Over Labour weekend 25-27th October the club the club had several trips which were based from Ikamatua. Thats where the "only" petrol station advertises its pump prices as a "Arm and a Leg"

The follow trip reports are separated into each day

IKAMATUA, DAY 1
Date: 25/10/2008
Trip Leader: Bob Dickinson
Trip Report: Sandy + Wade Maisey

On the road from Nelson at 5.45am to meet up at Ikamatua for a 9am start.

Convoy of 11 headed away to German Gully. Plan A: to drive through Maori Gully Road to No Name Road. Woops - locked gate; Kevin’s unlucky day.....off to plan B = back down through Greymouth, past Shantytown and stop at Woods Creek for morning tea and a 45 minute walk around the old gold mining site.

Then off to Maori Creek Road. Woops again - locked gate. Plan C - off to No Name Road and lunch by a mudhole. How convenient for some.

A fairly narrow bush road took us back to join up with the main road and lovely drive through typical stunning Westcoast scenery. Hononu, Mitchells, Crooked River, Lady Lake, Bell Hill - scenic reserves.

On to river crossing at Kopara and after a tea stop, back to base.

Great coast weather. We may have been the only place in the country to have dusty roads over Labour Weekend.

Thanks to Bob, Jill + Kevin.

Great driving, Diane.

 TRIP REPORT: IKAMATUA, DAY 2
Date: 26/10/2008
Trip Leader: Bob Dickinson
Trip Report: Lex Bloomfield

As I paid for my accommodation at the Ikamatua Hotel, I glanced at an item in their local advertising newspaper. They had a page of This Week In History. It said that there was a falling off of the supply of whitebait in the year of 1904. This was a stark contrast to a year earlier (1903) when one whitebaiter buried fifteen kerosene tins of whitebait because of oversupply. Yes 15 tins, each holding 5 gallons of the lovely little critters.

As I sat eating a delicious whitebait sandwich for breakfast, in a Reefton Café on day 2 of our trip, my mind could not forget that in the year my father was born, the very year that Wilbur & Orville Wright managed to leave the ground on the first controlled power flight, some un-named fisherman was digging 75 FLAMING GALLONS of whitebait into the ground. That’s about 340 KILO of the stuff, which would have fetched about 51 thousand dollars over the counter in Auckland at the start of this year’s season. I figure it must be at least 3000 whitebait sandwiches. Hell, we could have a good feed on that at Waipuna caves, for that was where we were going for the day.

How disconcerting it was when someone noticed that it was a complete Toyota convoy for the day. How bloody depressing when they found two Jeep owners driving one. Yep, Harald at the wheel and me in my moonboot thanks to a snapped Achilles tendon. The ribbing, led by Jackson and Ken Banner’s "Cheek Distribution Center" was hard to carry but we knew that deep down inside they envied our green machines even when they were not going.

The day went off very well with usual wonderful drive down through the caves and lunch beside the river on exiting. The Canterbury Suzuki boys went on through while we ate, and it was nice to see they had used a bit of common sense, unlike our mob, and had taken a Jeep Wrangler along as a recovery vehicle. (Well that’s what Harald & I think it was for.) The short cruise out to the main road led us to Jim McMahon at the gate. On his way home from another trip he joined us, and yes, yet another Toyota.

The trip ended with another short excursion and a drink or two as we watched the NZ netball girls deal to Aussie. Now that’s what I call a good day, and it was topped off with me giving "Cuzzie" Chris Baird a bollocking on the pool table. The day before he gave me a hiding at darts, but lets face it, his tribe were always good at throwing sharp pointed objects.

A couple of Canterbury club members, John & Glen, were staying with us and Glen gave us a slide show, of their day out, on his laptop. Very interesting it was too, but not as interesting as the fact that he had forgotten his wedding anniversary. A brave man that forgets the important dates, and then scares the c**p out of his dearly beloved all weekend, four wheeling. Incidentally, John & Glen both have wives who are nurses so I think it is an even braver man who didn’t wear his moon boot in the pub that night. Man did they get on to my case. I hope they don’t know my doctor & I’m sure they must have been set up by my Linda to keep an eye on me.

An interesting fact. Over the weekend we had two groups in the area. There was one lot doing a private tough trip, and our lot. We all stayed & socialized together and it was a screaming success. As we are all from the same club why not do this more often, a joint shiney/tough trip each doing what they like best.

Did you know that in 1957 several Reefton & West Coast residents claimed to have seen the Russian Satellite passing overhead shortly after 8 o’clock at night? That was more from ‘This Week in History’.

This is Lex Bloomfield reporting for Nelson 4x4 trip news.
(A bit poofterish eh? But that’s how the professionals finish off.)

TRIP REPORT: IKAMATUA, DAY 3
Date: 27/10/2008
Trip Leader: Bob Dickinson
Trip Report & Photos: Jill Dickinson

Here is a photo essay of what happened on Labour Day on the Slab Creek track. Please view photos here. They start with "Filling in the ruts"

Our party of Bob, Kooze, Lex, Mountain Man and Neil had a most interesting time on a well-rutted track. Two spots required everyone to be winched up and at the top (two managed to drive the second obstacle - ed.), our vehicle had to change tyres because some wood or stones had broken the bead. However, all arrived safely in Reefton, some had delicious whitebait patties for lunch, others traveled on home. A great trip.