Another road trip

Von Gruff

Von Gruff

KNIFE MAKER
Away up country again tomorrow. Be an hour to the city where Lyne has an appointment then we hit the road about mid day and will probably do the 7 hr run to Springs junction where we will stay the night and the following day do the 3+ hours into Nelson where I have 6 knives to deliver at lunch time (the two chef and 2 boner wedding knives) and then the daggers to the gunshop owner who may look at a few more that I will have with me. Stay in Nelson the night and over the hill to Blenhein on Thursday where I want to catch up with the NZ Walnut outlet and take Lyne round some of the cemetaries to search out old relatives then home by the new Kaikoura highway that has been rebuilt after the massive earthquake damage a few years back. When we came back down that way last may it wasnight and raining so we saw nothing and it is apparently a superb road now round the serious rock cliffs down the coast. May have another night on the road and be home friday with a lot of miles on the truck.
 
8.30pm and just pulled into a motel for the night. Got as far as Murchison so 745km behind us. This will allow for a leisurely trip from here on. Just 140km into Nelson in the morning to deliver the first knives
 
A day of diverting knives today with 7 in new hands. Most of the day spent in the Nelson area and this evening over the hill to just out of Blenheim. Camped up for the night with another 260km behind us. Couple of nice pics to post when I get home. Will be in to see NZ Walnut in the morning and chase up 2 cemeteries where Lynes people are burried(gg grandparents). They came here in 1840,s and got a pic today of the rock that the ship ran into leaving the harbour and sank.
 
You are going to love the walnut I got from NZ Walnut supplies this morning but it has bee a long day with another 820km on the truck so am a bit too tired to download the pics tonight. 9 knives lighter than when I started out 3 days and 1825km's ago
 
This is a few of the pics I took. The route I took was up to Christchurch and over the Lewis pass to Murcheson where we spent the first night. This was a big drive and I needed to get to this first nights stopping place so we would be able to make the trip into Nelson the next day so having been been this way with many pics taken and shown last may I didn't take any more on this trip.
The next day was much more relaxed so this is a couple taken on the run into Nelson
There was quite a bit of low lying mist round the hills which looked rather good.
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A derelict old homestead
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On the road round the harbour into Nelson there is this rock and small Island and this rock is what sunk the Ship after it dropped my Wifes ancestors off in 1840. Not sure if it was a storm or another cause of the ship going onto the rock but in calm water it is a relatively benign looking part of the harbour that was used then.
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I delivered a number of knives in the morning and caught up with the owner of the gunshop up there who carries my knives and left a few more with him then we headed over toward Blenheim and stayed the night in a cabin at a roadside camp ground with roadside being the operative word as there was an almost constant stream of traffic for most of the night and while I sleep easily (at least for the first few hours most nights) my wife does not so had a restless night but was delighted next morning when we found one of the cemetaries where we found over 20 of here ancestors burried so took lots of pics of the headstones for her records. Then it was out of town a bit to see Brian at NZ Walnut supplies http://www.nzwalnut.co.nz/
I have corresponded with Brian a lot over the years through the purchase of 35+ blanks for the rifle stocks I have made so it was a real pleasure to finally meet him and see the extent of his blank stock on hand.
A manlicher blank out for parceling up for a buyer
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Some lower grade two piece banks
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This is some of the grade 3 and under blanks with a the upper grades selected and in pidgeon holes on the right. Here Brian is sorting out some pieces knife handles for me in trade for a knife
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And this is what I bought home with 3 pieces that were 1/2 inch thick with the rest being over 2 1/2 inches thick
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After leaving the walnut supply we headed down the Kaikoura coast toward Christchurch as it was dark and raining last may when we came down and we saw none of it. A very slow trip as there was so many sections of road work to repair after the devestating earth quakes and it will be some time yet before they are finished.
Much of the rail link and the roadway had been inundated with literal hillsides that had shaken down over them and wit the rolling of the ground in the quake there had been a 6 meter rising of some of the seabed which exposed a great deal of the shellfish beds and destroyed the seal grounds etc with so much of it being changed forever.
Some of the newly constructed road that is two way even if it is very slow speed (30kph is under 20mph)
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An area where great part of the hillside had slipped with millions of tons of spoil having to be shifted before the roadway could be repaired. The roadwork crews were doing shiftwork to keep going 24 hours a day and are still doing so.
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Part of the seabed that had risen up
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Looking away down the coast toward Lyttleton
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Sweet ! It's nice to know folks like that.:) that's some beautiful countryside you have out there.
on a sad note, I just saw on the news here in the U.S how that wack job that did the shooting there made the politicians there start to just throwing down gun laws real quick. :confused: that was awful what happened but it seems to me like a knee jerk reaction.
I know you hunt a lot, so I was thinking of you when I saw that on tv tonight.
 
Much of it is still one way and controlled by stop go minders as the work continues
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Another area of massive rockfall that now has stacked gabien baskets with top skirting to prevent further (light loose rocks) falling onto the roadway
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A closer look at the retaining work
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One of the new tunnels. The one on the right is the rail tunnel while the one on the left is the first of the new tunnels and caters only ti the upstream traffic. The third one is where we are headed and is for the downstream traffic but I missed the opportunity to get the three in the one pic as there is no stopping unless directed to so I had to take the pics on the ove and sometimes I was just busy enough negotiating the roadway and wasn't always able to take pics as and when I wanted and if one was missed then it couldn;t be retaken with lots having to be deleted because of movement of either the vehicle or my hand causing them to be too blurry to keep.
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So what should have been normally expecting to take about 2 1/2 hours took us nearly 6 but it was worth that to see it all.
 
bladegrinder said:
Sweet ! It's nice to know folks like that.:) that's some beautiful countryside you have out there.
on a sad note, I just saw on the news here in the U.S how that wack job that did the shooting there made the politicians there start to just throwing down gun laws real quick. :confused: that was awful what happened but it seems to me like a knee jerk reaction.
I know you hunt a lot, so I was thinking of you when I saw that on tv tonight.
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Yes it is sad but I refuse to allow the evil dominate and yes the feelings based reactions are to show "they" are doing something even if it is only going to impact the law abiding shooter who was law abiding anyway
 
Great photos! I dream of going on a trip to the USA. But at first I couldn't do it because of lack of money and then the pandemic started. Travel is not safe right now. Especially such distant ones. But I am sure that one day I will still see the Grand Canyon and the countryside of the USA. In the meantime, travel by train has become the main way for me to distract myself from what is happening in the world. I am getting acquainted with interesting places in Europe. By the way, it turned out that there are many interesting and unusual places even near Vienna.
 
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