Ross and Wyn Davies Travel Blog

We’re still in Dunedin – more or less. Well we were when I started this but now we’re not. Our days in Dunedin were all a bit hectic. That Wednesday we took a drive down to Port Chalmers – Wyn was visiting her new tax woman in my old street in Roseneath. It was funny (peculiar) being back there; playing Spot the Changes. It was a lovely morning so we went on to Port Chalmers and stopped for a coffee and chatted with a couple of people I knew. Continue reading →

Hmmm. long time no blog. We seem to have been busy, busy … busy. So much to do, so many people to catch up with.  Tuesday last week I visited my old work mates … my mates at my old work? You know what I mean …. It’s strange going back – seeing how it’s all moved on. It’s good to see that they can survive without me – but how dare they 🙂 I started my rounds of doctor and dentist etc and had a lovely afternoon with my daughter. Wednesday we continued with the pile of stuff we left under the house – it was slow progress. Continue reading →

Saturday was a misty moisty morning and cloudy was the weather …. We drove into Dunedin in the afternoon and visited Wyn’s tenants and then called round to see her grandson.  Then back to Wingatui to freshen up and have tea before heading back into town for a house concert that we’d gotten to hear about from someone we ran into in the supermarket. John Dodd unplugged was good and later Imogen singing Edith Piaff with the Swingset was awesome. It was good to catch up with friends and be among familiar faces. Continue reading →

Waking up yesterday (Friday) in Dunedin at Wingatui was a bit strange. We’d been away for 7 months and driven through the city the previous evening playing “spot the difference”. It was a hard game because there wasn’t much different; a house painted here, a different shop there, a new building beside Supercheap Auto.  It was race day at Wingatui – we’d got back at the wrong time. But they let us stay, out of the way. It was interesting watching all the preparations for the day. We had laundry to do with nowhere to hang it to dry, so I made a trip to a laundromat in North Dunedin. This was the first laundromat we’ve used in 10 months – we’ve made good use of our washing machine and machines in camping grounds as well. Continue reading →

We woke to the alarm clock in the Woolston Club car park. There was a school lunch to be made! It was another lovely morning and only took 10 minutes back through the tunnel to drop Wyn’s grand-daughter off at school. Lyttleton Harbour was a picture and we went in search of a viewpoint. There seems to be a lot of similarities between Lyttleton and Port Chalmers. Heaven knows why we weren’t twin towns or something. We drove up a steep street – very Careys Bay-like. We found a walkway and walked a bit further above the town to enjoy the view and the morning. We wished we could have stayed longer but we had places to go – south to Dunedin. Continue reading →

Wednesday was another lovely day in Christchurch. We were woken at the Papanui RSA at 6.10am by the loud speaker system from the exercise class inside a building over the fence. A shrill female voice was doing the “… come on .. 3 more … 2 more …” sort of cajoling. Such is the price of inner-city living. We were planning on moving anyway; Wyn was keen to catch up with her grand-daughter who lives in Lyttelton. We moved over to the Woolston Club – an official parkover place with a carpark about the size of a small country.  There were several motorhomes already in residence and we soon found a spot and settled in. It wasn’t far to the tunnel to Lyttleton and we were soon hurtling under the hill and out into Lyttleton. Continue reading →

Tuesday was another lovely day in Christchurch. Our carpark at the RSA in Papanui turned out to be a bit noisy, with some sort of noisy roadworks starting up fairly early on. We took the car up to Rangiora to visit my brother and sister-in-law. Brian made some yummy pizzas for lunch – I can see I’m going to have to sharpen up and learn about making my own bases. It was nice and sunny on their deck and a nice relaxing catch-up. On our way back we called in at the Styx transfer station to get rid of our rubbish that had built up over the weekend – as well as recycle what we could. Only to find that it was closed – at 4.30pm! Continue reading →

We had a great weekend with the other Traillite owners at the Agricultural Park in Christchurch. More and more turned up on Friday and eventually there were about 35 motorhomes. it was a great sight. Friday was a shocker of a day, cold and wet. Some attendees were snowed in at Hanmer. There was an initial gathering on Friday evening, inside luckily, with heaters. Saturday morning started with morning tea, and then we had a great workshop on GPSs and how to use them. The afternoon started with a general question and answer session on all sorts of things. Later we had a wine-tasting session and learned quite a lot about wine. Dinner was a great BBQ, made on and in a huge smoker/BBQ trailer/machine. After tea was the “Ross and Wyn” show, which was a bit daunting. We ran a show and tell session with photos of favourite places. Continue reading →

We took a while getting out of Blenheim on Thursday morning. I went round to pick up the blind from the dry cleaners. They’d done a rescue job and it looked about 95% better than the previous day and we parted on good terms. It has been an interesting experience getting the cushion covers and blind cleaned. The suitability of our fabric is obviously an issue. Maybe appearance took greater priority to practicality when it should be the other way round. At least the blind got recleaned enough to hang. Wyn went off for a walk/explore around the golf course and found parks and gardens that we’ll need to take advantage of next time we’re back in Blenheim. By the time we dumped and filled and got the car hitched up, it was midday before we were off south.

It was an overcast day with not much sun. Somehow this gave a lovely aqua colour to the sea as we followed it south. There was a bit of fresh snow on the Kaikoura ranges as well. We stopped at a beach about 20kms before Kaikoura for lunch – soup and toasted sandwiches. Then it was on to the Shell truckstop in Kaikoura, a good one for access heading south, and their low-speed switch worked which is always a plus. Sometimes with the huge truck hoses it feels like trying to plug a pipeline into the truck tank. South of Kaikoura it started to rain; nothing too much and not with any real wind. Wyn had a driving spell and we stopped at Amberley where we noticed it was getting colder. Nev the Nav did a good job getting us straight to the agricultural park in Christchurch where we’ll be for the weekend at the Traillite GetTogether. The rain was steady by the time we arrived (at about 6.30pm), and it was cold. But we soon had the heater going and tea on the table in time to watch Coro Street.

We woke on Monday to find Blenheim a bit busier out in the street. Wendy and John were busy too, starting to get to grips with their motels. We made our usual slow start to the day, meaning to keep out of their way. We wanted to do a load of washing which Wendy said was OK but we’d have to connect up the washing machine forst. I did – and found the hoses tricky to connect to the water taps. That’s my excuse for how I got distracted and forgot that washing machines have two hoses for getting water in and one for letting it back out again. I forgot about the drain hose. And we filled the machine and went off Continue reading →

Sunday was moving on day; to the South Island. It dawned another bleak day, cold and windy. The southerly had arrived. I was up early and managed to get my outside jobs done before the rain started. We took all morning getting sorted out, making sure our fresh water tanks were full and waste ones empty. Since it was the same price we were driving the car onto the ferry separately – less chance to damage the A-frame. At mid-day we headed down to the Bluebridge terminal and checked in. I had to go one way with Suzi and Wyn into another queue with the car. We ended up on different vehicle decks. I must have been on first because I managed to grab a two-seater sofa in the lounge with the laptop stations. We were lucky because it turned out to be a crowded crossing with lots of school holiday passengers who just kept crowding in. Continue reading →

Saturday morningin Wellington started out nice and sunny, and even a bit calm.  We took a while to get going and it was early afternoon by the time we headed into the city. Launching off into the motorway hurtling down the Ngauranga Gorge within 100m of leaving the campervan park is an interesting way to warm up to the day. We started with a drive up Mt Vic(toria) for a wonderful panoramic view of the city. There is interesting information there, including lots of stuff on the wind in Wellington.  It was windy enough while we were there. We wanted to go to the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary, so I found it in Nev the Nav. Well to be precise I found two entries and chose the first. Continue reading →

Friday was a gray sort of day in Wellington. In the morning we did some catching up and sorting out. After lunch we drove the short distance into the city. We wanted to do one of the tours of Parliament, and were lucky enough to get a car park right outside. So far so good. It was one of those new-fangled pay-and-display systems, with a maximum time of 2 hours. The machine even took credit cards with a surcharge of 50 cents which didn’t seem too much compared with the $8 fee to park there for just a couple of hours. There was a security check to get into the public reception area and then a wait of 40 minutes before the next tour. Continue reading →

I haven’t been able to find the TV video I saw on TV7 of the tidal/tsunami surges at Tutukaka the other day. But I have found this link to a very interesting account of the surges, and some video footage – on the excellent Dive Tutukaka site.

Yesterday (Thursday 1 October) we reached Wellington. It was easy enough. We drove down SH1 almost as far aswe could go without ending up on a ferry. It was a lovely morning in Levin and we took our time getting going. Wyn hung a few clothes up to dry and I took Suzi round the corner to fill up with diesel. It was close to midday before we swung out onto SH1 to continue south. Continue reading →