Rivendell – Home of the Elves

Last weekend when we were camping at Kaitoke Regional Park we went for a walk around Rivendell.  This area was used by Peter Jackson when he was shooting his Lord of the Rings series.  These days, it is a pretty little walk through the bush and down to the river, with plenty of information panels to tell the story of the filming.

On the way to Rivendell

There were plenty of information to read as we slowly walked around the area.

Information panels about the filming

The native bush is beautiful here, and smelt so fresh after the rainfall.  You could almost imagine the elves hiding behind the trees.

The Archway is dedicated to all fans of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.  Although similar in style to the one seen in the film, this version is half size.  It was built as a reminder of the movie set removed after the filming was completed.

The Archway, dedicated to fans

From here, Frodo and the Fellowship walked through the arch to begin their quest on the way to Mordor.  “Do we go left or right?” he asked Gandalf.

This is such a mystical place, no wonder tour buses full of fans still come in their droves to soak up the atmosphere.

Camping at Kaitoke Regional Park

It’s been a while since we have stayed here, and Kaitoke Regional Park is just as lovely as ever.  Nestled against the foothills of the Tararua Ranges, the area of the park covers almost 3000 hectares.  As well as the gently undulating grassy picnic and camping areas, the park is made up of steep bush clad hills covered with centuries old forests.  Rimu, rata, hinau and kamahi grow in the fertile river flats, red beech grows on the lower slopes, while black beech forests grow on the higher spurs and ridge tops.  We decided to camp here for the night, continuing on our way tomorrow to our Caravan Rally weekend at Clareville, driving over the Rimutaka Hill to the Wairarapa. 

Plenty of room at Kaitoke

There is no shortage of native birds in such a wonderful environment, such as tui, piwakawaka (fantail), kereru and silver eyes which are everywhere in the bush and quite easy to see.  The shy New Zealand bush falcon thrives in the hilly areas, so we read, but would be much more difficult to spot.  We had a more mundane bird sighting when our campsite was invaded by a whole posse of mallard ducks as they waddled slowly by to nibble at tasty morsels in the grass.

Mallard ducks out to lunch

This camp uses a self registration system.  We filled out the registration card and displayed it in the caravan window, and placed our overnight fees of $6 pp in the envelope provided to feed into the Iron Maiden.

  Paying our fees

Kaitoke Regional Park is the water catchment area to supply water to the Wellington Region.  As well as the camping and picnic areas available, there are a number of easy walks in the park, and a couple of tramping tracks for the more adventurous.

Map of the Regional Park

Water, toilets, BBQs, kitchen and a sheltered picnic area is available for the campers.  No rubbish bins though, it is strictly pack in and pack out.

Large kitchen and toilet block

Other campers arrived during the day, parked their vans and set up their tents here and there.  With plenty of room and several large camping areas available, we can hardly see them.  Geoff and Eileen arrived in time for a late 4zees, and parked up beside us.  We welcomed them with the offer of a cuppa.    So it was two coffees for the ladies and two mugs of beer for the blokes.  Geoff had a special brew he was keen to share – very tasty, was the verdict.

Settling in for the evening.

Going, going, gone!

Muffy found the cold wet weather conditions last weekend away in the caravan not at all to her liking.  We had enjoyed many weeks of very hot weather, and she was now sporting her much lighter summer coat.   No problem, to keep warm, she just took herself to bed.  First she had to loosen the duvet which was tucked under the pillows. 

It must be warmer under here, she seems to be thinking, as she burrowed even deeper.

Making herself comfortable, she turned around, with just her head sticking out.  That’s better, I’ll just have a little snooze under here for a while while I warm up.

Good thinking Muffy.  You can rely on a cat to look after themselves and their comfort.  

Designers to Royalty

It may have been an extremely wet weekend away at Kaitoke Regional Park but at our get togethers in the evenings under the awning and gazebo combination we were kept  busy designing for royalty.  Firstly, in honour of the upcoming royal nuptials between Wills and Kate, we were asked to design a head-dress suitable for the big day.  No gold, silver and precious jewels for us to work with, all we had was an assortment of coloured pipe cleaners.  But we rose to the occasion and produced a range of wedding headgear with Kate in mind.  No doubt she will be impressed with our efforts on her behalf.

Head dresses suitable for the royal wedding

The following evening the weather was still wild and woolly and the river just over the back from our camp sites was running alarmingly high.  We kept glancing nervously out the windows to check on the river level in case we had to move our caravans quickly away from danger.  That didn’t happen, thank goodness.  Our task for this evening was to design and make a wedding dress to go with our head-dress.  Once again, we were working with alternative materials.  Kate would probably have a gown made with the finest silk, and we had to make do with crepe paper held together with pins and staples, with just a ribbon or two for decoration.  With much hilarity, different styles of wedding gowns evolved.  Because Kate has such nice slim legs, my dress was a mini, with dainty shoulder straps, set off with a golden bow.  Elegant and uncluttered, that was our working brief!  I had modified my head-dress and added a short veil, just the thing for a wedding.  One of our group told me that I looked just like Queen Victoria, and not at all like Kate!  Surely not?

Kate or Queen Vic?

A couple of male models joined us on the cat walk to show off their wedding finery too.  Let’s hope that we have given Kate a couple of ideas on what to wear on her big day.

  Pamela, Jenny, Bill and Peter all dressed for a wedding

And the rain kept coming down

Wellington Anniversary Weekend meant a three day weekend  to enjoy with our caravan club friends at Kaitoke Regional Park.  This was not too far away, some miles north in rural Upper Hutt.  Being January, we were expecting nice warm weather.  After all, we have had several weeks of hot, muggy weather.  But no, what we got were three days of rain.  It started off quietly enough on Friday, with just a light drizzle. 

Misty hills at Kaitoke

It is a very pretty area  at Kaitoke, and the tenters were out in full force.  Cars of families arrived on Friday afternoon, to pitch their tents and take advantage of the last week of the school holidays.  Lots of children and dogs were running around in  the light rain, while the Dads started erecting tents, banging in the pegs to keep the guy ropes tight.  As our group needed somewhere to sit together under cover, Don had arranged to bring his caravan awning along.  With a bit of help, it didn’t take too long to put the awning up.

Up goes the caravan awning

To make it even roomier, we had brought along our gazebo.  This folds up like an umbrella, so needs people on each corner who then walk out extending the legs as it opens up.  The gazebo was placed right up to Don’s awning and the legs roped down  in place.

Then the gazebo is joined to the awning

What about a few walls to keep us warm and dry?  No problem, a bit of Kiwi ingenuity soon had the walls sorted.  Out came a couple of large blue tarpaulins, and some rope, and before we knew in, the walls were in place.

Walls are added

We needed something to hold the tarpaulins down.  Out came the thinking caps again – why don’t we use rocks from the river?  They worked a treat, able to withstand the winds as they increased over the weekend.

River rocks to hold it down

As the weekend wore on the rain kept falling, the wind got up, the grass was saturated, and the adjacent river to our camping spot turned into a churning brown monster. We were quite worried as we listened to the news of flooding in other areas around the country, and kept a watch on the water level.

The gentle stream turned into a raging river

Many of the tenting families packed up and left on Sunday morning.  It must be quite miserable in a tent in such bad weather.  Luckily our caravans were warm and dry and we had our awning and gazebo arrangement to socialise in.

Our spot at Kaitoke

The ranger came every night to collect the rubbish.  “How high will the river rise?”, we asked him.  He had only been working at this park for a few weeks so didn’t really know.  But he related the expected rainfall each day as he called by, and told us he would leave the gates unlocked at night, just in case we had to evacuate our sites.  That was not necessary, thank goodness.  As often happens on wet weekends away, by the time we got home, the sun had finally came out.  Never mind, rain or not, we always have fun when we go away.

Then the Sun came out again

After a wild night with the Southerly Buster bringing chaos to the Wellington Region, we woke to a calm if rather damp morning. Tendrils of mist caressed the trees in the surrounding valleys and it looked like we were going to get nice weather for the weekend after all. By Saturday morning our group of seven caravans and one motor-home were parked onsite ready to join in the fun of our non power rally at Kaitoke Regional Park. It was nice to have two couples from the Wairarapa Caravan Club join us for the weekend.

A misty Kaitoke morning

Tents with family groups were dotted around the grounds. We came across this family with their sleeping bags hung out dry. They must have had an extremely wet miserable evening in all that torrential rain which fell the previous night to have so much bedding hanging on the clothesline.

We had a special celebration on Saturday afternoon. Robin as President did the honours and presented Geoff and Eileen with their 200 Rally badges. It was certainly very clear from their surprise that they did not realize this rally was such a special one to them. As they remarked, “it sneaked up on them”. Congratulations to you both – may you have many more rally weekends away with the Caravan Club.

Robin presenting the 200 Rallies bars – what a surprise!!

After a BBQ meal in the evening, Peter and Elaine had organised a challenge for us. Our task was to pick out a word from the dictionary and see if anyone could guess the meaning. Not an easy task – just how many words are there anyway in a dictionary? As to be expected from our mob, the words chosen were all rather obscure. There was certainly no use in picking easy ones now, was there? We now know that a Janizary is a Turkish foot-guard, a glume is a husk of grain, and a plastron is a steel breast plate! All this new found knowledge may well come in handy one day while doing the crossword.

Secret men’s talk around the barbeques

We all enjoyed a nice leisurely Sunday morning with some of the more energetic going for a bush walk, or trying a spot of fishing in the Hutt River. Or like me, just chatting and enjoying the lovely weather. All too soon it was time to pack up. We had taken along our gazebo for a bit of shade, and it was a six man operation to take it down. It needed one man on each corner and two in the middle. Everyone had to slide their poles up, then walk into the centre.

The gazebo folded up rather like an umbrella, but it is next to impossible to do it on your own.

How many men does it take to fold up a gazebo?

Technorati Tags: Kaitoke Regional Park,camping,caravan club

Southerly Buster Wrecks Havoc

It’s only been a week since we were last away in the caravan but Friday couldn’t come quickly enough for Robin. There is no doubt about it - he really enjoys his caravan rallies. It was just a short trip of 15km to our destination and we arrived at Kaitoke Regional Park to find two other caravans already set up. This lovely park is set in the water catchment area of Upper Hutt and is surrounded by hills covered with dense native bush.

We all caught up with each other’s news as we sat outside in the sunshine. We kept an eye on the sky as we watched the dark clouds rolling in from the south. Flashes of lightening lit the sky followed by the crash of thunder. The surrounding trees started to thrash around as the wind picked up considerably. Oh oh, time to gather up our table and chairs and head inside, we decided, as the rain started to fall. Ping, ping, ping, hail stones rained down all around us, striking the cars and caravans. We had visions of the recent hail storm in Australia which had caused such a lot of damage. Luckily the hail soon stopped and then a deluge of rain started up.

The radio news was full of doom and gloom. A mini tornado had ripped off roofs, tore up trees and cut power to thousands of consumers. Thousands of Hutt Valley and Wairarapa train commuters were stranded when trees fell across the Hutt Valley rail lines. This storm was labelled the “Southerly Buster”, bringing with it winds of 130kmh and dumping a weeks worth of rain in two hours. The temperatures dropped 10 degrees within 10 minutes – no wonder I had to wear some woolly socks to bed! We were at a non power rally, so although we had lights, hot water, radio and refrigeration, we do not have heating when not on power. What a night! We felt sorry for those campers in tents close by.

RAIN RADAR: A Met Service image showing rainfall intensity at 6pm on Friday.