Monday, May 31, 2010

Our trip South





 

Snow on the Hope saddle

What an adventure. We decided to head south in our Motorhome on Monday 24th May instead of waiting for our scheduled crossing on Tuesday due to weather conditions.
That went well, smooth crossing, but then the drama's started. It rained so much we decided to spend the night in Blenheim instead of heading further south.
Next morning it was still raining so had a slight change of plan and headed for Nelson to spend a few days with family. On Thursday afternoon heard that their were adverse weather conditions approaching so got moving towards Murchison.

At the top of Hope saddle

It was still raining and blowing and as we went over the Hope Saddle (just out of Nelson) it started to snow. This was so bad at times we could hardly see in front of the bus, it made for a slow tortuous crawl into Springs Junction. By this time it was dark (although only 5pm) and after checking with the petrol station owner decided to stay in his carpark for the night. According to him it was chains if you wanted to go over Lewis Pass.

Going up Lewis Pass

Next morning after a lovely healthy breakfast of bacon, eggs and hash browns,(well we did need warming up), we set off across the pass. It had been snowing most of the night but the road was clear and passable. Once off the pass we got more rain, then snow again and as we turned on to SH1 along came the wind which we had until we were through Christchurch.

Knowing that the weather was meant to turn really nasty we decided to go as far as Oamaru and spend the night there. Well it was a good decision but as we went through the flooded roads and the detours involved we did have second thoughts. Boy the people living in this area of the South Island have had it really bad. As far as the eye could see there was water, water and more water. And it was still raining so there was going to be no let up for them.

Water across the road north of Oamaru


Next morning bright and early we set off once more, stopping for petrol on the way to be told that there was flooding at Milton and if we wanted to get through today we would have to hurry.
Arriving at Waihola disaster struck. A long queue of cars was ahead of us and we could see fireman walking back and stopping to talk to each individual driver. When he got to us we found out that we wouldn't be going down SH1 any time soon. There was flooding in several places and the small town of Milton was isolated. Like everyone else we turned around and sat waiting for news. After an hour it was very clear that it was not going to be good news.

This was scarey, didn't know how deep it was going to be.

Out came the maps and a route via Ranfurly, Alexandra and Gore was plotted. So back we went along the route we had formerly travelled to turn off by the Dunedin airport. We had hardly gone 5kms down this road when we came across more flooding. This was so deep that it came up to the hubs of the wheels on the bus. But we got through safely.

Then began the arduous and long journey through Central Otago. Again we had snow, this time not falling but very thick on the side of the road. We also had fog, wind and rain.

This snow was really deep on SH85

And then there was fog.

What a relief to finally get to Gore and know that we were only an hour and a bit away from our destination.

By now it was dark, cold and we were over all sorts of weather. Just to add to the drama's one of the headlights on the bus went out and so we had to drive with only one headlight which was a bit disconcerting in the weather conditions.

Finally we arrived at our friends at 8pm, tired but so glad to be there.
They have had none of the weather bombs that the towns just a few kms up the road have had. In fact today is brilliantly fine but just a little cool.
Lets hope that the trip home is not filled with so many drama's.