17-21 Nov 2017
From Riverton we headed south east to Gore - where Howie & Brigette Morrison live on their family farm. We were last here 20 years ago, and although we’ve seen them all in the UK over the years, it was such fun to be back. Howie gave us a tour of the expanded Rosedale farm, then dinner and preparing for tomorrow’s beach outing.
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| Rosedale Growbulk sheep |
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| The rolling hills of the Waikaka Valley |
SATURDAY
We drove 1.5 hours south to Kaka Point, at the northern end of the Catlins, where the Morrison’s have the ultimate beach house - on what is almost their own private beach.
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| The ultimate Beach House (and toys on trailer) |
In true Howie tradition, there was no pause on arrival: Dirk, Howie, Jess and I changed into wetsuits, snorkels & flippers for Paua hunting! Overcoming my fear of giant seaweed, Dirk & Howie successfully harvested a good crop of these large edible sea snails, which have a beautiful mother of pearl lining, but a not so attractive black muscular body.
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| Howie prising out Paua |
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| Paua Pattie from the BBQ |
By the time we were out, Brigette had arrived - and after a spot of lunch it was out with the jet skis. Once I had got the hang of the 750cc Kawasaki’s - I followed Dirk out to the rocky headland where we watched seals on the rocks, and could get surprisingly close to them wallowing in the water.
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| Howie in action |
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| Dirk taking impressive air |
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| Chris slightly more cautious! |
More friends started to arrive for the weekend’s entertainment; Mark and Donna Lahood with their kids plus friends Ollie, Scott and Mark. Jess and I grabbed a lift up the road to visit the lighthouse at Nugget Point, and then sat in a hide at Roaring Bay in the hope of seeing Yellow-Eyed Penguins (Hoiho)where there are approximately 18 breeding pairs of this endangered bird. No luck this time, or indeed 6am the next morning when I tried again!
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| Nugget Point Lighthouse |
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| The Nuggets |
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| Roaring Bay |
We had an impressive bbq with steak, lamb & venison - and then rounded off the perfect day with a bonfire on the beach, whisky and an amusing dice game of Perudo.
SUNDAY involved more Paua hunting (not Jess and I this time), walks on the glorious beach, another blast on the jet skis, then back to Gore after washing down the skis in the river en-route.
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| More Paua! |
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| The perfect beach house |
We all headed up to Howie’s parents’ house for an impressively large family gathering to bid good-luck to nephew Bryn (off to Japan for a season of snowboard instructing). Great to see Howie’s brothers Andrew and Phil again, and Howie’s incredibly active parents George & Marj - who gathered everyone after supper and sprung a surprise request for musical or poetic recitals!
We bid our farewells to Dirk and Lochie and their respective girlfriends - as they were due to leave much earlier than us in the morning for various farming jobs, and Dirk was heading to Queenstown for an engineering internship.
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| Chris, Jess, Dirk & Shenise |
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| Howie & Lochie |
MONDAY
The Morrison entertainment continued! We hitched up the speedboat and drove an hour north to Wanaka, where Howie & Brigette have a house looking over the town and the stunning lake surrounded by mountains.
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| View over Lake Wanaka from the house |
And we were off again; this time to launch the boat out onto the most incredible calm, deep blue waters of Lake Wanaka, and of course a waterski. The water was not as cold as expected, so much so that Howie skied without a wetsuit, and Jess leapt in for a swim off the boat. We literally had the 192 sq.km lake to ourselves!!
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| Howie slicing the mirror calm lake |
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| More grimacing.. |
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| It really isn’t that cold |
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| The skipper not looking where he’s going |
Andy Brinsley and Jerry & Mandy Bell joined us for evening drinks on the upper deck with stupendous sunset views.
TUESDAY
Our last day with Howie & Brigette - but there was still time for action. Howie had to attend a meeting, so Jess, Brigette and I stomped up Mount Iron for fantastic views over Wanaka,
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| Brigette & Jess above Wanaka |
then lunch, and back onto the lake for more skiing in - unbelievably - even calmer waters. To quote Howie, “yesterday was 10 out of 10; today scores 11! ”
Wow!!
Then the moment came where we had to say a huge huge thank you and goodbye to Howie & Brigette, and drove to five hours Christchurch ready for our flight to Melbourne tomorrow.
Unfortunately - the ace blogger CSB managed to delete the selfie he took of the four of us overlooking Wanaka - sorry~!!
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