Merry Christmas, where did last year go to? It has been just over twelve months since we leapt into looking after Ashley Gorge Holiday Park and what a year it has been. We lurched from one disaster to the next in our first Christmas here, with toilets backing up and losing our house water. Assisted by sweet children turning of the toilet cisterns, we felt like we were chasing our tails. Eventually it settled down until later in January we had a visit from the Nor West wind and woke up to find most of our campers had packed up or thrown their tents away and were heading home. After we, with tremendous help from a wonderful family, cleaned up numerous truck and trailer loads of branches trees and rubbish from the park. We all settled down to a beautiful summer.

Then came the earthquake, we shook and rattled, but received very little damage. After ensuring all our children and grandchildren and extended family were ok, we spent the next 3 days glued to the television as the story unwound. Our sympathies are with the Christchurch people who are living with the destruction day by day. Last March we offered a get out of Christchurch cheap month, which we will be repeating again this year so check our website in February to see the details.

We headed in to Autumn and watched as the trees changed into their beautiful, red gold and brown coats. Then the maintenance started: Changing tables, rearranging kitchens, painting bunkrooms, painting the shop, painting the picnic tables. Spraying the weeds, spraying the spiders, pruning the trees, mowing and mowing and mowing.

The winter was very mild, so all the work I had put away for a wet day did not get done. Oh yes we had one small snow fall and one big snow fall but nothing like they got in Christchurch, so we joked with all the people who said, “You are going to be cold in Oxford in the winter.” We just lit the fire and carried on enjoying another phase of Ashley Gorge.

In July our park was used as a base for the search of a local Possum trapper who did not return from his trapping. While it added a little excitement to our lives, people coming and going, helicopters landing and taking off etc., our sympathies go to the family, to lose someone like that and not have the closure of finding a body must be devastating. At the same time we would like to give a great big pat on the back to all those who helped in the search. The conditions those people worked in were miserable and the land difficult to put it mildly, they were still able to walk in the gate at the end of the day tired but secure in the knowledge that they had done their best for the family.

Suddenly we were looking at spring and the park bloomed into bright green with a few touches of other colours when the Rhodos and Camellias flowered, the spring bulbs all popped up their head and the sun shone for days on end, we were gardening in our ‘t ‘shirts. With quite damp mornings and a few showers we were struggling to get the lawns mowed, but by the time the people started camping again at Labour Weekend and Show Weekend we had them pretty right. We do have a beautiful crop of daisies in the grass, sometimes it seemed a shame to mow the grass, but at least you could see where you had been.

We have been host to numerous school and youth groups who have used our bunkrooms or camped out and sometimes both. If the weather was good they were also able to go abseiling from a nice little site we have been allowed to use around off the Lees Valley Rd. The bunkrooms have also been host to a couple of quiet special birthday parties and a few group meetings. We have had weddings in the grounds. Quite a number of car clubs find Ashley gorge a good distance from Christchurch for the day or even to stay the night and have a bit of a social get together.

Now we are heading into another Christmas and looking forward to welcoming people new to the park and seeing our regular visitors once again. Whatever you decide to do this summer, have a great one.

Best Wishes from Jan and Dave Shelton.