Good Friday 14th April
Well boy did it rain last night. Torrential rain for hours. We woke to the rain still teeming down. We got organised leisurely as it was so miserable. Destination today is Hanmer Springs via Kaikoura.
We headed off just after 10 and took State Highway 1 which DB had checked last night was open between Christchurch and Kaikoura during daylight hours. Once again it wasn’t long before we were travelling through pastures on single lane each way highways. It was lovely scenery. As the morning progressed the rain eased off a bit, clouds started to lift and we could see small patches of blue sky to the north. YAY!!
We had been driving for 1.5hrs and were at Cheviot when we came across a sign saying SH1 closed between Goose Bay & Kaikoura. Great! DB stopped and checked website again which now indicated the road was closed. They could have posted that sign further south where we could take the most direct route but alas they were about 40mins toolate. We kept going north figuring they would send us in the best detour. About 20mins later we were diverted west to Waiau (Why-ow). A very windy narrow but picturesque drive. From There we headed east again. Added about an hour to our drive and was disappointing that the we missed the coast road. Apparently since the double earthquake in November 2016 the road north of Kaikoura has been closed and the road south gets closed every time there is a lot of rain as it causes landslides and rock falls which block the road. With the diversion we now also had another small problem, petrol, or lack thereof. Enough to get to Kaikoura but not enough to return. And Good Friday, New Zealand and small town. OOPS!! No choice but to carry on. Worst case scenario we would have to find a room in Kaikoura instead of the already booked room at Hanmer Springs. Not much we can do about that one so we tried not to think about it. Luckily as Kaikoura was a tourist area there was a couple of service stations open. But wow $205.9 in Christchurch for 91 and 211.9 in Kaikoura. Diesel is only $1.39.
Once in Kaikoura we were starving as we were an hour later than expected and I was saving my lunch break for the BBQ crayfish specialty we had last time we were here. So DB and I shared a crayfish with rice and salad. Unfortunately as always I still think crab is tastier I finished off with some BBQ scallops which surpassed the crayfish with flavour and price. Whole cray $52, 1/2 doz scallops $10.
After lunch we headed to the point to check out the seal colony, not too many today but they laze around and don’t even notice us. A quick walk up the hill to view the coastline from a lookout and then on to a sheep shearing display. The owners used to own the entire Peninsula but sold all but 100 hectares a few years ago. They now only keep enough sheep for their shearing display. Keeping sheep wasn’t very lucrative they get $2 a kilo and each sheep (Drysdale) is shorn every 6 months and the wool weighs about 3 kg, so they make $6 per sheep twice a year. $12 a year. Our display cost $12 adult $5 a child. There were only the 3 of us plus 2 people staying in their B&B tonight. So $36 for that sheep. 6 times the income for 45mins effort. It was a very interesting and informative display and the shearer was entertaining.
We left Kaikoura for Hanmer Springs a bit later than expected, but what’s new. Colleen would like shares in the company that makes witches hats as they are absolutely everywhere. As we left they opened the SH1 again so we got to travel the coast road which was really good. We also got to see how damaged the road was, landslides, rock falls, ungraded, narrow in many parts and they are using rows of shipping containers to protect the road from further rock falls. This was good as it cut our trip to Hanmer by about 40mins. YAY!! One for us. All in all, a good day, the weather stayed good all day.