To save me a big typing mission, we headed straight for the West Coast which is were the trip really started.
The list was:
Porika track
Braeburn track
Hit Denniston before it gets mined
Big River
Waipuna Tunnels
Noname road (skipped it)
A few west coast beachs on the way down
Haast
Nevis road
Mace Town
Borlands road
Whitcomb road (skipped it)
Oldman range
Old Dunstan road
Serpentine church
Godley Glacier
Macauly Hut
We had mint weather apart from the ONE day in Haast we really needed good weather. We were on the wrong side of a major river with a heavy drizzle, a forcast for rain developing over the next 12hrs, a track we had never driven before and we were close to 2000k's from home, so rather than risk staying the night at "The Bay" and the weather turning on us during the night, we decided to turn round and get back across the river and play another day:D
All the trucks went well, although I had some odd issues with the Defender. I kept getting water in the rear diff (still can't figure out how), and a brand new genuine brake vacuum pump failed due to a manufacturing fault less than 50km from Hamilton in the way down, so refitted the original pump that has done a scary amount of K's and that ran fine for the rest of the trip. Go figure
Here's a handfull of pics from my collection, others may add more
Leaving camp just out of Blenhiem after arriving off the ferry at 2am (cheapest group deal crossing time), first day in the Sth Is:
Lake Rotoroa at the end of the Porika Track:
Goons
Denniston, the not so Goat track
Ye ol' repeater station mast, Mt Rochford:
On top of the world looking out over Westport:
North
Okarito
Down the Coast on another random magical beach. Ended up there for a couple of days it was so nice!!!!
Were else in the world do you get to sit on the beach and look back at the mountains covered in snow??
Chillin on the beach watching the sun set before pitching camp
I like this pic, check out the moon, and Mt Cook in the background
That night was pretty memorable, some winner (me) misjudged the tide times so made a campfire a tad low on the beach. About 9pm when we were all pretty "relaxed" the fire got smashed by a big wave along with those sitting around it
Headed further down south to Haast, all was good then the weather turned a bit:
A vid coming back across the river
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=338 ... =3&theater
Bloody huge river bed in Haast
Another cool Haast beach
After Haast, two of the trucks started their journey back north, so UBZ and I had a day or so to kill before another two trucks joined us in Arrowtown
So we headed into the Nevis. Lots of fun to be had looking at gold mining relic's!!:
Young Australian reserve:
You can see the water race snaking away into the distance. 34km long, dug by hand. Nuts
We met up with Toyoda and Mr T (who was pretty much fresh off the boat back from 6months touring in Ozz) and headed into Macetown.
Spent a full day mooching round on foot in the valleys up the back of Macetown:
Another stamper battery tucked away up a valley. Was a good bush crash into it, doesn't seem like it gets many visitors these days:
Further up the same valley again, another old battery:
Homeward Bound Stamper
I scrambled up on a ridge to take a photo and found the ramains of an old dwelling that used an overhanging rock as part of its structure. Complete with old coal range
Track was in good condition
Next up was Borlands Road:
Ass Cheeks lake
Following a a random track up a creek wishing I had brought my .270!!
Best place to camp in the country, lake Manipouri:
Oldman Range:
..... and then the cloud rolled in:
Amazing how quick visibility drops up there!!
A hut stuck out in the middle of no where. Looked like the bottom bunk had been used as firewood
Next up was a trip down Dunstan road, past the Poolburn Reservoir, and into the Serpentine church:
Good pic by UBZ, Serpentine Church in left background
Temp dropped to -6.6 over night. Ice on the windows INSIDE the truck
THe plan was to head out on Serpentine road, but we had to sort this out first:
Next up was a road trip into Tekapo and the into Godley Glacier and Macauly Hut:
Sunset on the road:
Heading to Macauly Hut:
End of the road for us, we had to head back north, Toyoda and Mr T headed for Christchurch.
We had to stop at our "spot" in the central plateau for the night on the way home
There's some cool vids floating around and Dave has something like 700 photo's so will see if I can get those linked in here also
Time to start saving again for the next one
