Holiday: Day 23 – Timaru, where are you?

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6 05am: Hi there Followers. Happy Thursday. Thanks for keeping up with our adventures! 😉. We’ve just eight more days left here in New Zealand before heading back to Singapore.

Strangely, the BBC Weather Service hadn’t heard of Timaru, so this is the Weather Channel‘s forecast. Timaru, where are you? Still rubbish weather though! 🙄

Day 23 – Where are we?
(Thursday, 21st November)

7. 05am: Looking out of the window here in Akaroa, the weather is truly horrid! It has given the town a completely different feel to yesterday. It’s the heaviest rain we’ve seen since we arrived, so it was perhaps, a good day to be moving on! 🙄.

7.30am: Wal & Rhonda served us a yummy breakfast and we were soon ready for our journey ahead – and the infamous ‘super-twisty-turny’ route out of town! 😣

8.17am: It was time to move on and once we said goodbye to our hosts, we made a dash for the car attempting to dodge this special New Zealand variety of rain. The car told us it was just 7℃ outside (which ironically, is still warmer than home at the moment!). We’re almost ready, just the pre-flight check to complete…

Full tank? ✔️, Google Maps set for our next stop? ✔️, Ample supply of ‘car sweets’?✔️ Nerves of steel for the long stretch of hairpin turns ahead? ✔️. Ready? “Gentlemen, start your engines”.

It was another long trek where the route took us from Akaroa to Timaru – a journey of around three hours – around 200km (130ish miles).

We used the now familiar’ ‘SH75’ and ‘SH1’ where the scary part (you know, the twisty-turny exit road from here) was as stressful as ever. With the auto-box having an opportunity to ‘enjoy’ manual mode in short bursts, it was as perilous EXITING the town as it was ARRIVING! 😨😨. Not difficult enough? Today, it was still raining hard, adding to the challenge! The only thing that worked in our favour was that we were quite early, which meant no-one in front and no-one behind.

I never want to do that route again… EVER! 👎👎. But someone was smiling on us as the weather changed completely within the hour.

To break up the journey, we planned to stop in Ashburton. The Town was about two-thirds of the way to our destination and the route was as predictable as ever – cue large swathes of greenery, the occasional mountain with blue(ish) skies and roads filled with… not very much at all. It’s all relative of course, and we’ve noticed that the routes we’ve taken in this part of New Zealand ARE busier than other NZ journeys we’ve previously experienced.

Geographically, we’re in an area called the Canterbury Plains and it actually reminded of Lincolnshire with its appearance that the Earth IS really flat! 😉. Are we astounded by the vistas here in South Island? Politely: “Not yet!”. I’m sure when we get to Milford Sound, we’re going to wowed by the scenery, but so far, it’s all very nice, very spacious and very green, but I’m just beginning to find it all a bit… repetitive!

…and if I never see another cow again, I won’t be disappointed!

Just occasionally though, it all comes together to produce a view that’s unforgettable… like this one… and I wonder what I’m talking about (nothing new there then!) 😉

Enough of my ramblings – next stop? Ashburton.

10.18am: Ashburton has a population of around 21000, but I don’t know where they all were today – the roads were busy, but there was a distinct lack of people. Navigating to the ‘centre’ of the Town proved to be somewhat challenging, due to the lack of signage, where a few inspired guesses on our part failed spectacularly. In the end, we simply sought out some of the better-known landmarks of the town instead.

The Memorial

10.19am: Since we’ve been out here, we’ve been very impressed by the number of and quality of their War Memorials. Ashburton’s was unveiled in 1928 and lists 432 townsfolk who gave their lives.

The Courthouse

10.23am: Another immaculate building was the town’s Courthouse. It was opened in 2019 and built to replace the earlier courthouse and was opened on 3rd June 1938, by the Hon H.G.R. Mason, the then Minister of Justice. Today, it looked closed, so we didn’t investigate any further. Later, we learned that it was punishing the ‘crims’ as usual! 🙄

Art Gallery & Heritage Centre

10.30am: This one got our ‘find of the day’ award! Near the Courthouse, it offered free admission and was packed with history about the Town. There was also an Art Gallery and a pop-up exhibition about the demise of the local railway (nerds only!) 😉

…and if you ever wondered why there are so many sparrows in Canterbury, the Museum had the answer…

10.45am: After the Museum, we took a look around the Art Gallery. There wasn’t that much to see, and it wasn’t really my thing, but you couldn’t NOT be impressed by the level of detail and sheer scale of what had been created by Artist: Jenna Packer… 👍👍

TODAY’S TRIVIA: New Zealand was the first modern-day country ever to appoint an official National Wizard (yes, really!)

We finished our visit by taking a look at the pop-up exhibition lamenting the demise of the local railway network.

11.15pm: Onwards (and southwards) we were now heading for our final stop – Timaru. But what’s this? If some locations had FOUR seasons in a day… Ashburton had FIVE! If rain, sunshine, windchill and cloud wasn’t enough to confuse us since we left four hours ago, we now had HAILSTONES!

They arrived completely without warning, and we were thankful we were watching from INSIDE the car. Next stop? Timaru.

A change in the weather yet again – who would have believed we had a hailstorm a little earlier? 😯

12:19pm: Finally, here we are in Timaru! Boasting a population of around 30000, and I think most of them were out shopping – the town was buzzing!

TODAY’S TRIVIA: The origin of the name ‘Timaru’ is disputed. Some believe that it derives from Māori Te Maru, which can mean a ‘place of shelter’. However, other authorities allege that Timaru originates from a literal translation of the combination of tī, a cabbage tree and maru, meaning ‘shady’.

We parked the car in a space that gave an hour’s free parking and began to wander around the Town.

As I mentioned earlier, the Town was in rude health. All the shops seem to be benefiting from plenty of customers with only a few empty units seen. We stopped off for a quick coffee and pastry before continuing our wander and returning to the car minutes before our hour was up.

1.28pm: We finished our whistle-stop tour of Timaru Town but taking the short drive to look at the Sacred Heart Basilica. It was designed by the New Zealand architect, Francis Petre and for many, is considered one of his most celebrated works. Its size and appearance make it one of the most important historic buildings of Timaru and of the South Canterbury region.

Before I forget: Timaru is home to blue penguins (so popular, they have their own website HERE), but regular Readers of this Blog will already know, that I’ve not been that successful with Whale watching as a sport, so we didn’t even begin to look for these little beauties! Cute, ehh?!?!

Places we didn’t visit

Simple because of time, we didn’t get to visit the South Canterbury Museum; the Botanical Gardens and most important of all, yes, you guessed it, the numerous BREWERIES in the area (the list of hop-houses is HERE).

Driving in New Zealand – The SH75 and SH1 from Akaroa to Timaru

Road Name: SH75 & SH1
Condition: Very smooth in most parts
Lanes: Mostly single with occasional passing lanes
Terrain: Long stretches of very straight sections (but don’t mention the road in/out of Akaroa)
Scenery: Occasional mountain, generally VERY flat, Trees, Cows, Cows, Cows, Cows, Sheep
Filling Stations: 4
Roadworks: None
Driver Courtesy: Everyone seemed to obey the speed limit and no-one was in a hurry
Speed Limits: Mostly 80kph and 100kph
Police/Speed cameras: Two police cars – one unmarked/one speed camera (that we saw! 😲)
Total distance: 219 kilometres/136 miles
Total distance driven since we picked up the car: 1989 km/1236 miles

1.45pm: We’re staying overnight here in Parklands Motor Lodge. It may not have a sexy-sounding name, but it has all we need to throw a party – it even has a spare room! And at around £80 per night, it’s a steal. 👍👍

Tomorrow, after our very brief stay in Timaru, we continue southwards down South Island’s east coast for another 200km (120ish miles-ish) to Dunedin (South Island’s second largest city).

See you Friday! 👍