Two Go Tiki Touring: Napier's Art Deco Week- A Step Back in Time

Two Go Tiki Touring: Napier's Art Deco Week- A Step Back in Time

#3 January 2018 West Coast to Wanaka.... from Wet to Dry

Blog #3

We left Lake Mahinapua  heading south stopping briefly at Okarito.
This was the first sign that stopped me:

This was summer but rain and an overcast day gave it a special eeriness!

Below is the little wharf building at Okarito with info about the area

At Lake Mapourika we had lunch (still raining) 

This is the Raurenga.... Kidney Fern

So delicate.

At Franz Joseph we decided there was no point going to Jackson Bay because of mist and weather. 

Parked up at another DOC camp at Pleasant Flat in the Haast Pass area.
There is a great collection of different rocks in the creek.

 A large group of cyclists are here.

 I rode the uni around the camp.

Below is the painless way to get off of a unicycle!

 Another quiet night, no internet or phone signal. Leftovers for tea with toast.

After a late start we managed to get away around 9 a.m. Rain most of the night.
We stopped at Thunder Creek which was a nice little waterfall,

Then onto the Fantail Falls which were impressive. More impressive were the stones that had been balanced all over the river bed, by fellow tourists, It had been dry for a long time on the coast so there were a lot of special piles of stones. The tourists creating their own tourist attraction. Quite special really, and I felt really added to the scene.

The weather was clearing as we motored through the Haast Pass and onto the top end of Lake Wanaka, before going over the neck to Lake Hawea. As we motored into Hawea the surrounding countryside was very dry, bare earth showing in most places.

Onto Wanaka where we had lunch in a cafe on the waterfront.
I rode the uni around Pembroke Park and down on the water front where I noticed they were getting ready for a duathlon & triathlon which were happening the next morning.

I had a swim in the lake then went over to the park & did some good yoga in the sun...the temperatures now in the 30s.

At Albert Town we parked the bus in the free park at the Albert Town Hotel.

Awake early and leaving Albert Town for Wanaka, I biked down to see the start of the duathlon and triathlon starting at 8am, then go to a Hot Yoga class at 8.30am. I was going to bike the trail along the Clutha River, but at the first sign board it looked like it was going to be over 1.5hours into town, so I cut it short and cut across country by getting back onto the roads.

Got there before 8am and watched some of the triathlon:

Then went to the Hot Yoga, a big class. It was quite intense, first time I’ve actually dripped  off my face cheeks from both eyes in the pose of a child.

Sunday 14th Jan 2018 at Albert Town.
Awake around 6am....didn’t get moving till the sun was well up and the heat of the day was building! We went into town on the Outlet Track.

 We parked up the bikes near the info centre and walked to Pembroke Park to the Market.

I also talked to the woodworker Simon King who I had met at the Alternative Furniture show in ChCh in the 80s.

We had lunch at the Watertank Bar & can recommend the $10 pizzas which were very good.

We biked through town back past Mt Iron and back to the bus at Albert Town. We then went back into the Caltex which had a laundry.

We also checked out Erik's Fish and Chips as the queue was long!

But I wasn't game with the Kiwifruit!

Both of us went around the lake by bike to see the Wanaka Willow Tree. This is totally out of the water due to local drought conditions, so the tree was surrounded by Chinese taking weird photos of themselves.
 When there was a lulI in Chinatown, I rode up and leant my bike against the tree!

 I fuelled up ready for the off tomorrow! After tea of Salad and leftovers we sat outside with our computers and booked our flights to Aussie for May & June.

In the morning we skyped our friend Madi in Switzerland, ain't the modern technologies amazing!

 All in all another fabulous few days.

Now we are heading over the Crown Range towards Queenstown and Arrowtown.

Till Blog #4

Stay safe and free and above all

Have Fun

Jimu & Christine

#2 Greymouth Battery Blues.

Monday 8th Jan 2018

On the Cobden Breakwater I went to start the bus and once again the battery was flat, so we got Merlins Auto Electricians out from Greymouth and got jumpstarted and drove back to his workshop.

Roger the auto electrician had a collection of vintage electrical chargers and other related memorabilia, some of which were still in use...as below!

While they were charging up our batteries and working on the bus we took the opportunity to take the Monteiths Brewery tour. This turned out to be pretty average for $25 each, nothing was actually working, no vats in process or bottling machines going, although the samples and being able to drink and pour your own was fun.

A demo of how to pour your own beer...I needed no help in drinking it though!

I spotted this little fully enclosed mobility scooter, built in Oamaru,

owned by Mic a local stone carver...who has only been working stone for 65 years.

An antique collection of soda fountains and bottles from "The Coast"

There must be a very small market for this type of book in Greymouth. 

I'm probably the only person in town interested in this book and I'm too scottish to buy it!

We headed south through Hokitika to park up at one of our favourite spots, Lake Mahinapua.
Rain was following us down the coast making things nice and green.

Plenty to photograph here!

This is spraxus...it pretties up the roadsides on the Coast.

And so we head south towards Haast Pass, still in showery cool weather!

This is blog #2 hopefully now seriously in catchup mode!

Till then...Stay safe and have fun where ever and when ever you can!

Cheers Jimu and Christine.

#1 Leaving Home - 3 Month Southern Trip Jan-Mar 2018

Well we’ve had this trip planned for quite a while, even having friends come from England to look after the house. Planning was seriously affected when I broke 3 fingers in my left hand at the Menz Shed on Nov 17th. Here are a few photos to explain and verify exactly how and what I did.
Two of us Menz Shedders were working cutting some netting making sure our fingers were well out of the way ... however that large metal grey bender (photo below) was on the top shelf and vibrated off thereby breaking my fingers.

And an x rated X-ray photo for Ukulele players

The recovery I’m told will take months, if not years for the bones to solidify and get back to normal. However I was unable to ride unicycles, play saxophones, ukeleles or yoga for the first 6 weeks. However now I’m back chipping away at all my passions, pushing the pain barriers to make sure I get all the muscles & tendons back into shape.


We started the trip off unexpectantly with flat batteries and had to call out the Covi Roadside assistance just to get us jump started and away. We motored onto Murchison still not switching off the engine and stopped for a late lunch at Nina Ni’s cafe in Reefton. We also bought some more art from Ruth Vaega, more little screenprinted little round discs of native birds to go up inside the bus. 

We stopped in Ahaura to get some eggs, and we got talking to the people for a while.  The man's large ramshackle workshop was wide open, looked to be full of character and I immediately stopped to go in and chat to him some more. Brent Foster is his name, he had lived there for 48 years had a business repairing drilling and other farm contracting work with heaps of old machinery lying around. I took photos of his workshop here are a few below.

He has no shortage of bits and pieces...everything has a place and it's already in its place...

....on the floor.

As you can see...big tools for big jobs...both go hand in hand!

Significant Hazards...#5 and #9 are classic.....#10 on the list is a slight understatement!

The man himself Brent Forster, complete with cattle ear tags in his gum boots!

Quite a nice little campground in Ahaura (noted and saved for another trip) which had good reviews in Christine's phone app. We got into Greymouth around 4pm and stocked up with bus supplies, then onto our usual park up at the Cobden Breakwater. The Speedway was on with lots of cars parked, and we thought we would find it hard to park in our best spot, but it was vacant....perfect! After setting up camp and watching the waves for a while I walked down to the Speedway. It had been going for some time and saw a bloke walk out, without having to go through a barrier so I just walked in and took photos for a while.

The view from inside the bus looking out to the Surf club and the pounding sea

is superb. The surf club seat is a memorial to 2 members who were in the Pike River mine disaster and is a favourite local spot to eat fish & chips.

  We went to bed listening to the roaring waves and pondering the events of the first day of 3 months on the road!

The next blog will be getting some help again as the next morning ......

we had flat batteries ......AGAIN!

ARGHHHH!

Cheers from the Southern Roads.

Stay safe and free.

Jimu & Christine