Thrown into Disarray by the weather

Tuesday 21 October

Our most random day yet - the rain had started around 10pm and was so fierce it woke us several times as it battered down on Banjo overnight. So we holed up inside our lovely warm & dry cocoon most of the morning, until it gradually died away around noon.

Watching the weather forecasts and the reports coming in about flooding, land slips and other stormy chaos threw our planning into disarray, but Jeremy at the Matai Milking POP advised they were still above water so after a wander in town to assess the flooding, a couple of coffees from the Little Local food truck and a bite of lunch we cautiously hit the road to Inangahua through the Buller Gorge.

Turning right out of the NZMCA park, I wandered to the western end of Fairfax Street and had to laugh at the mail box that had come adrift in the wind. The Buller River rushed past the turning circle at the end of the street, by now it had burst its banks and was around 1km wide across, flooding the surrounding fields. Logs and tree roots were hurtling past faster than you could imagine. I hastily stepped back when I realised that the water was right below me and could well be hollowing out the ground under my feet.

It was an amazing drive - fields were flooded, cows up to their udders in water in places or stranded on drier islands of high ground, raging rivers that were well beyond their banks and metres higher than they should be, streams cascading down hillsides and cliffs to swell the rivers even further and trees & rocks cleared to the side of the roads in places. Chaos! At the Upper Buller Gorge Lookout we got the giggles - someone had scrawled "Sexwax was here" on the memorial pillar and there was a knotted condom on the tarmac... for a good time in Murchison...

At Inangahua we stopped to a quick look around and a wharepaku stop. I loved the fridge swap with the compulsory selection including Dan Brown, 50 Shades and a Maeve Binchy! The speciality of Inangahua seemed to be large, roughly hewn wooden or stone hearts which adorned gates, cafes and memorials. Very cool! From here we had no choice but to head to our POP of choice as the main highway was closed and detouring past their door along Brown Creek Road. Sadly, on arrival, after meeting Jeremy & his son Corey, who took us up to the POP site we had to admit defeat as the track was partly washed out and too gnarly for Banjo. Corey was a star taking us up the rough as guts track in his unsprung 4WD - and we almost had a run in with a wandering bull on the way up... he eyed us suspiciously, started to charge at the vehicle then thought better of it! I think the POP will be great when some work has been done on the track and the pad where vans can park - but it was too wild and muddy for us at this point.

Quick change of plans - we rang the Reefton Hotel who said “head over, we might have room” so we drove past fields of rainbows to Reefton. But it turned out that they didn’t have space for us, with 5 other campers and a long articulated truck parked up there already so next call was to the Nuttalls who had a POP (with power) on their drive and yay - it was available!

Early dinner as Louis was exhausted after a stressful drive and I wandered into town to get steps and explore… Reefton is a cool wee spot with lots of history. I did get the giggles passing a big warehouse shed along the street from us - there was an old political poster propped up inside the window and just from the eyebrows and the hairstyle you knew it was Crusher Collins!!!

All’s well that ends well!