A cold, wet day is no excuse not to get out and explore the country. Story and photo by David Coxon.
Careful planning of a one-day touring trip with my 4WD club meant that it fell on the one wet day in the three-day weekend. With half a dozen vehicles coming with me there was no opportunity to make any last-minute changes. Luckily the club has a “Rain or shine, hail or snow, we go” policy for most trips, so with no warning of major flooding or other problems the trip was on.
We were meeting at Martinborough Square, and with people arriving early for a café stop before the trip started there was no excuse for not being at the meeting spot on time. A large tree in the square provided good shelter from the intermittent rain for the formal check-in and briefing before we headed out on our adventure.
The low cloud and drizzle continued as we made our way on firstly sealed then well-maintained gravel roads through the ranges and down the Pahaoa River valley to the coast at Glendhu. Rather than the usual sunny views across the river flats, the scenery was primarily the ever-changing flow of clouds around the hills and valleys above us.
The perfect shot
I stopped a number of times to capture the shapes of the hills emerging from the clouds, with other people either getting out to enjoy the views or staying nice and warm in their cars while I struggled in the rain to get that perfect shot. Morning tea was planned for Glendhu, where there was a large, grassy pull-off area at the end of the public road. Of course as we approached the coast the rain, which had been a light drizzle the whole way now became a heavy, persistent downpour. A number of people braved the rain to socialise, but it was still a fairly short stop as the rain started penetrating supposedly waterproof clothing.
Murphy’s Law
Back in the cars, we had barely left the coast before the rain eased off again. Murphy’s Law at work again. A final stop to photograph the cloud-wreathed hills gave me the added experience of being the centre of attention for a whole paddock of curious cows. Being a city person I was glad that there was a fence between me and them. Then I discovered more cows watching me from the grass verge on my side of the fence on the other side of the road!
Rather than returning directly to Martinborough, we turned off at Hinekura to follow a rather remote road that was signposted as a back route to Gladstone. The first section, Moeraki Rd was a very pleasant run up a river valley before a bridge and a T-intersection where there was another sign for Gladstone to the left. Only about a hundred metres further on we reached a closed gate. Trusting that the sign for Gladstone meant that access was permitted, we carried on, leaving the gate closed behind us, and worked our way up into the hills over well maintained farm roads. Another gate at a T-intersection had us turning left again before a final gate took us onto a more public-feeling gravel road that we followed into a sealed Admiral Rd for a final run to Gladstone then back to Martinborough.
Afternoon delight
Our afternoon run was to Tora via White Rocks Rd, so we stopped for lunch at a clearing on the side of the White Rocks Rd, just out of Martinborough. The clouds had started lifting and it had finally stopped raining, making for a more pleasant social stop than morning tea. Expecting to need good lighting on the way home, I used the lunch break as an opportunity to pull out a newly discovered faulty headlight and re-attach the plug that had vibrated loose.
With lunch over it was an easy run down to Tora, without the scenic, cloud-shrouded hills we saw in the morning to give us an excuse to stop. Reaching the T-intersection at the coast, we initially headed south to the end of the road before returning and stopping on a grassy flat for afternoon tea.
As it had finally stopped raining we were able to take a bit more time, with people exploring the rocky shore and even finding some sea-snails for dinner. With evening approaching we did a final run up the coast northwards for a few kilometres to reach the locked gate before starting the run back to Martinborough.
We reached Martinborough as the winter evening closed in, and took the opportunity to get cheap fuel and clean the muddy headlights before the easy main-road run back to Wellington at the end of another somewhat damp but successful trip.
To read the full story in the August 2018 issue of NZ4WD go to Zinio.com (July 13) or purchase your own hard copy at the Adrenalin store.
