All right, way too long ago. I admit. We've been enjoying sunsets and freedom here. It's a bit unreal, hearing about all the problems elsewhere in the world while we are practically problem free on those islands way down under.
Yes, we do have some covid-19, but it's limited to people in quarantine, most of whom arrived from abroad. All of those are in managed isolation in guarded hotels. A few temporarily escape because of urgent needs (alcohol, chips, smokies) and because the security guards fall asleep on the job (7 have been caught so far). I'd say it is war (against covid-19), but executions have been abolished here in NZ.
Winter time here. But still regularly very nice weather, and a nice white coating on the Tararua's.
Early team meeting at the practice (I still cover for absentees regularly), airco not working yet, so receptionists and nurses clenching their hot coffees to warm up.
Nienke and I decided to clean the roof and the gutters. Before you think I let her do all the dangerous work, you're right! OK, not, but someone has to make the pictures.
I know we have a nice view, but from the roof it's even better. Maybe I'll build an extra deck here!
Even the gutter guards got a good cleaning. We decided it was time for a good clean when the water reservoir of our coffee maker showed some undesired green stuff on the bottom. Our flat whites still tasted pretty good, but.....
Found quite some rusty pieces of iron on the roof as well. Turned out the stainless steel of our satellite discs wasn't so stainless after all. No wonder our TV froze at times!
Since we were doing repairs I though it was only fair to give the tractor a treat as well. Had some problems starting. After 65 years the wiring to the ignition key had rusted through. Fixed it but decided to show it to our local tractor man to be sure. He gave me a blessing: 'that'll work'.
Had to call in his help to repair my leaking 2 way petrol valve though as I could not reach the O-rings and everything was either fragile or solidly rusted together. Their solution: a very modern one, just take the whole thing out and replace it. So far for restoration.
And then it was time for our trip: the Otaki boys down South. Some of the wives came to the fire station to wave us goodbye.
Watching rugby in the pub, yes. The original plan was to go to the All Blacks game against Wales in Wellington and then the All Blacks game against Scotland in Dunedin. Of course covid-19 changed everything, but the flight tickets were already booked so we decided to go anyway and support a few local businesses while we were there.
Trying to fit everything in 2 suitcases and a bit of hand luggage. Luckily nobody got checked.
Dinner at the Formerly Blackball Hilton in Blackball. This hotel had to change its name because of the other Hilton who had more money for court cases. Not the same style... What wine do you have? "Well, red and white!". Great lamb shank though!
And 'because we could' we briefly dropped in at a pounamu (greenstone) studio on the West coast. We were offered to try and make some greenstone ourselves, but most of us still had trembling fingers from the night before.
Had to visit Greytown to buy a chilly bin for in the van. Amazing how quickly that beer warms up in a van with 8 guys. Brief visit to the harbour from where you have amazing views over the Southern alps with their snow caps. This is what Abel Tasman saw first when he encountered New Zealand. Coward as he was, he quickly left NZ for what it was after a short skirmish with a few Maori and lied to the commanders of the VOC about his findings. Too bad, otherwise I could have treated my friends to some 'jenever' with 'bitterballen met mosterd'.
Drove back to the other side of the island over the beautiful Arthurs pass where the kea were prepared to rip of any visible rubber from the van. It's like a car testing station.
So nice these alps.
Then we visited Trevors brother in Fairlie. Had a garage bigger than his house. Inside a huge workshop and many old cars and motorbikes. Amazing how that changed the other guys. Suddenly they were walking between the vehicles as TopGear presenters. Kicking tires, chanting the brands and types out of their heads.
This is (I know now) the famous 'Bullet' in it's original colour. Only 4 or 5 of them in NZ if memory serves me right. A few of us were 'lucky' enough to get a ride. With 260 km/hour over the narrow roads in McKenzie country. That usually ends up in splitting the car in 2 on some oddly placed traffic sign or a non-cooperative tree. But we got all of the men back in the van, in one piece. Interesting fact: Kiwi's always complain about those tourists causing accidents, well, they just found out that the accident rate has not changed. Without international tourists........
I do not know much about cars, neither does it interest me much. If the stereo doesn't work anymore it needs servicing! Had some training in replacing flat tires last year!
Brief toilet brake at one of the many funny shops with memorabilia along side the back roads.
Short visit to the Roundhill skifield. Not that we were going to do any physical activity, but because we though we could have a nice lunch there with a view. Well, the view was there, but heaps and heaps of other people wanting to have lunch as well. So inconsiderate! Good for local economy. It turned out that local tourism was booming during the school holidays. Normally they all go to Aussies Goldcoast.
This is why I love this area, the lakes, the alps, the quietness.....
Lake Tekapo from our humble accommodation (a backpackers would you believe it).
And of course dinner. Apart from driving from point A to B, breakfast, lunch and dinner were the main activities on the trip. And to make sure these activities would proceed without interference we had to make sure that remnants of the previous meal were washed away in time for the next round. Hence the occasional beer.
Amazing start of the day.
The good start of the day only lasted for half an hour. The world around us turned into a thick icy fog. Our visit to Mount Cook, where I had hoped to convince my compadres to walk to the Tasman glacier, was out of the question. We could not see more than 5 meters and the temperature was freezing. Briefly visited a salmon farm where our mudflaps broke of on a speed bump. They were frozen! The flaps, not the salmons.
At the southern point of McKenzie country we walked to the Lindis Pass viewpoint. It may look good, but it was a walk of maybe 200 m and a climb of perhaps 30 m.
Had lunch in Wanaka which had doubled in size since the last time I was there. The NZ jet-set (yes, we do have that here as well) has taken over the town.
On our way to Queenstown over Cardona Mountain road we visited the Cardrona distillery where they make a whiskey and some gin. After all we had agreed that it was not just a booze tour so we had to do something cultural as well. The whiskey is not 6 years yet so technically they can't call it whiskey yet, but they gave us a taste anyway. The bra's? Well, what do you expect when 8 handsome guys get out of a van? OK, it started of as fun and now it has become a money collection point for breast cancer research. None of us was wearing one so we could only leave money.
We spent the night in an Irish pub in Arrow town where Cam met some old friends and down here meeting old friends from a friends means meeting new friends. With some good live Irish music it was a very pleasant evening again.
This is the smallest still functioning post office in New Zealand, located in Omakau. Nice lady showed us around and even locked us up in the jail behind the post office, such fun.
This area is famous for gold mining. This nice lake was created by gold diggers when they were sluicing the rock with huge water pumps. Other than a nice view we did not find much.
Oh, but we did. We found a nice lunch in the local pub. This whole area is now visited often by cyclists who do the Otago Central rail trail. Still on our wish list. Heard today that our border quarantine may last for 2 more years, so this trip may happen soon!
That night we arrived in Naesby, famous for being the coldest place in New Zealand. They play curling here. Our instructor started of by saying we North islanders where not used to anything but shut up quickly when he saw Shane play curling on just toe slippers.
I didn't expect this to be so amusing. It all looks very slow and monotone, but to play it yourself with a bunch of guys and either a celebration or motivational shot of whiskey after each throw made it great entertainment.
We had to practice a bit of course and they did not give us the official curling brooms (I wonder why), but it all got better as it got darker and foggier. I think.....
While we were performing at near Olympic level curling the speakers on the ice ring were playing '70's songs. Groovin' on the ice. The boys were surprised to learn that the Dutch curling teams have ahigher ranking than the Kiwi teams. I proudly wore my orange down jacket.
Because of the cold and fog there were not many locals left to see the medal ceremony.
OK, it was cold the night before, but when we woke up the world ad changed colour.
They had a special name for this kind of weather down here, can't remember what it was. It's beautiful and cold though.
Luckily enough cosy pubs to warm up and have a pie for lunch. Eating a pie is a typical NZ thing to do. In Ranfurly I had my first ever salmon-bacon pie and it was absolutely delicious. Worth travelling all the way over here. I think they managed to stuff a whole salmon and half a pig into that thing. Amazing. In this pub I settled for a spicy Thai lamb pie. Just great. That was just before the staff rolled us back into the van, which by now started to look more like a cattle transporter.
Trevor drove us over some amazing country (back roads we ordinary people would never find). The best views. We briefly parked the car in such a way that our sanitary stop could not be disturbed.
A short visit to a working gold mine. An Australian company is on it's way to dig a tunnel to Spain.
And then we were in Dunedin. For the famous game that wasn't going to happen. Struck with grief over the cancellation of the game Trevor needed to be a moment (well actually half an hour) alone while waiting for our lovely female captain to return us to the van on the other side of the Otago harbour. Great shot!
And so we ended up in a pub (where else) to watch the Hurricanes (Wellington) play the Chiefs for the Investec Super Rugby Aortearoa cup. Because of covid-19 the old Super-15 competition with teams from Australia, South Africa, Japan and Argentina could not go ahead, so the Kiwi teams just play each other. You'd think rugby NZ remembered about the All Black game that was cancelled and all those people who had already booked flights and accommodation. They could have planned a home game for the Highlanders in Dunedin. Nah, too logical. So the Highlanders were not playing and we were supporting our own team from Wellington all the way down in the Lone Star in Dunedin. Anyway, we won! And had to celebrate...
And like always, great pub food.
In the morning our cultural event of the day; a visit to the closed museum in the railway station. Lloyd could still climb onto an old loc though, while I had a brief talk to the local guide. That is, he talked (I saw his lips moving and heard some sound) but could not understand a word. A friendly smile was all I could do. I doubt he noticed it was not a conversation.
The old pier in Oamaru (that's right, where the stones come from we carve) has been confiscated by a bunch of shags.
Lunch, pfffft. By now I really struggled with food. I think breakfast was still parked in my oesophagus while dinner from the night before had not left my stomach yet. Anyway, we got to a lovely restaurant in Mouraki called Fleurs place. On the menu: fish. Ah well, if you let the fish swim it might find it's way to the stomach. I chose a fantastic blue cod with coriander/coconut/chili sauce. So good, I unsuccessfully tried to copy the sauce later at home.
People left their warm greetings/thanks on the walls in the restaurant, so we are there now as well, Otaki boys down south 2020. Just underneath the ceiling as Russel can reach there without problems.
A short stroll to the Mouraki boulders was the exercise for the day.
No, Blair was not arrested, at least, not that I noticed. Our accommodation in Christchurch was the old jail, now a backpackers accommodation. We decided to spend a bit more money for smaller cells so we did not have to sleep with 2 very noisy backpackers in one room. Apparently those youngsters snore like steam engines when they have had a drink.
Looking for my cell on level one.
Got it, cell nr. 19! Now where is my cake?
The cultural event of the day was a visit to one of the many new craft beer breweries in NZ, the NewNewNew brewery in Christchurch.
Very knowledgeable guide explaining the very special way they make beer here.
One of us tried, but he couldn't slip a barrel under his sweater.
They had some weird accommodation as well with personal taps of all their craft beers in every room. Including neon lightning, see through bathrooms walls and hot pools on the deck. Not sure if that ever will be a success. Maybe for some exec's with their PA's....
And then, the end. The van got a final cleanup and then we headed for the airport. Everyone survivcd, barely.
First time cooking again after the trip. Vegies and vegies. Only green we've seen on the trip was on the packaging of that delicious pie. Promised myself to lose weight, not have a drink and eat healthy for a long time. Well, at least a few days....
Picked up physical activity again as well. Was a bit too early for tennis competition so walked over the beach in Paraparaumu and saw the old house we rented there when we just arrived in Kapiti. As you can see there is not much left of 'our' garden. Climate change has arrived. Was good to pick up tennis again. I had not played for a while as recuperation from the operation on my hands lasted longer than I expected. Enjoyed it so much I bought a new racket when I came home.
Picked up training for the Keppler track again with Nienke.
Nice walk in Waikanae, Nienkes favorite the Hemimatenga track. Pure nature so close to the urban area.
Dinner with our friends the Kunz family. Tim and Nienke dancing on an old rap song (Rappers delight). Nienke still knows the text by heart.
And some more training. Started of at the Waitohu valley stream, an area we recently discovered and now did the walk to Mount Thompson.
An old logging track. In general still in a good condition, but at places a tiny bit overgrown.
We had read that at the top you would be rewarded with an amazing view over Horowhenua. Unfortunately that was 10 years ago and the view was obliterated with new growth. Someone had put in the effort to write something down, a warning?, some local info?, who knows........
From the top you could walk to Manakau, but as we did not have our scuba gear with us we decided that we'd just walk back to the car.
There were heaps of foot prints of wild boar and we even saw three of them, dog size black piglets. They were too quick for us, so no wild boar on the menu this week.
Funly enough nature treated us with some orange flowers on our way and later even orange fungi.
A stolen picture from our local facebook page. Because it is so stunningly beautiful.
The variation in temperatures caused some beautiful sea fog when Nienke came home. Our cows, stalled at the neighbour, kindly asked Nienke to bring them back home.
Beautiful day today and because my Dutch colleague and I both had the day of we decided to go for a round of golf in Waikanae. My first time again in 2 years. Kars is very good and looking at him playing really well improved my game as well. Did not play too bad at all.
OK, I admit, there was the odd ball that did not want to play with me anymore.
That was it guys, a rather long blog this time. Hope you like it. Cheers.
Beautiful day today and because my Dutch colleague and I both had the day of we decided to go for a round of golf in Waikanae. My first time again in 2 years. Kars is very good and looking at him playing really well improved my game as well. Did not play too bad at all. 
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