Off on our travels

Saturday 30th May: A warm sunny day. It would have been great to get the washing dry if we hadn’t been going away! By 11.30am we were packed and ready to leave home in the motorhome on our latest trip. We set off and were soon held up by a queue of …. A few hundred cows, moving about 2km down the State Highway (well, the only road!) from one field to another! (see photo of the last few stragglers). Today is "Gypsy Day" - the end of the dairy season - when cows are moved from pastures away from the milking parlours to winter on crops grown elsewhere.
We drove to Kurow, then turned and continued up along the dammed Waitaki River (photo) to Omarama, where we stopped for lunch.
In Omarama we filled up with fuel and I spotted a large sculpture of a sheep on the side of the road (photo). We turned left and drove through the Lindis Pass, a strange mix of yellowy-orange tussocks on the hillsides beside the road and snow-topped hills behind (photo). It was another hour before we saw evidence of humans again – a fuel pump (for locals), a café (for tourists) and a school (not sure who for as we hadn’t seen a house for an hour!) The three buildings of Tarras were soon behind us and we headed south to Cromwell, our first time here.We set up in the campsite and went for a short walk to a playground. As we walked along, Christine, the nurse at Steve’s surgery, drove past! Opposite the playground was a small and dilapidated home, and we chuckled when we saw washing on the line and a satellite dish on the front (see photo).
Back at the campsite the boys played in the playground right next to us and I cooked tea. We watched the DVD of ‘Shrek’ as a movie-night treat.