A day out after lockdown...

[Dave Hansford]

After seven weeks of confinement, my wife and I celebrated the more relaxed Level 2 coronavirus restrictions today with a day jaunt to the Wangapeka River, on the edge of Kahurangi National Park, in the top of the South Island, New Zealand. It's just an hour's easy drive from our place, and is truly gorgeous. A narrow gravel road puts a series of (easy) fords in your way as it shadows the river to a couple of clearings that offer views into the spectacular limestone country of the National Park (nearby Mt Owen was the scene of the Fellowship's emergence from the Mines of Moria, in the Lord of the Rings trilogy).

Believe it or not, this middle of nowhere was once anything but: there was a thriving little town here, with three hotels, a tavern, a shoemaker, a baker (and almost certainly, a whorehouse, but the interpretation is discrete about that), to support the gold banners that tried their luck here in the mid-1800s. Autumn often gives us our most sublime weather in this part of the world.

 

[Kevin]

Beautiful!

 

[ABFoz]

I'd like to visit/tour Kahurangi someday. When I worked in the South Island, I would always swerve to SH6 and SH63 and miss Kahurangi. I was told there are so many extremely perched camping locations there.

By the way, your autumn is greener than ours up here. Some of our streams have already dried up.

 

[Dave Hansford]

I'd like to visit/tour Kahurangi someday. When I worked in the South Island, I would always swerve to SH6 and SH63 and miss Kahurangi. I was told there are so many extremely perched camping locations there.

By the way, your autumn is greener than ours up here. Some of our streams have already dried up.

Yup: you really must take a right at Kohatu next time, and have a mosey round Wangapeka. Lots of great walking too...

We’ve ordered another tanker of water here this week - it looks OK here in the hills, but the Tasman plains are dust. Back-to-back droughts, 2018/19 - 2019/20. At least we haven’t had the fires this year - yet.

 

[ABFoz]

At least, you can still tour a lot of places inland. Here, touring and camping almost always mean near the beach, unless you're in the Waikato/Bay of Plenty where it can be a muddy mess, requiring intense waterblasting.

We are still allowed to wash our cars but only using the bucket wash method. I think my Kaercher uses much less water than when I do bucket washing. Underbody wash is what's most important and bucket washing just does not cut it.

 

[Dave Hansford]

I've forgotten what mud looks like...

 

[ABFoz]

Haha. I remember when I was looking for cars before, I remember being told that the best second-hand vehicles are in the Nelson/Marlborough region because of the dry climate.

 

[scalman]

I did same while lockdown as it was not permited to drive around in country just not go to large citys so all forest areas where fine. And i hate when people now started to become outlanders just because lockdown they started to drive around to places now, not that they did that before just because couldnt go to supermarkets .