A very long way

Week 3

South Island

Lake Pukaki to Banks Peninsula

Wednesday 6th February 2013

We woke up once again to those fabulous crystal blue skies & matching blues of Lake Pukaki.  The views across the lake towards the mighty Mount Cook were awe-inspiring & boy, were we lucky in having such clear views of the snow clad mountain.

Anyway, striking camp after breakfast our route would take us through the Southern Alps & her foothills & out across the vast Canterbury Plains.

As had been the case throughout our travels, the highways were deserted, a few cars near settlements & towns & then vast emptiness.

Hamlets named after local sheep drovers, sparsely covered parched slopes, pine copses slipped past as we headed down from 'sheep country' down in 'dairy country' that is the Canterbury Plains.   Fairlie, the epicentre of dairying, was a long sprawling town of wide grass verges, cattle yards & tractors.

As we drove on wards, paddocks filled with black & white Holstein cows, grazed on the heavily irrigated pastures,  swishing their docked tails in an efforts to remove the flies.

After observing some tourists leap from a hire vehicle & then watched in amazement as they proceeded to take 'selfies' of themselves with round bales of hay, we stopped off in Geraldine at the Vintage Car & Machinery Museum.

We spent 3 hours here.  There were tractors.

There were cars.

There was a Harley Davidson hearse.

There was even a small bi-plane attached to the ceiling like a butterfly specimen.

Then there were the 2 old timers who enthused about all of the machinery, cars, tractors, screw, bolts etc
etc.

Eventually l managed to drag Husband away & we returned to our route to meet up with friends in Akaroa on the Banks Peninsula, turning right off Route 1 shortly after crossing the bridge over the Rakaia River & its many 'braids'.

The plains gave way to hills, whilst the wide straight roads became twisty & narrow as we headed onto the Banks Peninsula, & thanks to it being Whaitangi Day the roads were chocked with day trippers heading back to Christchurch.  Close encounters however with hair pin bends provided some spectacular views across the parched landscape down to the inlets below.

After a long day's drive through diverse scenery we eventually pulled up into the drive at Mount Vernon Lodge, Akaroa to be warmly greeted by firends & fellow Yorkshireman & his partner who had swapped Uk dairy farming for New Zealand dairy farming & now were embarking on a new adventure.

Today's mileage = 200miles