I do not know what you would call my last 3 nights (4 days). I do not work but took a driving and hiking trip across to the other side of the South Island. I booked 2 weeks ago and then was worried as the forecast was not good but too late to cancel my motel bookings. In total I drove just over 1000km. Thursday was fine, almost hot, and I drove 346 km to a little village called Makarora at the beginning of the Haast Pass which is the lowest pass across the Southern Alps. Nice views from the motel of the snow capped mountains. I have vague memories of camping there in January 1967, just one year after the road was built over the pass. It poured rain during the night but thankfully Friday was fine and I was able to slowly cross the pass. While it was my 4th crossing, on previous times I only stopped for the shortest viewpoints. This time I stopped at 9 places and hiked about 9 km in total. The longest was at the top of the pass (562 metres) where I hiked up another 120 metres to a viewpoint. At least this one only had 2 couples on the track unlike some of the other short ones to falls where the parking areas were full of campervans. And it is only the beginning of the tourist season. I reached the west coast after driving 86 km that day and, as it was only just after 2pm, I drove another 50kms south as far as the road goes on the west coast to Jacksons Bay. I had never been there. I had coffee in a converted railway carriage and took another 2.5 km walk to a wild coastal bay just a bit further south. There are many other walks but some are multi day tramps, beyond me now.
I returned 35km to another motel which was very nice but 15km from nearest town (if you can call it a town, population 250).
Again it poured all night but the west coast is known for some of the highest rainfall figures in the world. Just as well I did all the walks on the way over as it rained all the way back across the Pass, so I drove 190km with just one stop for coffee at the little place I had stayed Thursday night. Back on the other side of the alps it was at first sunny then showers in the late afternoon. I could have driven further but had booked my final motel so checked in at 2.30pm.
When I went out for dinner (I cooked all my other meals on the trip), I was dismayed to see the showers had left reddish brown spots all over the car. It is dust from Australia 2000km away where they are having very bad fires. I saw the street where I lived for 28 years was in the news and emailed my neighbours of that time. They replied that the fire had been brought under control at 3am that morning in what was my back yard. Over the day and night there have been over 150 houses lost and at least 3 people have died. I am so glad I left, even if we do sometimes get sick of the rain here in NZ.
Again it rained all night (the dust has gone) and all the way on my 314km drive today so again I only stopped once for coffee and was home just after 1.30pm. Altogether I drove just over 1000 km and glad I got to do all the walks I planned even if on just the one day rather than spread over 2.
Topic: Cellar Scribblings (Read 4148412 times)