Ross and Wyn Davies Travel Blog

Apparently blogs are supposed to be regularly blogged. We watched Julia and Julie the other night. Julie was a good blogger – and regular. I think I am a binge blogger. I blog a bit and then a lot and then not at all. It is again a month since I last caught up. It actually seems eons since we arrived back in Blenheim and I’m surprised to find it’s only been a month. We are alive and well parked up in Suzi beside Kenepuru Sound in the Marlborough Sounds. We are at Cowshed Bay which doesn’t sound very romantic. It is actually a wonderful location several hundred metres from Portage, surrounded by native forest. There are no cows or livestock or anything rural anywhere near here. It was probably named by the same geographer who named Mutton Cove in the Abel Tasman National Park – north of Totaranui. Both Mutton Cove and Cowshed Bay are idylic locations labouring under stupid names. Mind you, I live in a country which called it’s two beautiful islands “North” and “South”. Enough! I better sort out some photos and get caught up.

We heard about the Ron Mueck sculpture exhibition at the Christchurch Art Gallery on Sunday morning 17 October. It was described in terms of its realism and in terms of the responses provoked by the works. So by Sunday afternoon we were queuing up and paying our $15 ready to be surprised and amazed. And surprised and amazed we were. The first piece was entitled Dead Dad and was a three-foot long naked corpse on the floor of a dimly lit room. It looked life/death-like, except for being half size. Continue reading →

Thursday 14 October saw us steaming north from Dunedin, bound for Christchurch. It was six weeks since we’d come the other way, which meant two days less than six weeks since the earthquake had made a mess of the place and the people. We were bound for Weedons, on the southern end. We were keen to catch the last episode of This is Not My Life on the telly so kept moving. We arrived at Weedons with minutes to spare to find the satellite, put the kettle on, start tea and catch the final minute of Coro Street first. Phew! Continue reading →

Back in Dunedin by Saturday 2nd October we redoubled our efforts to get things done. There was still lots to do to sort out wedding things and us things. Plus people to catch up with. So began another hectic couple of weeks. We were staying at Wingatui and tried to limit ourselves to one trip to town per day. Continue reading →

Saturday 25th September was a better sort of day. And a moving on sort of day. With a stop in town for catching up and stocking up, we headed over the hill to Waitati and sunshine. We stayed with friends there after helping prune their entrance-way.  We enjoyed their hot tub which was fairly hot. Sunday was a sunny day with a leisurely start. Later I tried out my sheep herding techniques and we got to help a bit with tailing their lambs – all 8 of them. Laura came for the night which included the movie Boy which we all enjoyed. Continue reading →

The week from 20th September was another busy one. We were still staying at the Wingatui Racecourse. Monday we took the car to the car hospital to get her chassis straightened a bit. Was it Oscar Wilde who said that the only thing worse than bending the chassis of your car is bending it twice? Ours has been punished a bit in the towing process. Also that day I walked into the lion’s den aka the Telecom shop. I’d received a note saying they were going to disconnect our mobile data network and wanted us to switch over to their wonderful new XT network. Continue reading →

Woe is me. And sorry, I’ve fallen behind once more. Let’s see – the dog ate my laptop? Aliens kidnapped us for a month? How about we were busy getting around catching up with family and friends and making wedding plans? Anyway, we are alive and well and waking up at Whites Bay near Blenheim. It looks like being a nice day and hopefully a lovely weekend. I’ll make a start on catching up a bit.

Monday 13 September was a new week and time to get down to work. Work as in getting getting married sorted out. We did the rounds of a few shops and places in Mosgiel and roamed as far as Outram. It was a lovely sunny afternoon and we managed to fit in a walk around the (horse) track. The view from where we are parked includes a lovely vista framed between the grandstands; fertile green fields and rolling green hills. Tuesday was a day in Dunedin trying to stimulate the economy there. There was a cold wind blowing. Continue reading →

Friday 3 September and we were parked up at the Wingatui Racecourse. Near Mosgiel, near Dunedin. When people ask where we come from and we can’t be bothered explaining that we come from nowhere in particular then we say we come from Dunedin. It is where we came from before we came from nowhere and we still have library cards and we still get a vote in Dunedin.  It seems like you have to have a vote somewhere. People want to know what you do and it can be a bit awkward when you’re not working. So then they want to know where you’re from and they can be a bit surprised if we say we’re from everywhere and nowhere. Continue reading →

Back at the end of August we were still in Christchurch. Wyn hung out with a friend from Dunedin (who we’d run into the evening before) and I hung out on the internet with my virtual friends. Or caught up with some photos or the blog. By the end of that we were about ready to head south. Except we decided this might be a good opportunity for Wyn to get her own laptop. We’ve shared one so far which means that quite a bit of a day can go by by the time we’ve both caught up with our worlds. We’d looked a bit while we’d been in some shops and it was time to plunge on in. So on Wednesday we headed back to Tower Junction. We took Suzi and the car, fairly sure we were going south. Continue reading →

Woops. We hadn’t updated our blog to say we’d moved south from Christchurch. We were at Taieri Mouth south of Dunedin when the earthquake shook Christchurch on Saturday morning. We must have been some of the few in the South Island who hardly even felt it – living in a sprung motorhome. We were pleased to not be in Christchurch and are now wondering how friends and family in Christchurch have fared. We were at a motorhome rally at Taieri Mouth and Wyn had no mobile coverage and mine was minimal so we’re just catching up with the world.

It’s Tuesday and slightly sunny and slightly warm in Christchurch. We finally reached Christchurch on Sunday, via Rangiora and a visit to Brian and Judy – my brother and sister-in-law. We headed on to the Woolston Club car park and parked up here with the other gypsies. Sunday was a bleak afternoon so we visited Sumner which was also bleak. Yesterday morning was bleak and we headed off to take the car to an engineering place. They were going to straighten out the towing lugs/brackets, which they did. Continue reading →

Last Saturday we woke slowly beside the sea at Paparoa Point on the coast north of Kaikoura. We’d had a rough sort of walk the day before to Sawcut Gorge and we had a few complaining muscles. We were just north of Ohau Stream where the seal pups are now famous for their adoption of the rock pools there. We’d heard a bit about it back in July when we were working in Kaikoura and then it hit the Press newspaper and the national TV news.  There is a huge seal colony on the rocks on the coastline and we’ve often stopped to look at them. In recent times it seems that the seal pups have taken over the Ohau Stream to play and hang out. Continue reading →

Flashback to last week.  We left Blenheim on Thursday and got as far as the sandhills by the mouth of the Waima/Ure River. About 8kms south of Ward and 2 kms north of Wharanui – not that you’d ever know that you were at Wharanui. And what’s with the Waima/Ure name. Why can’t people make up their mind what to call a river? Anyway, our DoC pamphlet told us that the Sawcut Gorge was up the Waima/Ure valley so it was a perfect place to park and spend the night. Continue reading →