West Peak Dairies, Ashburton, Rakaia Golf Club

A wild, windy, rainy night it was at West Peak Dairies on the coast but we were perfectly sheltered behind the haybarn and by morning all was calm again. Not wanting to catch anymore dogfish and needing to do some birthday present shopping we headed to Ashburton which I was pleased to visit again. Last time we passed through it was a Sunday and consequently seemed quite dead but this time it was busy and we could see lots of nice shops and arcades - a different feel altogether.

The shopping was successful and didn't take too long so after a phone call to the Rakaia Golf course to check that we could play and stay we headed out there, once again to an area with no cellphone or Internet coverage.

It's a difficult job, but it's got to be done!

It's a 9 hole course and quite a lot of ladies had just finished playing in a 9 hole tournament so it was all clear for us to play with only a group of 5 men several fairways in front of us.
The 20 hour a week greenkeeper out mowing the greens seemed to enjoy talking to us and getting us up to date with his various medical conditions.
He was pleased that we were going to be security guards for the night.

It was cool for a change so I needed a jersey for the easy, but yet again not so easy, flat course with bunkers but no water hazards. The ground was a bit wet from the rain and the greens were rather slow so that took a bit of getting used to.

Clubs going back into boot after another tough round!

The night was quiet and peaceful, fortunately needing no security interventions on our part. A little flock of fantails entertained us this morning as they danced around trying to look in our bus windows. After breakfast we drove out to the coast again close to the Rakaia River mouth where there are lots of little fishing huts and houses,  some being bigger than those we have seen at other river mouths and somehow a nicer setting I thought. These houses needed a whole line of letterboxes!

A "string" of mailboxes. 

We could drive right onto the beach where there were a couple of men fishing and several ute and quad bike owners considering it. A fishing hut and a quad bike seems to be many a Southern man's dream! A simple life for sure. The 2 men fishing seemed to be only catching more of those dogfish and there were plenty of them which didn't inspire Len to throw a line out. As we need to be in Christchurch tomorrow morning to meet up with a couple of friends we dumped and filled in Rakaia and moved on to the St Albans Shirley Club in Christchurch for our overnight stay meaning there will be no rush tomorrow.

Dinner tonight was just a 10 minute walk down the road to Erawan Thai Restaurant - good ambience, authentic Thai decor, background music and nice food making an enjoyable night.