Change of Seasons

How was your winter? Let me tell you about mine.

The idea was that we – Miss Google, assorted animals (three cats and Audrey the dog) and I – would spend four weeks in a reasonably remote area of the Mackenzie Country called Ben Ōhau, 15 kilometres or so west from Twizel heading into the mountains. It ended up being exactly six weeks because Lockdown II arrived just as we were about to get back to civilisation. We hummed and haahed a bit and decided we liked it so much we stayed for the duration.

Miss Google had long harboured a wish to winter-over in a really cold part of New Zealand, so, short of the summit of Aoraki/Mount Cook or camping among the frozen peas in the freezer in the garage, staying in the cottage attached to Jason and Amy Menard’s property at Ben Ōhau was the answer.

But first, there was a little acclimatisation adventure – three nights’ winter camping, just so Ben Ōhau wouldn’t be too much of a shock.

We had already handled a mid-winter camping trip (see issue before last), so we knew what to expect. What we didn’t factor in was the 4WD system on the Nissan breaking down and leaving us with just rear-wheel drive.

We found this out while mooching near Lake Mahinerangi when heading for Lawrence from Ōamaru. We ventured towards the old cemetery down a road covered in about six inches of snow, but when things looked just a little too challenging we decided to get out – instead we got stuck! In reality, it wasn’t so bad. It was a glorious day, warm with clear blue skies and, had the worst come to the worst, we could have stayed there until the spring thaw! But, after an hour or so digging away with our small ‘toilet trowel’ we broke free and were back on the road. That first night was spent near Lawrence where it started to freeze at sundown and we awoke to sheets of ice on a small lake nearby.

Then we headed into Central Otago to get to one of our favourite places on earth –