[Sunday 14 Oct] We decide to explore the northern reaches of the Fairlie Basin, we head to Monument Corner, appropriately named in the middle of the road a monument dedicated to servicemen from the area whom died in the Wars, it is a roundabout on a country road. From there we continue on the Lochaber Road climbing up to the Meikleburn Saddle between the High Clayton’s and Four Peaks Range opens up into beautiful valley with the Orari River making its way east. Big well run stations, we continue up as far as we can go approx 26 km, stunning area surrounded by river valleysRead More →

Time to move on today but before we do there is just one more walk track for us to knock off. Jude has kept reminding me since we’ve been in Tekapo, that she wouldn’t mind climbing Mt John, knowing when she says “I wouldn’t mind”… it means we’re going to lol. The morning was -2 when we woke but a nice warm Moho and a hot breakfast completed, we headed off to the start of the track. I looked at the sign that said an hour to the top… that’s cool as I am confident that we can do it in half the states time.Read More →

Braemar Road: – by Jude Getting my trusty map book out I browse for places to go, spot Braemar Road.. Tekapo to Pukaki which cuts behind Old Man Range and across barren country or where the military play games, open tussock country great for playing hide’n’seek! Lots of dire warnings do not enter as live munitions could be being fired, not that I would… we did see army vehicles in the far distance trundling into the rolling hills. The gravel road pops out two thirds the way up Lake Pukaki eastern shoreline, some well run stations enroute Tasman Downs and Braemar Station. We continue toRead More →

Te Anau is now a behind us as we head to Twizel, the sun is out, the day is perfect for travelling and it is good to be back on the road. Lunch was at Kingston at the southern end of Lake Wakatipu, the day as said was beautiful and we found a lovely spot for a sandwich and coffee. Caught up with Jude’s sister Jill at Bannockburn on the way through, as brief as it was it was good to see her. We arrived at Twizel at 1800hrs, it was still sunny and very warm. We stayed the night at the Combined Services ClubRead More →

With our house sitting in Sumner over and although we have had an amazing time, it was at the same time good to get back into our routine in our Moho. We spent the last two days moving bits and pieces of our own back into our motorhome. We picked Rosie and Giles up from the airport and the poor guys looked absolutely shattered from their long flight back from the UK, so with Jude and I already being aware that this would be the case we decided not to stay too long and allow the travellers to get some well needed sleep. Leaving themRead More →

After a couple of weeks waiting our Suzuki Jimny has arrived. Two weeks ago Jude and I hunted around for a new Jimny in Christchurch, it was not a successful search as we ended up in Timaru where Hollands Suzuki had the only new Jimny JX a manual gearbox. We didn’t want the Sierra or Safari model with all the electronic luxuries like aircon, mags, roof rack, electric windows, central locking, electric side mirrors, side runner bars etc etc, we just wanted the JX basic model with no electrics to short out. The good thing is all the models are equal in every other aspect.Read More →