July 22nd – Heading to Flock Hill Station
It was time to head up to the mountains and hit the road again. I packed up the van and checked out of the hotel by 10am. I’m always a little nervous driving in a foreign country, especially when you have to drive on the other side of the road, but growing up in the UK and then Australia, I’m pretty used to driving on the left, so it only took a couple of people honking and flashing at me with their lights before I remembered….. no harm no foul! It was a quick 5-minute drive to pick up Eric at his hotel. Eric had suggested that we go and visit the Willowbank Wildlife Sanctuary on the way out of town. They have an excellent Kiwi display that is well-known.
It was actually a cool little side trip. I think they have done it well. There’s a few Australian animals in there (Wallaby, Cockatoo) as well as other domesticated farm animals (lots of different chickens and fowl, Llama, Alpaca, goats, sheep etc), but the highlights for me were the native NZ animals, including the Kea’s (always wanted to see them and you walk into their enclosure and you are right in there with them, that was really cool), the Kaka (bush parrot), Tuatara (an ancient reptile), the Takahe (water hen previously thought to be extinct) and then the big one, the Kiwi.
The Kiwi enclosure is really well done. It’s a large indoor, nocturnal enclosure with several Kiwi’s. It’s dark in there but you can just about see. We saw 3 Kiwi’s, foraging around in the undergrowth for insects. I couldn’t believe how big they were, they were quite large. Even though you were behind a barrier, you could get really close to them. It was pretty amazing. That was definitely a memorable experience (and-feeding the eels that they have would have been pretty cool too). They had lots of those in the waterways that threaded through the preserve. Definitely check this place out if you are in Christchurch.
Then we headed out of town. We had a stop in the little country town of Darfield. We had to pick up some groceries and have some lunch. We had a couple of meat pies at the Darfield bakery and they were really good. Eric’s had meat pies before so he’s already a fan. They had a huge selection of them. I think we’ll have to stop in on the way back to Christchurch to try more. Not too far out of Darfield, the scenery started to change as well. There was still low cloud hanging around, so we couldn’t see too much further afield, but it was getting hilly and there was a river flowing.
By the time we got to Springfield, we really started to get mountainous. The road rose steeply and we came to a summit and we finally crested through the clouds. The scenery beyond that was stunning; blue skies and the Craigieburn ranges, proudly coated in white. We drove past the entrances to Porters, then Cheeseman, then Broken River and Craigieburn clubfields, right next to each other, then the pretty enclave of Castle Hill (where they filmed the recent Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie, there is stunning scenery here). We had to stop a few times to take pictures as the lighting was perfect. Finally, we came down into a valley and there was the turnoff to Flock Hill Station, our home for the next 9 nights.
Tim, the Station Manager was there to meet up. We had our own private, 2-bedroom cabin and we were the only ones staying there. The views from the station are stunning, surrounded on all sides by the mountains. It’s an active sheep-farming station with over 36,000 acres of land. There are hiking trails you can do, plus mountain biking and great fishing. We settled in and around 6:30pm, Tim brought us dinner to our cabin. Amazing! Yep, you guessed it, more lamb (I’m having a lamb-free day tomorrow, but at least I only had 1 meal of lamb today, not too bad), but this time we had some lovely gravy and plenty of steamed veggies. I was really hanging out for some veggies…..
Tomorrow, it’s supposed to be cloudy and light snow on the mountains, so I think we might head over to the West Coast which is about 1.5 hours away. Then on Wednesday, it’s supposed to be fully-sunshine, so we’ll start skiing then. Looking forward to it.
Willowbank Wildlife Preserve - Wallabies, not native to NZ, but have now become feral with introduced animals escaping and reproducing.
My spirit animal, the Kunekune pig, he's a happy chappy, leading quite the life!
Our greeting party as we entered the Kea enclosure. I wasn't sure what would happen when we came up close to them, but they were pretty chill. They were more concerned about playing in the stream. One of them had a piece of bark and was enjoying thrashing it around in the water. Fun times!
This one was chewing on some black fabric.
They are beautiful birds, I'm definitely fascinated by them. Please just don't eat the van when we park it up at the clubbies!
Heck yeah! This is what we are talking about, the Craigieburn ranges looking splendid!
The clubfields line up all the way along the range.
Our mighty chariot, the AWD Toyota Regius. Plenty of room for only 2 people! We'll have plenty of room for any hitch-hikers. I think we shall name her Pegasus.
Lovely stuff!
- Matt
The beach before Greymouth, our first stop to check out the ocean. 
Pancake Rocks at Punakaiki 
Ocean and mountains intersect. I think that must have been Aoraki/Mt. Cook National Park 
Where it hasn't been cleared for farming, the land is so lush and green. It's hard to imagine we were on a ski trip! 
Welcome to the jungle! 
What he said..... 
The most interesting pub in the world! The Otira Stagecoach Hotel, closed sadly. 
