4 Wheels and Baby

With the end of the golden weather so comes the break for the ‘4 wheels and a baby’ team. We have decided to hibernate for the winter months and use this time to replenish our dwindling bank accounts by rejoining the real world and finding some jobs.

We have loved the last 50 days and have actually come to call the van our home, its hard to believe but we really do enjoy sleeping in the van bed, even little Fergus has grown to love his van tent.

As you can see from our blog’s map, we still have a lot of gaps left in the South Island to explore. We will be back at some stage.

We did achieve one of our goals, which was to get to the very south of the South Island. Our next goal is to get to Cape Reinga, which sits at the top of the North Island but this will have to wait till later on in the year.

Thank you to all of our four readers , I am sure you will find something else to help you get through those long days until our blog returns for the Northen leg.

See you soon,

Love the Bus.

My Dad is making me write this entry.

My Dad feels that he has an unjustified reputation has a poor fisherman. Throughout his life he has been labeled an inadequate angler however on the 13th of March he actually caught 2 brown trout !

Although undersized and thrown back, they were still trout. He would like the world to know that he is now a river casting specialist and has finally found his niche.

Unfortunately there is no photographic evidence but his son vouches for his honesty.

Now in the 9^th day of our awesome holiday and still no fish or gold have we discovered yet.   However, we still have time as we are heading from Hokitika today through to Shanty Town and we have all the gear, pick axe, buckets, scales – just kidding but we do have a gold pan all oiled and ready to go.

Briefly, we have had an amazing nine days, picking up our van in Christchurch, driving through to Rolleston on our way to see the Wrigley’s we stopped at the Rolls Inn for something to eat, however there was no food but Paul did manage to head dive down some steps in the Inn, while gazing around.   Lucky there were no broken ankles or arms and true to form I tried not to laugh too much.   Then onto  afternoon tea at the Lyn and Bill’s – lovely place and then on to Lake Tekapo where we stayed our first night.  Opened the back doors of our van and just soaked in the view.   Apart from the odd coffee spill and losing a couple of the precious browns we are managing the gypsy life quite well.   We now have a place for everything and as long as we both know where that is all is rosy.

Loved Queenstown where we met up with Keri, Paul and Fergus and enjoyed the wonderful hospitality of Keri’s brother, Antony.  Went up in the Gondola and Paul Snr came down in the Luge – he’s living dangerously!  From Queenstown we travelled out in a Steamboat to Walter Peak Station, an amazing old farm, stayed three hours, Devonshire tea…ing in the front of the homestead just gazing out over Lake Wakatipu.   Camped at 12 Mile Bay that night.   Little Fergie is an amazing traveler, just takes it all in his stride and striding he nearly is!

We headed for Arrowtown – another magic place and met up with the CEO of the Little Brown Kiwi Camp! – Paul and Keri’s friend, James (Jimmy).  Further on, on our way to Wanaka for the night we stopped for a drink at the infamous Cardrona Hotel – one of our highlights to date.   Not wanting to monopolise the Bene’s Blog I will adjourn now and return at another date to tell of travels to Glaciers, panning for gold, whitebait sandwiches and Wayne Baxter etc.   Take care until we converse again.

This week was a sad and a happy week. Happy because we had the first people join our convoy, my Mum and Dad. It was also sad because now that they have joined us it means that we have lost half of our blog readers. We also had our first guest stay in the campervan Antony, who was also our resident guide. We were also lucky enough to have a surprise visit in Arrowtown from the CEO of Little Brown Kiwi, Jimbo. This week was definitely a week of reconnections.

As much as we are loving the tour, we came across the first major annoying thing of the tour, no not queue jumping German tourists but the infamous West Coast sandflies. I am still unsure of what their purpose is on the planet.

Fergie had a little accident this week when he got so excited about his outdoor bath at Glendhu that he stood up and fell out, head first. It was quite an amazing feat as there were 5 adults standing around watching him.

There will be a guest blogger coming soon to offer a different perspective on the big trip so stay tuned.

Curio Bay is the home of New Zealand’s petrified forest, however when we visited we didn’t understand what was supposed to be so scary, we actually found it quite pleasant.  With fantastic scenery and wildlife, including Hector’s Dolphins and sea lions, Curio Bay is definitely a ‘must see’.

Purakaunui Beach offered us more spectacular scenery, with a blanket of golden sand beneath towering cliffs.  It couldn’t have been a more ideal place to camp until 6am in the morning when we were awoken by the fire brigade warning us that as a result of an earthquake in Chile,  a tsunami was due to hit the coast of NZ around 8am and we needed to evacuate the area and head inland.  With many other campers parked up, it was soon confirmed that Owaka was a safe spot to wait so we parked up in the Four Square carpark, set up the telly and we were kept up to date by the hourly news.

All in all a frightfully exciting couple of days.

We recommend Stewart Island to anyone and everyone.  We absolutely loved it! The golden weather, native bush and wildlife were truly amazing.

Although the township of Oban is tiny and pretty limited, the surroundings more than make up for the lack of variety in town. We caught a boat to the predator free sanctuary of Ulva Island for a beautiful forest walk through pristine native bush.  The place is teeming with native birds and loads of other wildlife. We saw wekas, saddlebacks, kerekus, penguins, parakeets and even a sea lion, which gave Ferg and Keri a warning charge for getting a little too close. Ferg was amazed by the wekas as you can see below.

They have a one teacher school here which I thought about applying to as I would finally be able to give myself the promotion that I deserve but the fact that it is so isolated and pretty expensive has put us off a bit, however I think I could live anywhere for a year as long as it had a good internet connection.

Before we make that decision I think that it would be wise to visit when the weather isn’t so pleasant.

We are almost as far south as we can go and tomorrow we’ll be leaving Myrtle for two nights as we cross Fouveaux Strait to our most southern destination, Stewart Island.  We have had a lovely week, driving from Queenstown to Lumsden, where we spent two nights with Michelle, Beacon and their beautiful kiddies before driving west with them to a gorgeous spot, called Mavora Lakes.  A night in the Mitchell’s crib (as they say down this way) located just a short wander into town meant Bene could watch the Hurricanes v Force Super 14 rugby before we were back in the van and making our way to Riverton.

Sleeping by the tote, waking up next to a racetrack and having a shower in the jockey’s quarters, certainly offered a new experience when we realized club members were able to camp over at Riverton Racecourse.  With a race day only once a year, it seems like a good way to keep the place ticking over.

Dave Dobyn, Bic Runga, Tim Finn playing together beneath the hills at Millsbrook, just out of Queenstown, a setting that couldn’t have been more picturesque for Fergus’ first concert.  While he slept through Che Fu and Bo Runga’s opening act, he was in fine form for the big gig and conveniently timed his feed, which was given in the comfort of the front seat of the St John’s Ambulance, during the break.  We are taking a break from the van and have been staying with Antony in Frankton since Saturday.  A few little jobs to do over the next couple of days and then we should be back on the road, heading a little further south.

We had our first really rough night last night. We pulled into the White Horse campsite at Aoraki (Mt Cook for the uncultured) to a beautiful blue sky with views of NZ’s tallest peak. We even took the little big man for a stroll around the national park area and then settled in to eat some fresh salmon for din dins.

While we were cooking our dinner, we watched all the hardcore campers trying to put up their tents ( we campervanners look down our noses at those types) in a slightly strong breeze. As it picked up a bit I decided to ignore ‘Red Wings’ protocol and  be a good sort and help out a couple who were struggling to make a tent erection. They turned out to be French and had not heard of the rainbow warrior and didn’t watch the famous semi-final.

Anyway during the night, huge winds and rains rocked our love bus, almost blowing us off our blocks and ripping the dish and panel off the roof! I couldn’t help but smile thinking of the poor tenters sitting there huddled together. They must have taken a real hammering because we were certainly taking a beating. Sure enough, in the morning the place looked like a giant had come through squashing and ripping canvas apart.

I think that the only person who had a decent nights sleep was Fergus, he slept like a baby.

A lot of people (Jimmy L) have been asking how we manage to look so clean and fresh almost like a cool mountain breeze, when we have limited access to washing facilities.

Well, the answer is simple. We store a big plastic container in the bathroom; we half fill it with water and a bit of Napisan and as we drive along the road it swishes around giving our clothes a good old fashioned tumble wash. It even gets those pesky, hard to remove, gold dust stains out of Fergies nappies.

Next weeks tip: How to reuse that dirty, gold dusted laundry water and make it drinkable !