Yup. I'm back....

**Posh Tourer :P** · 12th February 2005, 12:36

Ello ello ello all

Got back from the barrier last night at 3am...

I've got a few piccies to load and I'll write a bit of a story when I'm feeling less tired........

Look out for updates.

Oh and 10,999 new posts, mostly crap.....do you people do anything apart from live on here????

**jrandom** · 12th February 2005, 13:04

Originally Posted by Posh Tourer :P

Ello ello ello all

Hello.

Originally Posted by Posh Tourer :P

Oh and 10,999 new posts, mostly crap.....do you people do anything apart from live on here????

No.

**wari** · 12th February 2005, 13:21

THOrt you'd moved to ENgerlund ... :spudwhat:

HOwd I gitt that wrong ? ... :spudwhat:

WEllcome back ... :spudwave:

**Posh Tourer :P** · 12th February 2005, 14:19

You just got the timing wrong there wari....

I'm going to pommyland in two weeks time.....

**toads** · 12th February 2005, 18:39

welcome back PT, and to answer your question the answer is no!

**erik** · 12th February 2005, 20:31

Welcome back Maarten. Are you going on the westpac heli run tomorrow?

**Motu** · 12th February 2005, 20:43

Choice - we get the KB club bike back in two weeks! I've got a welding torch I'm trying to figure out...I'm gunna rake the neck and extend the forks on that pig.

Welcome back,where's those pics?

**Skunk** · 12th February 2005, 21:02

Originally Posted by Posh Tourer :P

Oh and 10,999 new posts, mostly crap....

Skip all of mine. They are crap. Welcome back. Look forward to the story.

**Posh Tourer :P** · 14th February 2005, 09:14

Well, the short story:

I arrived (again) on the barrier, on the Friday night car ferry, getting in at 10pm to Tryphena. Didnt want to set up camp and then decamp the next morning, so I wanted to get to the campground in Fitzroy that night. For those of you who know the place, you might see where I'm going. After a rough trip across (1.5-2m swells across the colville channel), I set out for Fitzroy, about an hours drive away. The road across from the wharf to the Tryphena itself, is a tarsealed, single lane road, with lots of rough patches and blind corners (think long country driveway style). This is not so bad, infact it is quite a good road. After you turn inland to head for Claris, you see a sign saying "Caution: Single lane road with passing bays. Steep grades. Maximum Advisable Speed 35km/h"

It is still sealed until you go over a river bridge and do a sharp right. Here the gravel starts, and there is another sign of the same nature. These roads can get pretty bad in the summer, let alone the winter. On this hill, there are some HUGE washboards, and lumps of bedrock sticking up through the top. When I returned over these roads a few days later, after two days of rain, the top layer of clay had become greasy, and a little muddy, making it impossible to go more than about 20kmh without sliding close to the side of the road. Parts of the steeper slopes are tarsealed, but most is not, with not a great deal of gravel on the roads either.

Gravel roads continue until Okiwi (over the hill from Fitzroy), where seal starts again, and yet another sign. None of these roads are wider than a single lane back country gravel road, apart from around Claris, where the (grass) airfield and some shops are located on the flats (room to put in a wider road). This is all fun enough during the day, but at 10pm at night, its hard work...After making myself carsick (pitch black except for the headlights and occasional oncoming car on tight twisty roads, when I'm already tired and a little seasick from the trip over), I finally get into Fitzroy a bit after 11. Sleep at 12 after setting up camp, and on to a dozy next morning.

Start working the next morning, and then until Tuesday, when I go and pick up a friend who had to come over later. We head out to Kaikoura Island, and an old Lodge that afternoon, on kayaks, while the rest of our gear is shipped (yachted?) out the next afternoon. Get there, and there is still no power, the diesel generator was stolen before christmas. At least this time there is a LPG gas stove though.....

The caretaker, by the name of Will Scarlett (no, really!), is still there, although he hasnt been working much on the main building where we are staying. The roof leaks a bucketful in overnight rain, and it is pretty cold - theres also a few holes in the floor, and the fireplaces have been removed, but the chimneys remain, leading through the roof. The only way to get a hot shower is a woodfired wetback, which takes about half a day to warm up. There are no longer any gutters, but tankwater is collected elsewhere, and supplies a good amount for 2-3 people living there (It was originally designed to take about 50+, but that venture died when the launch burnt to the waterline on the beach, over 25 years ago).

The island has been a "deer farm" on and off for over 100 years, and there are still about 50 or so left. The rest of the island is scrub, only just regrowing after deer farming. There is little else of note, apart from kaka living in the pine trees round the lodge.

We are kayaking around the place, working again. On the Friday, we kayak back into Fitzroy and pick up the car. I drop my friend back at Tryphena to go out on the Friday night ferry (he has a job to go to in Taupo), and get back to Kaikoura that night. On Sunday I go down to the Broken Islands, to stay with Matt and Harry Ngawaka, and work for another week. They are crayfishermen, Harry is 82, and still out and about every day, lifting his pots, he's got a longline set out too... Matt (Harry's son) runs the business, with 100 pots up the coast.While kayaking around these islands, you see plenty of fish-life. I was chased by kingfish almost every day, snapping at my paddle marks, and saw stingrays easily 1.5-2m across cruising around in 2m of water at the bottom of the wharf. A pod of pilot whales came past 100m offshore. The weather was still beautiful by then, and I was kayaking around everyday, to some great looking places. On Friday, the NW got up a bit, and 1m swells came in by mid-morning. However, we towed the kayak back into Fitzroy, and I headed off for the ferry that night, to get home at 3am....

So. The island. It is a very rugged place. No reticulated power, only limited water and sewage (in Tryphena).A large amount of the land is abandoned farmland, scrubby and horrible to get through. DOC owns the other 60%, which is mostly reasonable looking bush.
The people out here survive by growing dope, living on the dole, or taking odd jobs around the place. Paying to operate a boat is expensive, but it is almost necessary on this island. Most people are very self-sufficient, so don't really need that much money for food etc anyway.
It is full of "small town" politics, and with the number of err.. strong personalities out there, theres quite a bit of friction. The people are great, very friendly, and on the whole good fun. They drink a lot of beer, and speak like below:

"If you were god, right, if you were fucken' god,...."

"Got to sit on a fucken excavator all fucken day tomorrow. Building a fucken duck-pond. A fucken duck-pond for the fucken greenies. For the brown fucken teal. Un-fucken-believeable...."

Those are both first hand quotes.

All in all, a good place to visit, dunno about living there, the "politics" put me off a bit......

Piccies: an east coast beach, and the lodge on Kaikoura Island

**MrMelon** · 14th February 2005, 10:06

Sounds like a pretty cool place. I reckon a long weekend trip there some time would be awesome.

**Motu** · 14th February 2005, 11:19

I don't think you are allowd to be on the dole there,but DPB is the way around it.Beautiful and unspoiled compared to what we are used to - how come big Hollywood movies aren't made out there eh? Bit too ''real'' I think...