North 2 South & adventures in between.

After visiting my bro in Palmerston North we drove to Wellington, Josh thought it would be nice to camp beside the river in the Hutt and I naively agreed - it was so cold that night in the campervan, we had hot water bottles and 2 duvets but we both woke at 1am freezing and had to start the van to generate some warmth. Josh recovered rather well and woke bright and early to fish the river.

The following day we drove to Wellington & made a brief visit to the 'Beehive' and raced down to catch the 1pm ferry across the Straight to Picton. We had a calm crossing, even so it was pretty rough in the open ocean, I can easily imagine how rough that stretch of water gets - when you are in open ocean like that you feel the power of the sea for-sure and it makes you feel very vunerable.

We had arrived! The South Island - yipee. It reminded both of us immediately of Vancouver Island, cruising into the sound was beautiful, so scerene.

After spending the night at a neat little camp ground in Canvastown, we drove onto Nelson - I loved it. Situated by the water, it's the gateway to the Abel Tasman National Park which is a must for our next trip. However we continued onto our next stop Murchison. This small town, population 750 epitimises small-town, rural NZ, with a 4-Square (grocery store), a gas station & a Tourist Info centre (that was closed on weekends). We refuelled, ate and slept before heading off the following morning to Greymouth. And then onto Hokitika - where we ate Gold, not the metal but the fish - Whitebait. Ahh, so delicious!

Continuing on our drive, we ended up in Haast, we had not intended to stop here. But adventures unfolded.....................
As we were passing through the town I happened to point out to Josh 2 Huge Stags, he is a 'hunter-gather' and was overwhelmed with the need to stop and photograph these creatures. Josh swerved onto the side of the road to stop. He did not see that on the left hand side of the road was a wet, long grassed area. Before almost taking out the sign 'Thanks for visiting Haast" he came to a stop. I then got out of the passenger side and fell into the 'grass' area. I suggested to Josh that it might be best if he re-park the van higher up on the road. Josh proceeded to reverse further into the drop-off, by now the van is looking decidedly unstable. His words were 'I'll get us out of this", he maneuvered the van into a better position, and then attempted to drive out, well the tires starting spinning, the van started moving sideways and he yelled out 'Rachael push me", it must have been a comical sight, me behind this huge van legs out straining all my might to push this thing! After plan A went to crap, Josh thumbed down a local who said he would tell the local garage/mechanic we were in need of a tow. No more than 5 minutes later Edmond from the garage arrived, apologized for taking so long, and said 2 people had reported 'our situation' to him. Firstly checking we were Canadians (and not American imposters) he hooked us up and towed us out. Apparently, word spreads pretty fast in small town NZ, Ed (the mechanic) said talk was already circulating as to what had caused our predicament. Most people were betting it was The McDougalls' 2 stags, and when we confirmed this fact he roared with laughter. We know we were the talk of the town at the local watering hole last night. Too Funny. Those damn Stags!

Now we are in Wanaka - loving it.