Lawrence & Taieri Mouth

The showers stopped overnight and Friday morning, after Len tried another fish in the pond, we headed on to the little historical town of Lawrence, initially passing through the town, to play golf on the local 9 hole course. I'm loving the stands of red hot pokers that we are seeing everywhere on our travels at the moment- just beautiful.

Better chips than  McKains!

Only $10 each to play at the Lawrence course which is nice and flat with just a couple of the men's tees being up a little rise and one of the tees being under repair. There were drains, mainly dry, across some of the fairways and I managed to land my ball in one of the wet ones, twice. There was also a cute pond on one of the par threes which wasn't so cute after I landed in that twice as well.

A Reed Warbler fossicking for balls!

So the course had its challenges! It was a sunny day but not as hot as at Roxburgh and we were able to use our umbrellas for shade without them being blown inside out. Only one other couple, who were also on holiday, played while we were there.

After golf we drove back into Lawrence where we appreciated seeing some of the sign boards throughout the village telling us about the old buildings and the gold history of the town.

Lawrence main street is Whitehaven Street!

We also had a look through the museum, bought a little old eggcup and a wee knife, to help with nibbles at Happy Hour, at the jam packed bric a brac shop, and then relaxed with a beer and chips at the Coach & Horses Inn.
Many of the early gold miners came from Cornwall and Northern England and the main street of Lawrence is called Whitehaven Street. Unfortunately the lady in the museum didn't know if there was a connection with our Whitehaven.
Gabriel's Gully DOC camp by a little lake and not far out of town was our stopover place for the night.

Gray's Dam

A peaceful area with about 7-8 motorhomes there, probably only one little vehicle not having an NZMCA sticker. Light showers started in the evening and continued through part of the night with the temperature going down to about 6° - a rapid fall from the hot days and nights we have had recently.

It was only 9° when we set off in drizzle this morning to walk the 2-3 hour return track to the Otago Dam. A nice track firstly round the lake and then through the trees beside a gurgling stream.

Wet feet this way methinks 

However there were some slippery boggy patches resulting from the rain and by the time we got to the first stream crossing in which the stones looked very slippery we decided to head back and just do the 80 minute Gabriel's Gully Interpretive Track instead.

That's the end of my shift thank goodness!

This  one looks interesting!

A choice we were pleased with  being a bit of a climb up, similar to the Mount, but an easier return with good information panels along the way telling us the history of the site and how the gold was extracted as well as giving an insight into the lives of the miners and their families.

After having lunch, refilling with water and dumping in Lawrence as well as making use of the free town Wifi, we drove through towards the coast leaving behind  the schist outcrops which were replaced by rolling hills with sheep and borders of flax. After stopping in Milton to have a walk through the town, we continued on until Len suddenly saw a golf course sign leading us down what became a gravelly road to the right. It was a course we haven't yet played on - Toko - but unfortunately Saturday afternoon is their club day and, because of this, we wouldn't have been able to get on the 9 hole course until about 5.00pm. So we carried on to the CAP  ( charges apply parking for NZMCA members) on the Taieri river mouth, just south of Dunedin, our destination for a night or two.

Taieri Mouth. 

A beautiful spot close to the water, a friendly owner, Keith and his little white dog Charlie, and only two other vehicles here apart from about 5 old boats, a couple of rusted out old buses and an old digger belonging to the owner!

Beautiful place and scrapyard!

One end of this property is a total junkyard but at least our end is clear! The afternoon saw us doing a bit of a walk to get orientated and a bit of fishing for Len.

No cellphone coverage or Internet in these areas so you just hope no-one needs to contact us urgently. Wierd feeling isolated like that when 20 - 30 years ago we had to wait 3 weeks for a postcard to know family was safe!

After a very quiet night we decided we needed to pause and not rush off to play golf or do any bigger walks like the one up the river gorge. Instead Len joined several others who were fishing along the river towards the mouth while I did a couple of loads of washing which had been mounting up. Good to have a long line under the deck of the house to hang it on. Whilst I was relaxing in the deck chair making vague plans for the next week or two Diane and Paul, a friendly couple from Worcester in England, arrived in their motorhome. As we were chatting I stood on a nasty bumblebee which gave my barefoot a good sting - ouch!

Then for Len to have a break from fishing, at which no one on the river bank was having any luck, we had a good walk down to the bridge and then down to the mouth of the river round to the very wide beach where we met up with Diane and Paul before returning back along the road to our bus, passing the Taieri Mouth motorcamp on the way.

Diane,  Trish  and an elephant?

Happy Hour was outside our bus where we were joined by Diane & Paul and Denise & Richard from Ashburton who were on their first trip away in their new caravan. A good craic!