Christchurch and the Main Divide

A cold corner in the Craigieburn Station from the Trans Alpine Railway.

Our time in Christchurch has gone relatively quick, the weather has been amazing considering it is now winter (Yes! -just past the shortest day). It certainly was a lovely long autumn. Bill has been helping Helen and Ralph, do a few renovations and maintenance jobs around their home as they are starting to think about selling the lovely large 100yr old Villa on the Cashmere Hills and downsize to somewhere on the flat.

H&R lifting the old tiles
Beautiful view of our Bus 

Adding a step & ready to lay
large format tiles

Alongside the maintenance, we have been enjoying walks and social catch ups with friends. Marg B. is renting near by, making it easy to catch up for walks and a movie. The Italian film festival has been on while we have been here so we decided we must attend at least one of these films (or Sheryl decided for everyone!). It was also decided to make the evening an Italian evening by having dinner at the local Italian restaurant Formaggio's. It was delicious, before watching the film, which was a lovely light comedy set in beautiful Italian scenery of course. 

On our list of things to do had always been the TranzAlpine Train (one of NZ’s Great Journeys) from Christchurch to Greymouth over the Arthur's Pass through the Southern Alps. This part of the Alps is also called the Main Divide as it separates Canterbury from the West Coast and Otago in the south and Tasman/Marlborough in the north. The weather can be so different with high rainfall on the western side (very green) and quite dry on the eastern side (quite golden brown).

Hanging the door after 26 yrs

So with the weather conditions looking perfect for two consecutive days, we booked our trip for the next day, for an additional charge of $10 each, each way, we could also take our bikes so thought it well worth it as we would have the afternoon and the following morning available. 

Ready for our adventure 🚉

Arthur's Pass on our return

Lake Brunner in perfect conditions

Along the Wilderness Trail

Ralph kindly dropped us off at the Addington train station and we were on our way shortly after 8 am. The scenery very picturesque with recent snow on the  Alps completing the winter vista. Although the snow wasn’t down low, it was pretty white around Arthur's Pass with heavy frost. The Otira tunnel (8.5km) would have been no easy feat, finally being completed in 1923.`The conditions for the workers must have been terrible – but they only lost 7 men in the 9 year building of it, and at the time was the 7th largest tunnel in the world, and the longest in the British Empire. 
Arriving at Greymouth soon after 1 pm, we disembarked and got on our bikes. We would recommend the train trip to everyone. And hopefully if you do, you have the time to stay the night otherwise it is a bit rushed to get back for the return trip an hour after arrival.The comprehensive commentary is full of the history and geological facts that made the trip so very interesting. 
Greymouth had blue skies but a freezing wind blowing so we quickly found a place for lunch before finding our motel for the night. Once settled in, we got back on our bikes and started on the Wilderness Trail –the cycleway from Greymouth to Ross – a total of 132km which they recommend to complete over 4 days. We had ridden a little of this trail roughly 6 years ago when they first started creating it. The people behind building the trail should be proud of themselves, and although we only did 11km of it, we look forward to returning sometime soon to do the rest through the lush West Coast bush and scenic lakes. With only a couple of hours before dark we decided to ride to Paroa and return. There was a lovely renovated stone Hotel (the original one was built in the late 1800’s – when Gold was bringing in large numbers of people) where we stopped and enjoyed a red wine on the sheltered deck in the sunshine just before sunset. It was then a brisk ride back to our motel for the night.

Beautiful West Coast sunset

Sign of the Kiwi

Sign of the Kiwi looking back to Banks Peninsula with Marg

Bill having some quality time with Murray

A little snow on the Southern Alps

Bathroom before the alterations

Looking amazing - what a transformation.

The next morning again brought blue skies but that freezing wind was still blowing. At 9.30 am it was only 1 degree (a real feel of -2 degrees) so we found a sunny little café to have breakfast before riding in the opposite direction to the day before, over to Cobden and out to Point Elizabeth. With the wind chill factor we didn’t muck around, and keeping in mind we had to be back to catch the train just before 2 pm, we headed back into Greymouth and dropped off our bikes at the railway station. We had a brief browse around the Greymouth shops. Bill even had time to pop into a barber and get a much needed haircut. Although I was present, the woman barber took him around behind a screen where he had the haircut unsupervised once again! Those of you that know Bill with his unsupervised haircuts, know that it always comes out super short, and he always appears so genuinely surprised! I thought his ears would drop off when he got out in the wind after this one!
At 2.05pm on the dot we were back on the track and returning to Christchurch arriving back just after 6.30. A long day for the Rail staff.
We recently celebrated Helen’s birthday with her family over a lunch which was lovely to catch up with all four of their children, partners and grandchildren. In the afternoon Marg joined us as we walked up the Cashmere Hill to the Sign of the Kiwi (a Rest House built in 1917) which has great panoramic views out over Christchurch and back across to Banks Peninsula behind. Being Sunday there were a lot of families out walking which was great to see as the day was pretty cold and cloudy. We were rewarded at the Sign of the Kiwi with a delicious afternoon tea before returning to Helen and Ralph's (10.5km return).
We have been enjoying our stop over with Helen and Ralph, with a red wine or two and their lovely fire. We’re noticing a big difference between winter in the south island compared to the north last year – although much colder it is drier. So far condensation in the Bus has been minimal. We’ve only ran our diesel heater twice in the 3 weeks we have been here. Not sure we will be able to say the same when we move on at the end of this week to Central Otago – Queenstown!

The last of Autumn in Nelson and onto Christchurch

Beautiful sunrise at Marfells Beach

The amazing autumn weather continued thankfully for Bill to get the driveway repair completed – with two truckloads of concrete and a hand from neighbour John, he finished the job. Looks great – so hopefully will do the job.

Like the icing on a cake -John and Bill floating off

Once again time to sort our gear😵

Another little job at home - rodent proofing 

Fran becoming a Master
Painter

We caught up with Fran who is trying to prepare her property to get it rented out on  Air B&B – having a unique sleepout that was hubby Larry’s Barbershop. Bill& Fran cleared the room out and prepped it for painting. Fran hasn’t done any painting before but she has been mastering the skill. Bill also moved a door in her home to give her privacy from any clients when the room is rented out. We had a couple of lovely meals in return which was great, catching up on local goss as Fran seems to know lots of people in Nelson or she’s met them out on the golf course of course.

We also had a few meals out in Nelson this time during our stop over, including a couple of times at the Taaj Indian which is just along the road from us, nice and handy and delicious. Lovely catching up Jenny and Martin – hopefully will see you both on the road sometime soon.

Mother’s day we celebrated with Bill’s family and all met up at Lone Star for dinner. It was a good catch up but unfortunately the acoustics haven’t improved and did make conversation difficult across the table – particularly for Joan who was struggling to make do with courtesy hearing aids while hers were being repaired – a very trying few weeks for her.

Bill also did a couple of jobs for Warwick and Peter, helping them out whilst in town. Warwick lives in a lovely small unit in Quiet Womans Way (not sure about the name)at Monaco – built along the lines of an old English Village. They are lovely and it suits Ros and Warwick’s life styles. So it was nice to catch up with them both while Ros was back in the country.

Thankfully we have a bit of space to spread out
when we are home - even able to park a borrowed car!

We were also able help Vicki & Trevor celebrate his birthday (last year we left town a few days early) along with Debbie & Paul and Sandy & Brian. We all met the next day at Kohatu and did part of the Great Taste Cycle Trail that we had on our list to do whilst home this time – that was to cycle through the Spooners Tunnel in the Golden Downs Forestry. The rail line originally was supposed to go from Nelson to the West Coast but only got as far as

Birthday Boy Trevor & Bill along the Spooners Trail

Just proving he made it through!

Glenhope, a bit further south than Kohatu. The tunnel was built between 1891 and 1893 – 1352m long. It is the World’s 5^th longest tunnel used by cyclists and walkers and NZ’s longest disused tunnel. Being 3.81m wide and 4.73m high, we could easily drive the Bus through!

The weather was perfect, lovely and dry but quite cool in the shade and ideal to return to Kohatu for lunch at the Café at the end of the ride. The tunnel itself was amazingly dry and reasonably smooth but quite cold of course. Bill and I did a bit extra seeing as we had the only ebikes and rode downhill the other side toward Belgrove. We were very pleased to have our ebikes on the way back up the rutted hillside.

The next day, Sunday, being our last day, we spent packing up. Had time to catch up with neighbours Kathryn and Andrew when they came down to see our Bus as they would like to do some travelling too around our beautiful country. Kathryn also delivered some beautiful date scones, that I will have to try and make in the Bus (good old Edmonds).

Later in the day, we also finally had a chance to have a wine with our Tenants, Amanda and Glen, acknowledging their cooperation with us occupying the sleepout.. They have been great tenants for the past two years along with their two children, so we aren’t in any hurry for them to move on at this stage.

Parked up at Marfells Beach

 Monday we were ready to move on but had to wait for the Chorus Guys ( 6 at one stage) to put Fibre into our home, which will be great on our return. Bill was happy to be there to ensure they put it into the best position in the house with least mess???

So by the time we had a late lunch with Joan at the Camp Café it was mid afternoon when we headed over the hill to Marlborough for some R&R before hitting Christchurch the following weekend.

Sunset at Marfells - beautiful colours 

Marfells Beach was fairly deserted which was surprising when the weather had been so warm and mild. This may be also to do with the shellfish ban that has been on the area since the earthquakes that raised the beaches and disturbed their habitat. The place was always busy with quad bikes heading round the cape on the low tides harvesting the hapless paua.

Our Friend Diana (who bought her Camper last October and joined us up the Coromandel)  came over the hill on our second night and joined us for a walk the next day to Cape Campbell Lighthouse - a return stroll along the beach of 14 odd km. A lovely, if at times, breezy walk with even a seal to vary the visual diet of seabirds.

Cape Campbell with Diana

The following day we moved onto Kaikoura for Bill to see a doctor re his shoulder/back injury that he sustained back in Nelson just before we left and he thought it would come right but unfortunately it just got worse. So bad he had to hand over some of the driving from Nelson to Marfells to me!! I don’t usually drive the Bus now with towing the car as it has altered the handling thus I haven’t done a lot with this one. I did get it’s COF while in Nelson so I am happy without the car.

We had a beautiful run down the coastal highway to Kaikoura, seeing the improvements being made. It’s still a huge job, and still a couple of years from being completed.

We parked up at South Bay and had lunch before Bill’s appointment. I thought I’d have plenty of time to have a walk around town and see all the changes that have happened since we were here a year ago. But Bill was in and out pretty promptly, they don’t muck around in these small centres. Doctor not overly concerned, diagnosed was Tendonitis  which needs rest and time to heal. Not great but with the help of pain killers and anti inflammatories, hopefully he will be able to handle the symptoms a bit better.

South Bay (Kaikoura) for lunch - the beach has changed since
the 2016 earthquake raised the sea bed along this coastline

As we still had some daylight, we decided to head on down the road for the night at Parnassas – a little rural school property the NZMCA now own. A lovely quiet spot to park over on and chat to a few of the other fellow Motorhomers. One couple were opening a bottle of champagne for their first night in their first Motorhome. Exciting times ahead for them.

Nape Nape Beach - spot our Bus to get an idea on the size
of the beach 🚌

The other end of Nape Nape Beach

And another couple that had just picked up their new Caravan – a transformer looking rig – Tvan /Track Australian imported serious off road type of caravan. An amazing looking vehicle, great in a hot country like Australia but not sure in New Zealand. We had a pretty heavy frost that night which produced a lot of condensation in this vehicle as it’s all made of aluminium! Still in summertime, it’s probably great but at $100k you would want it to!

From Parnassus we moved onto Nape Nape Beach only a further 40 minutes south travelling by beautiful farmlands on quiet narrow roads. This is a lovely remote beach at the end of a long windy gravel road that we visited 10 years earlier with Nick when we were taking him and his double bed down to Uni in Dunedin in Big Yella. Good times Nick 👍

Lunch - Yummy

As I said it was a remote beach so not a lot of traffic – only one other car later in the day, who looked like he parked up overnight a bit further along the beach but found out the next day he was staying further back up the road at some friends. And in the morning a couple of young English guys Chris & Kevin, who went  diving for crayfish & paua but unfortunately weren’t able to gather anything.

But! Thankfully their friend back up the beach did and were able to spare us a crayfish which Chris delivered back to us. Alive of course. Thankfully Bill took it from him and dealt with it. It was the most delicious Cray I have ever had and I think that was as it was the freshest Cray I’ve had. Thank you Chris and hopefully will catch up in Christchurch sometime during our stopover.

Nape Nape Beach is a pretty spot but not great for sun at this time of year so we decided not to stay a second night, and moved onto Rangiora for the night to stay at a POP (Park Over Place). We chose this POP as it backed onto the Ashley River with the Rakahuri Cycle Trail which takes you down to Waikuku Beach. We did the next morning before carrying onto Helen & Ralphs in Christchurch where we are hoping to park up for the next few weeks and ease our way into Winter.

Ashley River Inlet - Waikuku Beach