Hanmer Springs

We stayed at Hanmer Springs NZMCA Park for three nights. The day we arrived the weather was lovely. After unhitching, we drove into town to check the place out and to buy a few groceries. The trees were dressed in their Autumn splendour—it reminded me a little of Arrowtown.

There were some stunning evergreens as well, right in the main street.

We found there were some great walks that we could take Lucy on, but it was getting a bit late in the day. Dave planned to go golfing tomorrow, and I was going to work in the morning and take Lucy back to this forest in the afternoon. Sadly, our plans came to naught as the weather turned sour.

So instead, the next afternoon, we decided to visit a winery we'd seen on the way in. Waiau River Estate—the home of Hells Gate Wines.

They produce honey as well, and some of their wines have won awards. We particularly enjoyed their Pinot Noir—and  their Chardonnay, which was "different". However, there were none that we didn't like—they were all very drinkable.

On the way back to Hanmer Springs, you cross over the Waiau Ferry Bridge. This is the view looking left—we're travelling towards the right of the photo.

Looking back at the wrought-iron bridge (built in 1887) through the mist and rain.

. . . and looking further up the river.

There was a lot of low cloud this day as we headed back into town.

Later that day I looked out of the rig and noticed this rooster sheltering from the rain under someone else's fifth wheeler. I'd heard about this rooster that lives here at the park. Good thing he's not a noisy one in the morning! Well, he didn't wake me up anyway.

As we left the next day, we introduced ourselves to the owners of another Sunliner that had arrived in the rain the previous day. Their rig is a later model than ours, and it's always fun to compare ideas.

There was that rooster again!

Cheeky . . . 

Heading back to the Waiau Ferry Bridge, I wanted to take some more photos. There's no place to stop here, no footpath to walk along to get photos, and it was raining. So these next two are through the windscreen. That's the bridge is the distance.

And as we cross over, this is looking out of my side of the ute towards where they run a bungy jumping business.

This is Marble Point, not far out of Hanmer—just south of the winery, actually.

After leaving Hanmer we travelled over the Inland Road to Kaikoura. It was a slow trip with 15, 25 and 35 kph corners as well as lots of one-way bridges and roadworks, but the scenery was lovely, and we just took our time and enjoyed the views.

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Kurow - McCaw Country

Travelling further inland from Oamaru, the next place we arrived at was the small town of Kurow. Residents here are justifiably proud of Richie McCaw and want to erect a 2.4 metre high bronze statue to honour their favourite son.

Walking along the main street of Kurow was this beautiful home frontage, right on the footpath.

More main street buildings

Perhaps this bike is to recognise that the A2O (Alps to Ocean) Cycle Trail goes right through Kurow.

 A short distance back east of Kurow is this historic place where you can see Maori rock drawings. It's right on the side of the main highway, well signposted and easy to find. There is a long wall of interesting rock formations running from near the road across the paddocks off to the west (roughly).

The portion where the Maori artwork is has been protected by these fences.

There are four of these signs showing what the drawings are that you're looking for as some of them are "faded" and quite hard to see. Note the horse and rider (B) and what looks like a ship below it.

Here they are on the wall. The horse and rider top left. You might be able to identify some of the other artwork from the picture above. This was one of the easiest sections to identify actual artwork. In other places, whole sections had been removed from the face of the rock and apparently they're displayed in museums around New Zealand.

The entire cliff face was a perfect home for pigeons, with plenty of crevices and holes for them to roost in.

On the way back to Kurow we stopped at this cute little cellar door to taste some Kurow wines. River-T Estate are in the process of building a larger, new cellar door, but in the meantime, this is it! Their wines were interesting, and we especially enjoyed their Pinot Noir and Riesling.

Just next door to them was the Kurow Winery who had a few different labels: Pasquale, Kurow Village, Black Star and Otiake were four that I noticed.

Again the Pinor Noir (Penny Red) and the Riesling appealed to us. The pizza we bought here was one of the best we've had in a long time. You can choose your own toppings—we had blue cheese, mushrooms and chorizo. YUMMY! I don't think I'll be able to drive past this place again without stopping in for one. From memory it was only $20. A delicious late lunch.

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Bannockburn

There's lots to see at Bannockburn, a gold mining district not far from Cromwell in Central Otago.

There seem to be a lot of vineyards in this area, but the only one we could not pass by on this trip was Mt Difficulty. Their Pinot Noir has always been a favourite of ours, and here was a chance to taste some more of their repertoire.

Roaring Meg is one of Mt Difficulty's labels. They use wine from grapes grown outside of the Bannockburn region for this label.

Mt Difficulty's cellar door was incredibly busy. If there was any disappointment at all to mention, it would be this. There were people everywhere, both tasting and arriving at the restaurant. Usually wine tasting is a very relaxed event with lots of opportunity to chat with whoever is serving. Maybe it was just me, but I did feel a bit rushed. And cramped. Nevertheless, their wines did not disappoint.

The Sauvignon Blanc was our least favourite—or we would have snapped up this bargain!

When we first arrived at Mt Difficulty, we noticed these cliffs and chunks of land that just seemed to be pushed up out of the ground. We wondered what had caused this. The lovely lady who served us our wine tastings advised that the land was this way due to mining. Sluicing has worn away the soil. She told us that Bannockburn has a very low rainfall—hence it's reputation as a little desert—or the rain would have since had a detrimental effect on these remnants. We discovered we could travel along the road a little way and see this place a little closer at the "Bannockburn Sluicings".

There is a self-guided track and you could spend a couple of hours exploring here. We didn't go far.

In some places, the ground had these pretty schist-like sparkly rocks/stones in piles. The growth on the ground is a wild rosemary which smelt delicious to walk on!

Then there was this beautiful Californian Poppy in a few places. They thrive in poor sandy and stony soils and love the hot and dry. Perfect conditions here for them.

Recycling what looks like old sluicing pipes. Here they're used as barriers along the entrance way.

The Clyde

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