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As always our Spring holiday destination was determined by Niall's Football! Again he was selected toplay in the Nelson area team (U15) to play in the South Island Championship. This year the competition was held in Timaru south of Christchurch. It was 3 days of non stop football supporting but we all had great fun. The other football parents are a great bunch and we are all getting to know each other quite well, even although we only seem to get together once a year when the boys are playing together in the football team. The team did pretty well but were disappointed to come runners-up yet again, beaten by points by Cantebury the Christchurch team.
After spending a few days in Timaru, we headed inland to Otematata in South Cantebury to spend the rest of the week relaxing and exploring. Otematata was built in 1958 as a base for the construction of the Aviemore and Benmore Dams. At the time Otematata was a flourishing town, with a single men's accommodation area, family housing area, shopping area, cinema, library, recreation halls, sports pavilion and playing fields, a High School and Junior School, a permanent village for ECNZ, an industrial area and a maternity hospital. The village had more than 60 clubs, representing nearly every social and sporting activity. Its quite different now! It is very much a village of holiday homes which are only really occupied during the peak season in January. I think we saw even less people around than we saw in Collingwood during our winter holiday! Five this time - and 2 of them were the rubbish men!
Lake Benmore covers an area of approximately 75 km². Its quite amazing to see photographs of the area before the dam was build in 1958. The dam is the largest earth-filled water-retaining structure in New Zealand. Its core is impermeable clay-like gravel, supported by two massive shoulders of river gravel. Benmore Power Station is the second largest hydro station in New Zealand.
