Thursday 1st April - Jackson's Bay

 Thursday 1st April - Jackson's Bay

It was windy in the night, but the day dawned clear and blue and the wind had dropped off.

During our morning routine we got visited by a chook - again. It was in no hurry to get out:-


At about 10:30 we set off for Jackson Bay – about 30 minutes’ drive away.

Along the way we passed through a “tunnel” of Beech, Kahikatea and Rimu forest. it was beautiful. The forest mainly consisted of Southern Beech, Kahikatea and Rimu:-


As we drove along Mary-Ann commented on the fact that one of things that made this attractive was that there was no rubbish and no graffiti – it was all clean and unspoilt.

On the way we passed over the Haast River bridge – a long one-way bridge:-



After about 45 minutes we got to Jackson’s Bay passed this sign:-



… and then to the entrance to the Jackson Bay settlement:-



…and passed the Craypot Café:-


We had a late morning tea there

 There was this sobering sign there about the early settlement attempts:-


At the end of the "Wharekai" walk we went back to the Craypot for a Seafood Basket lunch –shared between two for $28:-

 


 Here is the meal:-



Have a look at the other prices on the menu – Crayfish $85 !!!, and FishnChips $25!


On the way home we saw all these "gantries" that the local white-baiters erect for catching Whitebait in season:-


 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Friday 26th March - Drive to Curio Bay

Image
 Friday 26th March - Drive to Curio Bay In the morning Bev Crawford from Hamilton appeared out of the blue from Owaka where she had been staying while visiting The Catlins. After she left we said goodbye to John and Susan at the McClay's farm-stay and headed off down the Waikawa Road to Curio Bay. A lovely drive through rolling farmland and then primeval Native Bush. We stopped at Florence Hill lookout down to Curio Bay:- We went through Waikawa and 7km later found ourselves in Curioscape campground. It was a brand new building with a café and museum as well as the campground reception. We were allocated powered site 7 in amongst the flax bushes:- I can push my way through the flax at the back and I am right on the edge of the sea - tide's out:- After dinner, just before dusk, we went down the track to the Penguin Colony and found a lady watching. We would never have spotted them without her help as they were far down the cliff. They were pretty noisy though. This photo j...
Read more

Saturday 10th April – Visit Marion Hansen and James

Image
  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
Read more

Thursday 25th March - Surat Bay, Pounawera and Sea Lions

Image
 Thursday 25th March - Pounawera, Sudat Bay and Sea Lions Today was a misty drizzly day, but with no wind.  This morning we got an email from Bev Crawford to say that she was at Surat Bay near Owaka.  So this morning we set out trying to find Pounawera and Surat Bay without Google and nearly gave up, but found it eventually:-   It got its name from the wreck of the Surat in 1874:- We left a message  at the office of the BackPackers for Bev:- ... and then went for a walk along the beach which was beautiful:- and found to our surprise a Sea Lion lyin' down on the beach:- Here is a video of it:- It was a beautiful place:- We then drove back to the little village of Pounawera which was beautiful in an unspoilt way and found a path:- On the way we saw Spoonbills camped out on an islet in the middle of the estuary:- .. up to an old scow "Portland" that had been used earlier to work in shallow waters and now abandoned - sadly:-
Read more