Hope-full

Yesterday we said good bye to our lovely Hosts, Dawn and Ross in the Vicarage in Culverden, and headed to the North of the South Island

Selfie at the vicarage!

It started as a foggy day.

But thankfully, the sky’s cleared and we enjoyed a clear sky.

We got a clear sky, but we were not blessed with clear roads. Once again, we encountered a closed road. This time is was closed-closed. No passage.

We had a choice: turn around and retrace our steps back to Reefton, and take the LONG WAY up the west coast. Adding probably 3 hours to our three hour drive. or travel a narrow gravel road, across the mountains.

Guess which we chose?

Yup, the gravel road!

This was the best part of the road… it wound around that mountain…

It only added 30 minutes to the drive… and was another “road less travelled”. Although a number of other cars, and bikes picked it too… including a truck and caravan… which we almost saw tip off the road, as he passed an oncoming car.

Three creek fords later, Yicks!, we made it to Murchison, and completed the last hour and half drive on lovely paved road!

We made it to our Farm stay Bnb, with an awesome view

Pear tree hedge

The view, with tractor!

Poor dusty Cora, and that after we brushed off the worst of it!

This morning, we headed out to explore the furthest reaches of South New Zealand.

We did stop once, at a lookout, and were greeted by a protector of the view, a Weka, one of New Zealand’s flightless birds. He was interested in us… and scared at the same time… he came right to car. But as I crouched to take the pic… he backed up.

Weka!

The view he was protecting

We then continued to Collingwood. A town on Golden Bay. It was at one time in the running for capital of New Zealand, but in 1904 a fire quickly spread through town, and took out most of it.

The winds off the bay were something else, we could definitely believe that the fire would have been hard to control.

The little bay, with froth building g

Little Collingwood!

We then continued to the very top, well, as far as you can drive, Farewell Spit.

There are tours that will take you right to the end: in a special bus, but we did not have the time today for that, but we did follow two of the busses up the shore… turns out they were taking a school group out!