Fiesta Major Rollover:

On Saturday 27^th January, my cousin Josh is getting married. Back when we were younger, Josh lived with us for a few years, so I’m closer to him than most of my other cousins. He sent the invite out last year and so I decided that Id take a week off work and use the wedding as an excuse to road trip the Fiesta through to Wellington.

Dad decided to join me for the trip, so we left Invercargill about 9am on Thursday morning. I had previously booked accomodation in Christchurch for the night, so we knew that we only had to cover 600 kilometers for the day. Pretty easy going, really.

After a rather hot, sleepless night in Christchuch (as they had a 30 degree day), we were up early and on the road at 6.30am. We wanted to leave a little early, so that we could beat rush hour traffic in Christchurch and to also make sure that we left enough time for the journey. If State Highway 1, through Kaikoura wasn’t open, then we’d need time to make about a two hour detour through the artic triangle. I haven’t driven the arctic triangle since I originally brought the ST back in 2016. Luckily, the road was open, but with the roadworks still in full-swing, there was probably about an hours delay all up.

It’s the first time I’ve driven the road since the major earthquake hit at the end of 2016. I’ve seen plenty of news articles and looked at plenty of images, but honestly didn’t realise quite how much devastation had been caused by the quake. Roads, bridges, and train tracks had literally disappeared under rubble that had fallen from the surrounding hills.

At the time, Kaikoura was completly blocked off, from both North and South, with supplies having to be helicoptered in. It’s taken a long time for the roads to be reopened and the hard working teams still have a long way to go, but they’ve made some impressive progress.

Eventually we made it all the way through to Picton and arrived with a little bit of free time to have some lunch before we had to be at the ferry terminal. I settled for a steak, bacon, and cammenbert cheese pie and washed it down with a bottle of diet coke. The perfect Kiwi lunch!

I noticed a little Ice Cream Parlour across the street, so we visited for a quick sweet treat before hitting the road. I grabbed a two-scoup cup of dark chocolate!

We boarded our Ferry, the Bluebridge, and parked the ST between a few larger commercial and camper vehicles. It’s pretty small in comparison.

Heaps more planned for the weekend. Stay tuned!

Honda Civic Kilometers:

My younger brother, Ryan, was on the hunt for a new car. Ryan’s only a one-car kind of guy, so the car needed to be practical and easy to use around town, as well as have the capability to go away on longer trips. His only requirement over his old car, was that the new one needed a working heater. A must-have kind of item, especially during a chilly winter in Invercargill!

We found a really tidy and presentable 2006 Honda Civic S Sport for sale, at a local dealership. After having a bit of a chat with the salesman, we tee’d up a test drive. The salesman told us that the car had previously belong to a retired gentleman who, in the end, was becoming too old to drive and his family decided that it would be best to sell the car. Good news for us, as the interior of the car is in superb condition and the car has only seen 87,000 kilometers over a 12 year period.

The car all cleaned up by the dealership in the first shot and Ryan looking chuffed with his purchase in the second!

A few shots of the car after leaving the dealership. My favourite part of the car has to be the unique digital speedometer at the top of the gauge cluster. How cool is this?

I also managed to find the media release from Honda New Zealand from when this car was released:

The day after purchasing the car, we decided to jump in and take it for a trip out of town to get some lunch at a cafe. We had driven the car briefly on the open road during our test drive, but were eager to see how the car performed with four people and a full tank of gas weighing it down. I’ve got to admit, that the little 1.8L SOHC motor performs really, really well. As it’s his daily car and it’s for a specific purpose, he wanted an automatic. The 8th generation Civic came with the new 5-speed automatic box, which, as an option, you could get the sport gearbox – meaning you also got flappy-paddles behind the steering wheel. The gearbox is super smooth and slick and does a good job of finding the right gear for the right stretch of road. Plus, if you want to have a bit of fun, you flick it down a couple of gears and get the motor up into VTEC for that extra bit of kick.

The first stop on our trip had us looking at a lifeboat in Colac Bay that was recovered from in Foveaux Strait back in 2012. It made national news back then and appeared to have fallen off a Greek bulk shipping carrier, although nobody actually knows when.
Since my last visit, a few years back, it’s now been turned into accommodation – and they’ve added an outdoor kitchen back in November 2017. As you can see from the photos, it’ll sleep a few people. A unique place the spend the night, I’m sure! You’ve got to sign the guest book if you stay. Feel free to check out their Facebook page.

It looks out onto the ocean too, which is a nice bonus. Dad, Ryan & his girlfriend, Loren are pictured.

Our next stop along the trip was a small seaside village, called ‘Cosy Nook’. Cosy Nook was once a bustling trading centre and had boats coming in and out in the 1700s. Now it’s a tiny little village with only about 3 or 4 cottages. If you drive to the end of the lane, you can park you car and climb up a little hill behind to get some decent photos.

Ryan was kind enough to let me take the wheel from here and I got to take the car for about the next fifty kilometers of the twisty stuff. The little 1.8 was eager to rev out and kept us comfortably at the speed limit. The steering wheel is superb and with a decent rake/reach, means you can get it comfortably where you need it.

The next stop was Monkey Island. I’ve visited before, but never been able to actually get onto the small island as the tide has always been in. The mainland around here is open to freedom campers and since we’re in the middle of summer, there were heaps of tents, caravans and campers around the area. We climbed to the top and I managed to snag a few photos.

From here, we journeyed on and stopped at Orepuki Beach Cafe for some lunch. The place was humming with visitors on a warm Saturday and we all had a decent feed. As you can see in the pictures below (credits to TripAdvisor & Google Maps), you can see the place before it was turned into a great little cafe. The first picture was from 2010.

Ryan’s pretty rapt with his new car and plans on keeping it for the next decade. No doubt it’ll appear on here many times over the coming years.

Stay tuned next week, as I depart on a 3,000-odd kilometer roadtrip to my cousin’s wedding!

Fiesta Kilometers:

Being the middle of Summer in New Zealand and having a few days off work after the Christmas and New Years break, we decided that we’d catch up with Robbie & Nathan who were staying at the Alexandra Camping Ground.

With a leisurely start, we left home around half eight and headed to Alexandra via Gore. It was a pretty sedate trip, as during the holiday break there’s a zero speed tolerance enforced by the police – which is to try and reduce the number of fatal road accidents during these periods. I found it mildly entertaining that when driven gingerly, the Fiesta will happily consume a measly 5.3L per 100km.

After arriving, we caught up with Nathan & Robbie for a bit and then Nathan whipped up some burgers on the BBQ for lunch.

Once we had finished lunch, we jumped into his Prado for a bit of off-road exploration. The last time we went off-roading was last year when we visited the southern arm of Lake Manapouri.

The destination was Fraser Dam, which is easily accessible at this time of year if you have a car with all-wheel-drive and decent ground clearance. Once you’re on Fraser Dam Road, you just keep following the road and it leads directly to the Dam. Easy!

Completed in 1937, the Fraser Dam was constructed as part of the Earnscleugh Flat Irrigation Scheme. As Alexandra and surrounding areas in Central Otago get such dry summers, the Dam was created as a catchment to hold water and release it off to the farms and properties when required. The concrete structure pictured above is 32m high and 137m in length. The catchment area of the Dam is 119km².

This summer has also been another very dry summer and if you look at the Lake-side image below you can see the marks where the Lake would usually sit.

We then jumped back into the Prado and circled the outside of the Lake, to see the other side.

On this side of the Lake, there are a few walking/hiking trails that are open to the public, however, it was far too hot when we visited and we were much happier inside the Prado with the air conditioning running!

Heading out on the same stretch of road, we stopped to check out the spectacular view of Alexandra.

After we got back to the camping ground, we were back into the Fiesta and went home via Frankton – calling into my favourite Ice Cream shop in Arrowtown for an afternoon snack.