Horses for Courses

Wednesday 5 March

After the stormiest and blusteriest of nights - wilder than windy Wellington at one point - we awoke to single digit temperatures and a stunning sunrise. The horses were already out - running clockwise today.

It was stunning watching them canter right by us in the morning sunshine. I love this video I captured shortly after sunrise.

We packed up in a leisurely fashion and left our equine companions around 11ish, trekking south and then west towards the Lakes, up the Waitaki Valley.

First two stops were the dump station and McKeowns Truck Stop for diesel (fortunately they were pretty close together). Staying off grid you need to dump any grey water (shower, teeth washing, washing up etc) that has accumulated, top up the water tanks and (worst job) empty the toilet cassette. The dump station in Timaru was very clean and functional, sadly this is not always the case and you see campers tipping toilet contents into grey water outlets, splashing muck everywhere and sometimes washing out the toilet cassettes with the drinking water hoses (yeuch!) - this is why we always use our own hose and nozzles.

As a member of the NZMCA we are entitled to a McKeown's Card which gives access to diesel at discounted rates . Diesel currently costs around $1.90-$2.00 per litre, but our last bill for February we paid an average of $1.67 per litre. It's also great that as these truck stops service, well, trucks - the wider & higher access makes it easier to fill up with a caravan attached!

The coastal road, SH1 is pretty bland in this area, but once we turned inland and up the Waitaki Valley, the surroundings became very rural and rather lovely. The rock formations along the way were pretty special too.

Our destination was Glenmac Farm between Duntroon & Kurow by the Otiake River. We were greeted by Kaye and Jett the Labrador and quickly got set up by the farm labourers cottages in a lovely spot - with power & water, access to a kitchen, toilet & shower all for $30 this was a great POP..

I went for a wander and met a new equine neighbour who was in the field just nearby.

After dealing with some power & solar issues we headed to Kurow and climbed the Kurow Hill Walkway for amazing views of the landscape we had been driving through.

There was a sign at the bottom of the walkway advising that rest stops had been provided along the way as it was quite a steep climb - but we had no idea that the seats were old comfy chairs that had all seen better days! They reminded me of the episode of Big Bang Theory where they take in a chair off the street with dire consequences! We chose to rest instead on handy rocks!

Once at the summit, the views were pretty phenomenal. The Waitaki is one of the finest examples of a braided river, where the water meanders through the valley in a variety of streams across a flattish riverbed - and from up here you could truly understand how that sat in the landscape.

Back at Banjo we had a huge stack of pancakes (a day late) and settled in to watch an old episode of X-Files.