What's on the Table

 This tablecloth dates back to 2012 when we traveled to the South Island with three other caravans for a three month trip.  I took along some pre sewn  rail fence blocks made up of strips of New Zealand inspired fabrics alternating with pale grey and my Micron ink pen. 

Table cloth documenting our mammoth South Island trip

 Our old cat Muffy was 16 years old back then and we had always placed her in a cattery when we traveled.  But I worried that at her age she might die while we were away, so we took her on  her very first caravan trip, and what a long one it was.  Although she was very unsettled during the ferry trip, she settled down surprising well.  Within a week of being on the road she was reasonably comfortable with the big change in her life.

And here we all were, full of excitement,  traveling down on the Inter Islander Ferry with our friends. Sadly, Robin and Geoff C are no longer with us.

Robin, Jenny, Dot, Pauline, Eileen, Geoff T, Derek, Geoff C, way back in 2012

And what a time we had,  Each  night I would get my Micro pen out and write down, where we stayed, the places we explored, and special sights we had seen.  The writing has faded now over all these years, but the memories are still there.

Writing on the blocks each night

We drove down the east coast,  stopping at all sorts of interesting places and reached Invercargill.  This was quite memorable for our old cat Muffy, as she found some cat nip growing where we were parking up overnight and rolled on the warm concrete in ecstasy!

I think Muffy overdosed on cat nip

We traveled back through Central Otago, and over to the West Coast, back over to Picton, and finally taking the ferry back to Wellington. The scenery of the South Island of New Zealand can only be described in superlatives, such as majestic, stunning, and sensational. With vistas of mountains, rugged peaks, glaciers, rain forests, fiords, rivers, lakes, hot mineral springs, wild coastlines, streams and estuaries, and rolling farmland, each day brought us more wonderful views to marvel over. Each of these wonderful places was faithfully recorded on the rail fence blocks, and the memories will live on each time I use my  table cloth, completed in June 2012.  Eileen had donated me the colourful kiwi fabric which I used for the backing, border and binding.  I think her original intention was to use this fabric to make something for her grandchildren, which never happened.

Completed in June 2012

Our Toyota Land Cruiser towed the caravan 3973km around the South Island, and then we drove a staggering 3413km without the caravan on the back,  tiki touring around.  A grand total of 7386kms for the trip, and we used 1417 litres of diesel.  And all this travelling cost us $2292.17 and our fuel consumption averaged out at approx 18 litres per 100 kilometres.  Goodness knows what the cost of the fuel would be these days, 14 years later.

Heading Home

 Our last night in the South Island was quite a worry.  A storm came rolling in as the day wore on, and was fully fledged by night time.  We could swear that the thunder was right over head, and each noisy clap spooked Gemma.  She ran around the van looking for a hiding place, hunkering down on the carpet at the foot of the bed, with the overhanging duvet giving her the illusion of cover.  Lightening cracked around us, torrential rain came down, and the caravan was buffeted all night by strong wind gusts.  Dear oh dear, what would our sailing be like the following day, we wondered. 

 Luckily the storm had gone the next morning, just leaving the wind gusts behind.  Time for the final part of our journey, crossing Cook Strait.  We were hoping the return trip would not be too rough, after all that bad weather the previous day.  While we were waiting in our lane to board the ship, we noticed a silly young girl walking around with a tiny pup.  The pup was not on a lead at all, and the girl was running here and there with the pup trying hard to keep up.  No control at all, and I had visions of a car or truck driving up to wait where they had been sent, and running over the pup.  Luckily that didn't happen, but.....  Soon, the vehicles in our lane were waved aboard, our journey across Cook Strait is beginning.

It is always rather noisy down in the hold.  Pets have to stay in the vehicles, or in Gemma's case, inside the caravan.  She is left with water and dry food in her bowls, and her dirt box.  Other than that, she is on her own, and has to deal with the trip alone for the next few hours as best she can.

Gemma stays in the caravan during the trip

So it was up to the cafe for a light lunch.  As the ship started to slowly leave the wharf I stepped out on the deck to take a few photos.  Traveling through the Marlborough Sounds is always so calm and  beautiful.

 On our way through the Sounds

I had brought my knitting with me to while away the time.  Not the blue pair of socks I was knitting on the trip down - I'm up to the heels on those so put them aside till I returned home.  This is another recently started pair, the pretty pink sock wool was a Christmas gift from my daughter, Nicky.

Busy knitting socks

The remainder of the journey was surprisingly calm, hard to believe after the terrible weather the previous day.  A friendly traveler noticed the Scotch Thistle on the front of my jumper and asked if I was from Scotland.  No, I answered,  but I did buy my jumper there in Edinburgh, and my maternal grandfather came from Glasgow.  It was easy to work out that this man was Irish, he had such a wonderful lilting Irish accent.  Yes, we've been to Ireland too, we said, and spent an interesting hour or so swapping travel tales.

He  saw my camera and asked if we would like a photo.  He and his wife were very impressed that we made such good use of our caravan and traveled far and wide around our beautiful country.  "You two are enjoying life and living the dream", he commented.

The time soon passed and we arrived in Wellington.   Time to head down to the car deck and get ready.  We decided to stop at Plimmerton NZMCA Park for the night, as it was getting dark, and we didn't want to arrive home and unload the van at night time.  A quick meal, and it was early to bed, it had been a big day and we were exhausted.  The next morning after  breakfast we hooked up for the final leg of the journey.  Home at last we unpacked the van, put the first load of washing on, and sat and relaxed over a late lunch.  Phew, it's good to be home again.  We had 10 days away this trip, and traveled 1110 kms.

While we were away Spring has sprung and our Kowhai tree had burst into blossom.  We brought this tree up to our new home in Levin as a seedling from our garden, and it is certainly thriving up here.

Our Kowhai tree in blossom

With help from Gemma

 This blog is brought to you with help from Gemma.  She is excellent at holding the lap top bag in place while I'm tapping away.  And it makes such a good place to have a comfy snooze.

Gemma is a big help

Our four days in Christchurch seeing my son Michael had come to an end, so then it was time to hitch the caravan up to the car and travel slowly back up to Picton to catch the ferry again.  We had nearly a week to do this, so we planned several stops along the way.

One lunch stop was at the very royal sounding Balmoral Recreation Area.  No royals popped out to meet us, and then I remembered that they are having a family summer holiday in Edinburgh.  Such a lovely site, surrounded with pine trees, and  very peaceful indeed with just one other van in the grounds.  It would be great to stay here for a night or two on a future trip.  Gemma enjoyed some time outside on her lead.

Fed and watered, we got on our way again to our stop for the night at Waiau Tavern.  No charge to stay for the night, but there is an expectation that travelers would spend a little money in the bar, or have a meal.  Which is quite fair and reasonable, we think, when the parking is free.  Opening time rolled around so we went over for 4zees, just the owner and us in the tiny bar.  Plus a rather feisty ginger kitten who calls the tavern home.

The owner Lindsay told us about the 7.8 Hurinui-Kaikoura earthquake in November 2016.  The epicentre was located close to Waiau township and the fault ruptures ran for more than 180km along known and previously unrecognized faults.  The hotel was badly damaged, then while waiting for council permission to rebuild, was burnt to the ground by squatters.  This new tavern is much smaller but serves the community well. 

Leaving Wairau Tavern it was a short 52km  to our next stop, Conway Flat Ocean Edge.  The photos looked delightful, vans parked on the cliff overlooking the sea, room for large vehicles and pet friendly. We turned off SH1 at Hundalee and drove down to the coast, finally spotting several vans and motorhomes parked up in a large paddock.  This is the place.  Peeping over the cliff we could see the wavelets roll in.  This is a good area for fishing, we were told.    It was a lovely restful day indeed, and we were lulled to sleep with the soothing sounds at bedtime.  There was no show of catching the sun rise over the ocean the next morning, we slept so well that the sun was well up by the time we surfaced.  This is a wonderful place to stay and we certainly plan to return in a future South Island trip.

Our ocean view site for the night

After talking to another couple we mentioned that we travel with our cat.  Can we see her please?, they asked.  They own a Maine Coon but don't take it camping.  Gemma was not at all impressed with being picked up by a stranger, and I had to warn that she was not necessarily a friendly cat.  After that, she pointedly jumped on the bed, and turned her back on these people who dared to touch her!

Continuing on our way the next morning we saw glimpses of the snow capped Southern Alps again.  This is always such a pretty sight.

Snow capped mountain range

We were on our way to another camping site with an ocean view.  We turned off SH1 at the tiny village of Ward, and the first thing we saw was this happy Mama pig.  She wandered over to the fence to show me her very best side.  Shall I tell you a secret?  With a suburban upbringing, I've always rather liked pigs, for some reason.  And chickens too, or rather "chooks" as we tend to call them here.

What a gorgeous pig

We drove to the end of the unsealed road to the camping area.  There were a few other campers on site, and we found ourselves a spot overlooking the beach and settled down for the afternoon.    There is nothing nicer than being by the sea.

Another lovely place to stay overnight

Gemma had a fine time exploring the grassy sand bank just outside the caravan door, safely secured with her lead of course.  Goodness knows what she was tracking in the grass, probably little bugs and insects I expect.  This kept her so occupied for such a long time.   She has aspirations of being a great while hunter, but sadly for her, that is not going to happen.  Gemma was having such a wonderful time that she didn't have time for her usual afternoon snooze.  You know what cats are like, they generally sleep the day away.

Gemma had a wonderful afternoon stalking tiny critters

Painted rocks are very popular and there was quite a collection here, it has obviously grown and grown over time. 

Lots of painted rocks

So how has my knitting coming along then?  Rather slowly, I'm afraid.  I often knit while in the car, but not when we are traveling up and down hills and around sharp corners, that's too difficult for me.  Waiting time at the laundromat is also good knitting time, so as I tell myself, each row helps.  I'm knitting socks for my older granddaughter.  It is interesting how the two balls of yarn make different patterns on each sock.  And I've also spent some time knitting a beany for donation.

4ply socks for my granddaughter

Started knitting a beany

Our trip is winding down, and in a few days time we will board the ferry for our homeward journey.  It's been a great trip, and I'm so pleased we spent some time with my son Michael to share his 60th birthday with him.  Will you come down for my 70th? he wanted to know.  Probably not, sadly.

Christchurch with Michael

 We traveled down to Christchurch to spend some  time with my son Michael to celebrate his 60th birthday.  He had a busy week as he had flown up to Wellington to spend a couple of days with his Dad, then flew back down again in time for our arrival in Christchurch.  I had booked a table for dinner on Friday night at the Platform Brew Barn, a riverside establishment in Kaiapoi, quite close to where we are staying at the NZMCA park.

Platform Brew Bar

This was a busy and popular establishment indeed, and we took a little time checking out the menu.  It was an easy choice for me, roast pork, Robin chose sirloin steak, and Michael decided on a burger.  Don't ask me why, but we all ordered dessert as well.  We really didn't need it, but it did taste nice.

Birthday Dinner

Then we met up for Sunday breakfast.  This was another very busy cafe and we ordered our breakfasts, and sat at chatted away.  

Michael and his Mum

Sign in the cafe, who would have known

So what else have we  been doing while down in Christchurch?  We took up drive up to the top of Dyer Pass yesterday a narrow twisting road very popular with cyclists, who seem to dice with death with the cars as they whizz along.  We were doing a return visit to   the cafe The Sign of the Kiwi, famous for their date scones.  We secured a table, and sat and enjoyed our afternoon tea.

Date scones and coffee

Plenty of happy customers

The Sign of the Kiwi was one of four rest houses built to provide access and refreshments for people walking on the Port Hills, back in the 1920s or so. 

 Way back then

Another place I was keen to visit was the nearby Kaiapoi Woolen Mills, which made the famous Kaiapoi wool blankets, a household must have back in the days when every home had cozy woolen blankets,  before duvets made an appearance.   Opening in the 1880s the mill was a boon to the town and recruited skilled weavers and spinners from the north of England.  The company secured contracts to supply cloth for military uniforms for both World Wars, but business slowly dwindled post war and the company closed in 1978.  However, I'm sure there are still many Kaiapoi blankets tucked away in households throughout the country.

Kaiapoi Mill buildings

Gemma is enjoying her caravan trip, having short trips outside the caravan, safely on her harness and lead.  She is not really very brave and prefers to sit in the doorway to keep an eye on what is going on without feeling threatened.  Dogs and noisy cars send her scurrying back inside to safety.  Another thing she enjoys is insisting that we open the wardrobe doors for her to climb inside.

The wardrobe makes a cat friendly hidey hole

My knitting is continuing slowly, but as I tell myself, every little bit helps.  More knitting took place while I sat and waited at the local laundromat.  Holiday or not, the washing (and drying) still need to be taken care of!

Laundry day in Kaiapoi

Birthday Trip South

Do you ever look back and wonder where all those years have gone?  My son Michael's  birthday is fast approaching, and he will be turning 60! That's certainly hard to come to terms with.  I certainly can remember his birth, the toddler years, then schooling - how on earth did he get to be 60?  And how old does that make me?  I was 18 when he was born, a couple of months off 19, so a young Mum indeed.  And 12 months later I did it all again, when his sister  Nicky was born.  Those were the days.

With such a momentous birthday coming up, we decided to take the caravan down to Christchurch in the South Island, where Michael has lived for the last 15 years or so, and celebrate with him.   So we packed up, drove to Wellington and boarded the ferry to take us across Cook Strait.  This trip takes about 4 hours.

BlueBridge Ferry Feronia

We arrived at the ferry terminal in good time.  Handing the paper work over to the girl in the kiosk, she handed over the boarding pass, and asked us, could we  manage 5 flights of stairs, or she could park us close to the lifts.    That was a shock, we  must have been really looking our age, we thought, as we replied, close to the lifts please.  We were guided into the correct line, and sat and waited till the ship berthed, and the passengers travelling north had all disembarked.  Then it was our turn and we were waved aboard.  Gemma has to be a big brave girl and travel in the caravan all alone.  It's rather noisy down in the hold so we imagine she just hunkers down somewhere till it is all over.

Everyone seems to make a bee-line to the cafe on these trips, including us.  It was a late lunch for us, so we purchased some sandwhiches, and a drink, sitting in the cafe for a while.  A little way into the trip,  the ship was starting to roll and we decided to leave the cafe and go and sit in the Quiet Room which we had spotted.  Oh dear me, just walking up the corridor was an effort, holding on to whatever was handy, as we tried to keep on our feet.  I'm sure we looked just like a couple of rather drunken OAPs as we stumbled about, it was not easy at all.  We curled up on a couch in the Quiet Room, waiting for the rolling ship to quieten down.  

I had a funny thing happen to me in the toilet block.  The lady in the next stall tapped on the wall and said she couldn't open the door.  Of dear, what could I do, I wondered.  So I looked at the square door handle and presumed she had been trying to turn it.  Just slide it to the right, I advised, and yes, it worked.  English was her second language, and no doubt she had visions of being trapped in the toilet, no wonder she was getting agitated.  So that was my good deed for the day.

Then we changed seating areas and I got my knitting out.  These socks are for one of my granddaughters for Christmas.  In fact, tucked away in my knitting bag is two pair of socks, and a couple of beanies I'm knitting for charity.  After all, I don't want to run out of knitting while I'm away.

Socks for Christmas

It is always such a lovely sight when the ferry reaches the Marlborough Sounds and glides along in these sheltered waters.  We went outside to enjoy the scenery and the smell of salty sea air.  It was a bit breezy so Robin had to hold on tight to his cap to stop it blowing away.

Gliding through the Marlborough Sounds

We made good time, and arrived in Picton a little early.  Our first overnight stop in the South Island was just a short 8kms away at Koromiko.  There were only a couple of other vans in attendance, so there was plenty of room.  This is a lovely place, surrounded by beautiful mature Totara trees.  The custodian came to get our fees, and remembered us from our previous stay.  She used to have a Birman, so was particularly taken with Gemma.  Sadly, her cats had died young, and she had several other losses over the last two years to cope with.  Such a shame, she is a lovely lady, and she recommended the  Birman breeder to us when we last met, where we got Gemma from.

Our first night in the South Island, plenty of room for us.

An old fridge full of books to swap

It was a very chilly night indeed and we awoke to a rather foggy morning

Lunch on the coast the next day

Our camp for the night consisted of several bays, so after checking them out, decided on the lower one.  Not too full, so plenty of room again.  It was such a nice day we sat outside for a while, making the most of the warm South Island sunshine.  But once the sun started going down, we could tell we would be in for another chilly night.  Just as well we have an efficient diesel heater to keep us warm and toasty.

Staying at Kaikoura

Just look at that snow on the mountains

What's on the Table?

 What's on the table today?  It's one of my "holiday" tableclothes which was started during our 2018 summer caravan trip touring the South Island. 

Ooops, Blogger wont let me turn the photo

 I prepared little blocks using New Zealand designed fabrics, with plain cream to write messages on.  Each evening after our adventures, I wrote where we stayed, and places of interest that we visited. 

 

These are the blocks I prepared for our trip

While we were travelling around I started stitching the New Zealand floral wreath blocks.  I can remember sitting outside under the caravan awning, stitching away, a very pleasant way to pass the time for an hour or two after we had comnpleted our sightseeing for the day.

My first block stitched during our South Island holiday.

We had wonderful trip and this tablecloth is full of memories.

Looking back on our Adventure

Now we have been back for a couple of weeks from our South Island Odyssey, it’s time to look back.   We were away for 10 weeks and traveled 5220km, 3019km was towing the caravan, and the other 2201km was spent exploring while the caravan was safely on site.  All this travel cost us $1582 for diesel.  As well, we spent $226 on LPG (6 fills) to run the fridge, stove and hot water cylinder when we were parked on non power sites.  In fact, we were only on power at three of our stops.

We were away for 77 nights and the average cost was $9.50 per night.  It was interesting to look back at the variety of places we stayed at, 36 in all for the 77 nights.  Of the 36 sites we stayed at, 21 were “new to us” on this trip.  We stayed at NZMCA Parks, POPs (park over properties on private land), parked up behind several hotels and clubs, stayed at one Motor Camp and spent Christmas with Robin’s sister and her hubby on their small holding in Nelson.  Gemma was terrified of Kaye’s chickens when they were released from their chicken coop and  ran around the property. She was enjoying time outside safely on her harness and lead when the chickens saw her, flapped their wings in fright and let out terrible squawks!  Gemma ran back quickly inside the caravan, no doubt wondering just what were those awful noisy creatures?

Jan and Kaye at Nelson

I went to four quilt shops as we traveled around, all very nice in their own way, and I really didn't go overboard with my purchases.  Annie's Country Quilt Store was particularly nice, set in a lovely old cottage in Ashburton.  So much to see there, I’m sure I didn't do it justice, well aware that Robin was waiting outside in the car, on yet another hot sunny day.

Annie's of Ashburton

And what about the laundry?  We all know that just because we are on holiday, the laundry still needs doing.  We went to the laundromat 17 times over our holiday, with prices ranging from $2 to $16.  If I could just do a wash and take the clothes back to camp to hang on the line, that’s what I did.  But often I had to use the driers as well, when it was drizzly or wet, or in other cases when it was inappropriate to hang washing outside to dry, such as when we were staying at hotels and clubs.

 

Knitting at the laundromat

Son Michael lives in Christchurch and we managed several visits with him, including two café lunches at the very interesting former “Rest Houses”, now cafes, built close to the walking tracks zon the Christchurch Hills.   I took him along a gift of a camera cushion, I thought he would like it as he runs a small photography business.

Mum and Michael

And we couldn't tour the South Island and not go to Dunedin to visit my old school friend Merilyn, we go back such a long way.   It’s always so nice to meet up again with old friends, things just pick up again, almost as if we hadn’t been apart at all.

Out to lunch with Merlyn and Colin in Dunedin

There’s no doubt that we had a marvelous time, saw wonderful scenery, especially on the West Coast, Southern Alps and Central Otago.  The weather was marvelous too, sure we had a few rainy days, but mostly it was warm and sunny, real “blue dome” days.  Highlights would be the Milford Sounds and Underwater Observatory Trip, Glowworm Trip, the Tree Top Walkway, Buller and Hokitika Gorges. 

Treetops Walkway and Buller Gorge

And the scenery – Pancake Rocks, and the setting sun, lakes and mountains.  Beauty was everywhere.

Gorgeous scenery

I took two knitting projects along, knitted in the car now and again, but put it aside when we traveled through some of that breathtaking scenery.  My Noah’s Ark stitchery was worked on occasionally, sitting under our shady awning on lovely sunny days.

 

Stitching at Manapouri

You may remember that while we stayed at the brand new NZMCA camp at Kaiapoi we were interviewed by a journalist for the local weekly newspaper.  And look, we are famous!  Our photo appeared and we are quoted in the newspaper as travelers from Levin, giving our good opinion of this lovely new camp.

We made the local South Island newspaper

The only downsides were Robin having an issue with his leg, so we came home a couple of weeks early.  As it turns out, he doesn't have cellulitis after all, rather some type of vascular problem.  We just wonder what those two courses of antibiotics were doing, since there was no infection, hopefully he is squeaky clean after all those pills he swallowed!  And the never ending ferry problems which affected so many people.  On our trip down our afternoon  ferry was cancelled and we were rebooked on one leaving at 2.00am, take it or leave it, we were told.  Weeks and weeks of ferry problems followed, break downs, trouble with getting bookings, and by the time we were due to return home again, once again, the ferry was cancelled.  But, we were offered a life line when we were placed on standby with no guarantees, a little scary, not knowing if we would manage to get aboard.  Thank goodness we did, although now we are home the news items continue with stories of customers stranded for weeks, or boarding as foot passengers and having to leave their cars behind.  We certainly were lucky indeed to get home when we did.

On board the ferry

Thank you all for coming along for the ride, and sharing in our South Island adventures, it was good to have you along.  There is no doubt about it, the South Island is a fabulous place.