Monday 5th September
The time had come to leave the comfort of Valerie's nice warm house and, more importantly, the company of Rodney. We'd done the majority of the packing the day before, so we just had a few things that need cramming into the car. Our plan for the day was to be up bright and early, grab breakfast, feed the horses and then take Rodney for one final walk. The weather didn't help out though. We'd heard it raining for most of the night, so weren't surprised to find it still doing so when we woke up. When 10 o'clock came round and it was still pouring, we knocked the walk on the head and packed the remaining few items instead. We'd said our goodbyes to Valerie before she went to work, and we'd pretty much agreed that we would be back in February to wwoof again. We just had to deal with Rodney now. We'd only put him in his cage twice whilst we'd been staying there and both times were right at the beginning, before we knew he was so comfortable in a car, so we felt slightly bad having to do it again. He did have an incentive to go in there though. Valerie had told us that there was a frozen rabbits foot in the freezer, so we tried to soften the blow by popping that in there for him to chew on. Despite the draw of rotten rabbit, he still went in very reluctantly and the look on his face when we closed the gate was heartbreaking, we assured him we would come and visit again though. We said our goodbyes and left him to his rabbit. By this time the sun had come out, which was typical but it would make for a pleasant drive to our destination. We were headed to Wanaka, a town we'd stopped by on our way to Arrowtown, which was only an hours drive north from Queenstown. We used the same route we'd driven when we had gone to cross country skiing and the contrast this time from that was huge. Back then there had been snow covering everything, this time, you'd be forgiven for thinking it was midsummer. We got to Wanaka by 2 and hunted down the campsite. Another difference from our precious time camping was that we didn't get laughed at when we said we wanted a tent pitch for 3 nights, we just got a sure and a map. With the tent up and ready for the night, we decided to walk in to town to pick up a few bits and bobs from the supermarket. It was a beautiful day out and Lake Wanaka was glistening in the spring sunshine. It was a pleasant walk to town and back and when we returned, we enjoyed the final few moments of sun sat out on our camping chairs. It was back to cooking our own dinner from here on in. No steak, no chops, no salmon, in fact, probably no meat for the majority of dinners, in order to save a few precious pennies. We still reckon you can't go wrong with veg, rice and salami though.
Tuesday 6th August
Our first night back in the tent for almost 2 months wasn't as cold as it had been that last time but it was still chilly, once more the sleeping bags proved their worth though. With not much to do at night, we'd gone to bed fairly early, so we were up about 7. After a freshen up and some porridge to fuel us, we went to the reception for a quick enquiry. We'd spotted a walk that sounded really good, there was a small catch though (and that wasn't including the swing bridge that Charlotte wouldn't cross in a million year). The road to it was tar sealed for 20k’s and then unsealed (dirt or metal road as they call it over here) for the final 30k’s. Still that wasn't too much of an issue. The problem was that that unsealed road forded 9 (yes, nine) streams. Had our car been a 4x4, or at least a larger model, we would have been confident and gone in all guns blazing. Instead, Olga, as we've taken to calling her, is very low to the ground and already has half her front bumper hanging off. We thought we'd get a locals opinion on the matter from reception. They didn't seem confident either. Their same worry was how low our car was. The least we could do was go and check out the first ford. It was a stunning drive up the Matukituki valley and the majority of the unsealed section was through farmers fields, with stock everywhere. The dirt track and numerous cattle grids gave the car a fair old beating and then we came to the ford. Immediately we were sceptical. There had been very heavy rain all day Sunday and most of Monday morning and it had clearly had an effect on the creek. Add to that, with a mild Spring so far, the snow melt had already started with a vengeance, also contributing to the output. We watched a couple of 4x4s go for it and make it look easy but with old Olga as our only method of transport for the next 6 months, we just felt it wasn't worth the risk. We both agreed had it been a rental car, we would have thrown caution to the wind and ploughed on but it's different when it your own car and its vital to your existence. We agreed that when we came back down that way in February we would risk it, as we would have done most of our driving by then, with Valerie just down the road to come and rescue us if anything went awry. We turned around and headed back towards Wanaka, avoiding the flock of deer that were being herded by the farmer in his van. Still keen to do a walk, when we got back to town, we pulled over and picked a couple out of a booklet we had. The first one was up Mt.Iron, which is just in the outskirts on town. It was a fairly short but steep track up the side of the mountain and had great views across Wanaka and the lake. There were a few families sat up the top having a picnic but we had no food to eat, so we walked back down the other side to the car. After arriving at the next walk, we sat in the car for a few minutes and had some lunch. The second walk followed the bank of the Clutha river to its outlet from Lake Wanaka. There was a few good places for a photo along the way and we stopped to watch the jet boat whizz by a couple of times before returning to the car. With what had been a fairly busy day we drive back to the campsite and relaxed in the sun for a few hours. Whilst sunning ourselves we got a few unwelcome visits from some little blighters that we hadn't crossed pathways with in a while. Small sandflies have a bite that really sting and the blemishes they leave itch like hell. We hadn't been looking forward to meeting them again. With the west coast to come, where sandflies are prolific, it was only going to get worse. We were trying something a bit different for dinner tonight, as we had picked up a pack of make your own soup that we were going to add some pasta to in order to bulk it out a bit. After waiting over an hour for it to cook, we served up something that looked like it wouldn't have been out of place in a prison. It did fill a hole though after we polished it off.
Wednesday 7th July
We had a rather wet and windy night in the tent. The forecast had said we were due a blast from the south and it certainly started to begin overnight. By the time we'd got up and out of bed, the rain had stopped, the wind dies down and there was blue sky outside. We still didn't get our hopes up, as it wasn't due to really hit until the afternoon and overnight. We still wanted to get in to Wanaka, so had breakfast, did some washing and headed out. We parked up in a car park on the lake front, grabbing the brolly out the car, just incase. Along a pathway on the lake front, there was a timeline of tiles. The tiles started from year 0 through to year 2000 and were placed to celebrate the millennium. We wandered all the way along, trying to learn a small bit of history. The dates didn't really stick but we remembered that the first toothbrush was used in China. It took us almost 2 hours to walk and read the whole timeline and by the end, we were starting to get peckish. First though, we wandered to the local national park visitor centre and picked up a booklet on walks in the next area we were visiting. On the way through to the car, we picked up a few items from the supermarket and then drove back to the campsite for lunch. Finally, after years of trying, I managed to get Charlotte eating peanut butter and also got her to find the delight of peanut butter toasties too. After refuelling and a quick sit down in the light drizzle we were back off out to Wanaka’s most visited tourist attraction. Puzzling World contains, what was, the worlds first 3D maze as well as various illusion rooms and optical trickery. We started at the maze. The goal was to either visit the four different coloured corners in any order, or find them in a certain order. The first option could take 30-60 minutes and the second 60-90. Initially, we went for the harder option but after finding what would have been the second corner to find on the harder option, we gave up and went for the easy one. Finding the corners was pretty east and only took us about 10-15 minutes, it was remembering and finding the route back to the start that was the hard bit. After a a while, we started seeing the same faces again and again. Us, as much as them would follow one another thinking that they knew they way out, with it generally ending up in a dead end. Typically, the route out was the final one we could have checked, with it seeming everyone we had been following had found it ages before us. From the exit, we visited the toilets, which had a funky Roman toilet illusion at their entrance. After that came the illusion rooms. The corridors were filled with various optical illusions that would change depending on the angle you stood at. There was also a room set at a 15° slant that had fixtures that made water look like it was flowing uphill. Further on there was a concave face room, which gave the illusion that all the faces were watching you as you walked around the room. They just seemed to keep going with a room that was supposed to show somebody getting taller but Charlotte and I couldn't really see it. After the floating tap, the floating bench and 6 legged elephant, we were plopped out into the café/souvenir/game room, where we spent half an hour or so trying our hand at various small mind puzzles that had been left on the many tables. Unsuccessful at all of them, we gave up and headed to face another chilly and wet night in the tent. Dinner was a slightly more solid affair, with a nice and easy vegetable stir fry. We put off going to the tent, although it was probably the warmest place, as we were fed up with going to sleep at 8 o'clock every night.
James and Charlotte
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