Gabriel’s Gully was one of the first sites where gold was discovered in New Zealand. In this case, it was discovered by a Mr Gabriel Reed, in May 1861. It was only a matter of months after that the whole area was a sea of tents, where miners all had a small claim, marked by mounds of earth, where they dug for gold. Gabriel Reed said that he found gold by digging in the soft earth, to a depth of about 2 1/2 feet until he hit a layer of slate, and there was the gold glistening like stars in the sky.

Bruce and I went for a trek following the gold trail. The track was supposed to be an easy grade, but no, it climbed and climbed to a height of 120 metres – almost twice the height of Shakespear cliffs at home, over about 800 metres! It was a narrow track at times, and covered in a lot of leaf litter, so we weren’t sure what terrain was going to be underneath that layer. Sometimes it was firm ground, other times mud. However, we managed without falling or tripping.

We took the dogs with us on the walk which was about 2.8 kilometres long and they seemed to enjoy it. There was an open metal set of steps at one point, and both dogs flatly refused to go down them, so we had to carry a dog each.

When we got near the top we were able to see across the gully. Hard to believe it was all mined, and a sea of tents!

There were various signs along the way pointing out areas such as caves used for storing gunpowder

We made it back in one piece, and the dogs settled down for a sleep, while we drove further down the road for a look. There was a freedom camp next to the water storage lake for the gully. It was beautiful, and there was a couple and their kids camping there.

Our camp for the night was the Equestrian Club, just outside Lawrence, and that was a delightful park over property. I took the dogs for a walk the next morning and met the most beautiful horse, who just wanted lots of affection. Hunter certainly wasn’t keen on the idea, and Beau wasn’t sure, but I enjoyed it.

Later on we strolled through Lawrence, which is a very old town, established in the gold rush to meet the needs of the miners.

From there we traveled on towards Roxburgh.

The Points – Kaka Point and Nugget Point

by awayfromhomenz

There is a delightful Park over Property at Kaka Point. We had stayed there before and were keen to do so again. The place is a farm, just across the road from the beach, but is sheltered from the wind and OK in the rain. It was raining again when we arrived, and it did so for most of the night.

Nugget Point is just 8km down the road, but we decided not to go there until the next day when the forecast was for a sunny day. That proved to be the case, but before we went anywhere we had to take the dogs across the road to the beach.

It is a long sandy beach, with a few dunes before the road, and the area is known for seals, so the dogs had to stay on the lead (maybe I should have been also).

It wasn’t long before I noticed the telltale marks on the sand of a seal pulling themselves up the beach. There were three such tracks, and I followed one, and sure enough, there was a seal hiding (sleeping) in the grass.

Each section of beach is separated by a little rocky outcrop. Sometimes there is a way through instead of having to go back up to the road to get around it.

After a good walk we packed up camp and headed towards Nugget Point. We have been there before but as usual, had to go again. There is quite a walk to get there and up and down some steep slopes, so once again my lungs were challenged, but we made it, and it was well worth it.

We spent a bit of time at the light house because the scenery is just awe inspiring – it takes your breath away. What also took my breath away was a young lady running up and down the track several times just for exercise!

After a delightful visit, and the return trek to the carpark, we settled in for the drive inland. No more coastal views for a while.

Heading further south to Gemstone Beach and Monkey Island

by awayfromhomenz

Once we felt well enough we set out again. I wanted to revisit Gemstone Beach again, because the last time we went there it was almost full tide. We really needed to be there at low tide or an hour or so either side of it. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t looking great and looked worse the more we drove. I guess the plus side was that parking wasn’t going to be too much of a problem because only hardy souls would be out in this.

Once we got to the Beach we were lucky to get a short fine break so we went for a walk.

You wouldn’t believe from the above photo that the stones would actually be so colourful and so varied.

Bruce and I must have spent about 45 minutes fossicking around before the rain started coming down again and with it the cold, so we made our way back to the van. We only had a small bag each so not enough to weigh the motorhome down and make us exceed our weight limit.

We dried off and then headed for Monkey Island, which is a freedom camp only a few kilometers away. By the time we got there the weather had fined up again. We were only the 3rd van there – little did we know that the caravan down the other end of the carpark belonged to Bruce’s sister’s best friend. They moved on before we made the connection.

This time the dogs were able to come walking too and they really enjoyed some off leash time. As we walked further along the beach we spied this curious structure.

The closer we got, the more strange it seemed to be. We were not sure if the house got engulfed by the dunes, or were they building around the dune? You can see a window through the hole in the dune.

It was good to have a nice beach walk again and the dogs wore themselves out. We decided that as we planned on going to the Catlins tomorrow, it would make sense to stay the night in Invercargill again as it would save an hour off our trip tomorrow. We enjoyed as much of the day as we could at Monkey Island and then headed back to Invercargill.

I would have to say that we were impressed with how easy it was to navigate Invercargill, and that helped in the decision making. We were beginning to feel comfortable there. In addition, there are plenty of walks for the dogs, and all the necessary services needed by motorhomes.

Arrowtown and the lake stay

by awayfromhomenz

I really wanted to see the legendary autumn colours in Arrowtown, and it was so close that once we left the Driftaway Motor camp, that was the direction we headed. We knew the Arrowtown Autumn Festival was on, but we did not anticipate the sheer numbers of people that would attend. There were tourists everywhere and it took a while for us to even find a parking place big enough to fit us in. However, we did and I think it was worth it.

We did a stroll through the main street (leaving the dogs behind). There was no possibility of getting a photo of the old shops, or for the most part, being able to enter a shop, because of the crowds. We thought we might get a coffee initially, but there was no chance of that. Therefore, we carried on to the old Chinese Miner’s section.

The Chinese were very badly treated by the rest of the gold mining population, and this was not helped by the fact that few of them could speak English. They were not allowed to live in towns, and had difficulty getting the materials required to build their huts. As a result they tended to have their own little villages, with their own shop, and other services eg doctors etc. They were often given the worst plots of land to mine and to live on, and they had to work twice as hard as the other miners. Some stuck it out, and were successful. Others decided to make their money by growing vegetables, by baking bread, and other farming to provide food for sale to the miners. You can certainly understand why when you see the houses that they had to live in, in the freezing cold.

The Chinese Miner’s shop was the biggest building by far.

We had a leisurely walk by the stream to take in the views.

We finally did find a place where we could get a coffee and a scone, before we wandered back to the motorhome. On the way we passed an Asian bride and groom in the main street trying to get their wedding photos taken, but having to contend with people always getting in the way of their shot. I could feel their frustration.

We happily left Arrowtown’s crowds and headed for nearby Lake Hayes. This was once a freedom camping area but that was stopped because of the way the land was treated. We stopped in to take the dogs for a walk.

The track was in really good condition and we were able to walk a couple of kilometres before heading back to the motorhome.

By the time we got back, we had to start thinking about where we would spend the night. We headed back towards Queenstown, bypassing the town, following the road alongside Lake Whakatipu.

As usual, the Remarkables are remarkable. We decided to stop at a freedom camp at the side of the Lake, and managed to get a good spot by the water. It is amazing where you can stay for free in NZ.

We decided to spend 3 nights here because we had a train to catch on Sunday!

Onward to Tekapo

by awayfromhomenz

The weather forecasts were predicting a few days of bad weather so we had some choices to make. I can never go past Ashburton without stopping, so we decided to spend two days there instead of one. As it turned out, the weather wasn’t as bad as predicted but never mind. Ashburton has several attractions: one is the lovely dog park; another is the Ashburton Mill House – home to local yarns, and spinning wheels and weaving looms manufactured in the adjacent factory. This complex is right next door to where the flour mill used to be, that I visited regularly as a part of my role working for River Milll Bakeries. It burned down not long after the company sold it. The tall flour loading building remains. The Mill House was once lived in by the Head Miller, but was handed over to be used as a cafe and retail outlet for wool and spinning wheels etc. many years ago.

Once the weather system started settling, we headed on towards Tekapo, an area I just love. The motorhome park there is wonderful and we got a parking spot looking at the Lake. It is a shame to see the Lake even lower than it was the last time we were here.

There are lots of walks around here, and an extensive dog park right next door.

It was great for the dogs to be able to run free and meet other dogs. Beau is a very social little dog who loves to play with other dogs, as long as they don’t touch his bum! There are huge pine trees here, that drop huge pinecones, but don’t pick them up because they have needle like spikes all over them!

The dogs had at least 2 walks per day through the dog park.

The next day we met Ben (my son) and Karina (his wife) in the township of Tekapo. They had hired a motorhome from Christchurch and were enjoying a short time away on their own, for their wedding anniversary. Together we wandered around the Church of the Good Shepherd, and the area around it, and then had morning tea together. I would have to say that the tourism industry is booming – very hard to get a photo without tourists in it. I was again struck by how “self entitled” the Asians are in general. They will push in front of you, never consider moving aside for you, and won’t even move over to let you pass on the footpaths.

All too soon they were off, heading towards Omarama, while we decided to stay one more night before heading off southwards. It was a shame the weather didn’t completely clear. We had the odd shower, but even when it was fine, the cloud clung to the hills, preventing us from seeing the spectacular mountains behind the Lake.

Heading South (with a few stops along the way)

by awayfromhomenz

We have been looking forward to heading back to the South Island, especially as our last trip there wasn’t all that we had hoped in could be thanks to us both getting Covid. The lead up to the trip was pretty busy with Judy’s 70th celebrations (see our previous blog), and the frenzy leading up to Beach Hop.

For those of you who don’t know, Beach Hop is an American Muscle Car festival, held in Whangamata every year. This year was different in that it was the 25th Anniversary, so lots of people and cars were coming to help in the celebrations. There were 2000 cars booked in, as well as classic caravans, and some fancy trucks as well.

Judy takes the bookings for those Caravans and Motorhomes visiting the event who want to park on the Whangamata Area School grounds – parking around 200 RV’s and 18 Beach Hop muscle cars.

So it was off to Whangamata for the first leg of our trip – to get the parking set out and to receive the incoming motorhomes. We went from an empty sports field to this….

By the time we left, more than half the vehicles had arrived and all was going well, and we were thankful to those, especially Rod, who agreed to take over so we could get away a bit earlier.

From Whangamata we headed straight down country. Our friends Dianne and Gary were flying to Europe on Monday, so we wanted to get to their place as soon as possible to spend a bit of time with them before they went. We grabbed a coffee and drove, not stopping until we reached Lake Whakamaru (thanks to NZTA blocking off State Highway 1). We pulled in to the freedom camping area on the side of the lake for dinner. We had not been there before but it was beautiful and clearly popular – there were lots of motor homes there, including an NZMCA rally.

It was nice to stretch our legs and refresh ourselves. The bottom of the lake looked muddy, and had that not been the case I might have had a swim. That wasn’t to be so after dinner we kept driving until we reached Turangi.

We had intended to leave by 8am the next morning, but in true Philpott style, we left an hour and a half late, but arrived to Dianne and Garry’s place, in Paraparaumu, just before 3pm. We had the grand tour of their new house, a coffee, and then jumped into their pool – very refreshing.

We had a great few days with them, but the boys didn’t enjoy it so much. Their dog Teddy was so pleased to have company he wanted to play and play, and when it didn’t happen he would either nip or nudge their butts to encourage them to play. Beau wasn’t keen on this at all. Garry had an electronic gadget that was supposed to be heard only by Teddy to get him to behave and mostly it did, but it also made Bruce behave (because he could hear it in his hearing aids) and it made the other dogs anxious because they could also hear it and had no idea what was going on! At one stage I had a shaking Foxy on my knee (belonging to a visitor), Bruce had a shaking schnauzer on his knee, the house sitter had another, and Bruce was calling out “what have I done wrong!” Teddy, all this time, was having a great time!

Anyway, it was a great, but too brief, catch up. Sunday we went on our way and stopped in for lunch with Brendon and Helen and had the grand tour of inspection of their new Dethleffs Alpa – a very impressive machine. I couldn’t believe the amount of storage that was in that motorhome.

From there we headed to Plimmerton NZMCA Park to wait until our ferry crossing. This is a big park, very well set up, with a big dog park next door. The first time we went there, one of the enclosures had 6 schnauzers running around. Hunter and Beau had a great time and wore themselves out. I had to admit though, that two of the schnauzers had very funny haircuts – designed to look like lions I think, and they were terrible barkers , which made me feel quite good about ours.

We leave here at 6am tomorrow to catch the ferry – South Island here we come!