TriptotheSouthIsland2021

  Sunday 11th April – Hawera As we had quite a long drive ahead of us we got up early and got ourselves organised. We left at about 9:00pm. This was a fingers crossed drive – hoping that the duck-tape and Mary-Ann’s shoe laces would keep the joint between the car and the caravan together.  Fortunately it did. The weather was pretty good with the odd shower. Had a coffee at Bulls at the “Bulls Eye” café. We drove on to Whanganui and took the SH 1 by-pass route round the back of the city to the road to Hawera. On the way we went through Patea - a little town with a big name! We got here about 1:00pm in good order – the lights stayed on with only the odd bit of attention necessary. Here we are at the Hawera NZMCA park:- The weather picked up as well so it is actually quite pleasant here. Amazing view of Taranaki:-

  Saturday 10th April – Visit Marion Hansen and James After we got all our morning tasks done we headed off to Marion Hansen’s place at Raumati Beach for lunch. As there were roadworks on the main road in Google took us a long way round via Poplar Avenue, but we got there eventually. Her place is within 5minutes of the beach. We had a nice lunch and then Mary-Ann and Marion did genealogy stuff while I read the paper. At about 3:00pm we drove back to Plimmerton to pick up stuff to take to James’s place and then followed the motorway to Wellington and then Tinakori Road to Karori. We had a great evening over fish n chips for tea Got back to Plimmerton at about 8:00pm

  Friday 9th April – Picton to Wellington We up-sticksed (?) early and drove to Picton to meet Doug Mills for coffee at the Mariners Mall. We parked the caravan on the side of the hill going up to the New World supermarket, Broadway. . Scoozi, the café Doug had suggested, was closed till 10:00am so went down to the harbour and had coffee in the SeaBreeze café. The staff all seemed to know Doug well. It had a great outlook out over the harbour front. We got a text from BlueBridge to say that the ferry was delayed and that check-in would now be 2:00pm instead of 1:00pm. From there we went back to the caravan to take it down to park it near the BlueBridge Ferry terminal. I realised that the caravan was awfully close to a large concrete power pole. I backed up very carefully to get the caravan clear of it and then watched the oncoming traffic in the driver’s mirror as I turned out into the road, only to hear a gronching noise as the power pole ripped off the outside light above t...

 Thursday 8th April - Picton Again Today dawned in perfect blue. We set off at about 9:30. The day was lovely and so was the drive. We stopped at Havelock again for morning tea. It really is worth another visit, but we had to keep going this time. We got to the Spring Creek Holiday Park about 1:00pm and got the same park as last time by the river, 41 A:- I realised that the old house that is the office is backed by a huge Monkey Puzzle tree

  Wednesday 7th April - Nelson This morning we went up to Peter & Lind's local church, St. Barnabas,  and enjoyed a morning service with the parishioners  ... followed by a morning tea provided by Linda This afternoon managed to Skype Ian for his birthday - now 44!

 Tuesday 6th April - Buller Gorge, Murchison to Nelson It was a beautiful morning when we set off to the Buller Gorge, Murchison and eventually Nelson. We got a visit from our morning weka again:- Here is a short video of his visit to us:- The Buller Gorge is spectacular. The river is beautiful:- We came across Hawke's Crag where the road was dug out of the rocky hillside. One man I spoke to described it as half a tunnel:- ... close up:- We stopped at The Commercial Hotel in Murchison for lunch - lovely:- At about 2:00pm we arrive and Peter & Linda's place in Stoke, Nelson. We went out for dinner at their local pub The Bach   ... and had a great meal and a "jug" of Speights beer - I haven't had a jug of beer since I taught in Kaikohe in 1969!