We had to proceed onwards from Oamaru as time is running out for our time down south. Our best man, Bob Woods, lives in Timaru and we had made arrangements to catch up with him.
We met him for lunch, and then headed off to take the dogs for a walk and to check into our lodgings for the night – another castle. This time we were to stay at Claremont Castle which is a Park over Property. We headed there, following Google maps and it seemed to take us a long time to get there. All the time we were driving, our next meeting with Bob (to his place for dinner) was getting later and later.
We finally got to the Castle and the instructions were to go around the back and park.
Well, Bruce carefully drove around the back and decided to take a sweeping turn over the lawn (instead of doing a 3 point turn on the driveway) and promptly got stuck! We had some traction mats in the back but that meant half unloading the boot, which Bruce did, retrieved the mats, and then put it all back again. Fortunately the mats worked but we made a bit of a mess of the poor owner’s lawn.
In addition to all this frustration, the place looks pretty run down, so we decided to let the owner know that in addition to us tearing up his lawn, we would not be staying as it was too far out of town. He looked a bit surprised but said OK, and we headed off again.
The reality was that google took us a different route into town and it was not far at all! We arrived quite late for our meal with Bob though, and when we left his place that evening we headed for the free parking at the Caroline Bay wharf area. That was another mistake. Firstly, it wasn’t free – it was $20, and the container port was very noisy. The container cranes, and the containers they carried clattered and banged profusely. The noise stopped at 1am and started up again at 5am so little sleep was had that night, and Beau was not very happy about the noise either.
The weather was looking good for a few days, and there was a possibility of snow in the highlands in about 3 days time so we decided to head back to Tekapo and experience it. I was so glad we did. The day was clear and there was already some snow on the hills that wasn’t here the last time, so the scenery was amazing, and a lot of photos were taken.
After visiting the usual places Bruce drove us out on a minor road on the western side of Lake Tekapo. It went for a long way, and was clearly a farm road, albeit a public road as well, but it was narrow and tricky to find a place to turn around when we eventually wanted to head back.
The scenery was out of this world.
Up that road is Lake Alexandrina and Lake McGregor. Lake McGregor looks a bit on the stagnant side.
Lake Alexandrina was bigger and had a camp at the side of it. There were lots of aquatic birds (not natives though) and dogs were banned, so we had a look but did not stay.
We had a slow drive back into town because the scenery was just as spectacular on the return trip, but we felt the dogs needed a spell in the dog park. This time the autumn foliage was there and it was lovely as well.
Our final visit for the day was to the fairy forest across from the dog park. People have gone to a lot of trouble on this little section of the forest, and we knew that Maia and Elodie would have loved it.
We settled in to camp for the night and planned another day of exploring tomorrow.
Fate had other ideas. Bruce got up and put his shorts on the couch. He noticed they were wet when he went to put them on, but assumed he must have dunked them in the dogs water bowl when he went to put them on. He laid them out to dry, and put them on later on. I later put my clean socks on the same piece of couch and when I picked them up they were also very wet. That was when I realised one of the dogs had had an accident during the night – the first time in all the years we have been travelling with them. When Bruce realised he was wearing “dog pee” pants he was pretty quick to change them.
Then came the problem of how to fix the mess. The squab underneath the covers was quite wet, and while it was easy to wash covers it was not so easy to wash the squab, so we headed back to Timaru, with a few grumbles from me.
The laundromat at Fairlie was on the way and was well set up so we washed the covers there. On the trip there we noticed that the scenery here was also pretty spectacular.
The way we decided to wash the squab was to take it into Animates in Timaru. They gave us permission to wash it in their dog wash – the bonus was that the dogs got a wash too. The problem now was how to get it dry. We gave it a couple of rounds in the dryer at the laundromat, but it was still very wet so I realised this was going to be a longer term project. We stood it up in the shower until we came up with a better idea.
This time we spent the night at the Golf Club at Timaru, which was a charming stay, and then we had to decide on what was next!
Away From Home NZ 