Two drifters off to see the world. . .

Okay so we’ve been quite busy recently. We finished our time in Queenstown by visiting an old family friend of Sarah’s and having quite a pleasant BBQ at Mark Shearer’s place with his girlfriend Julia, and a couple of their friends. It was quite a pleasant evening, sitting on their front lawn and watching the sunset over the mountains and taking in their spectacular view over the lake.

The next morning, we puttered through town in the morning, and we found a new stereo system for Vanna (We’ve decided to just go with the name Vanna White - since we only got one response in the online vote). It’s a wicked system that runs of an old walkman, two AA batteries, and some tiny speakers we found at the Salvation Army. We started off with a Burton Cummings tape (that’s the only decent tape they had at the Sally Ann store), since the radio reception is bad once you’re outside any city. Since then Eero’s managed to get the car speakers wired into it, and we’ve found a 60’s golden oldies and a ska tape to keep us entertained. Nothing like riding in style for us.

After Queenstown we drove over a tight and windy road to the nearby small town of Wanaka on the huge lake by the same name. The whole area is right near the foot of Mt. Aspiring, but we were unable to see much due to the cloudy weather. Mark actually works in the area, up the road from the campground where we stayed, as a landscaper on Shania Twain’s new summer home/farm. Eero was hoping to catch some trout on the lake, which the area is known for, but was unable to on account of the rain.

The rain started in Wanaka and rain it did on our drive through the West Coast. We drove up and through the senic Southern Alps. We didn’t see much of the supposed spectacular mountains, since they were mostly shrouded in fog and clouds. We were teased with glimpses of the Fox and Franz Joseph glaciers, but we could only see a tiny part of them. The roads were again tight and windy, a theme for NZ we think, with pouring rain and some rickety bridges that crossed flooded rivers, and the frequent waterfalls which would be splashing onto the road due to all the rain. There were even a couple bridges that doubled as railroad bridges so we were driving along wet train tracks hoping a train didn’t come along.

We almost ran out of gas between Franz Josef Glacier and Hokitika, even though we thought we would have had enough to get there before leaving Franz Josef. We stopped in Harihari at the gas station, but discovered it was closed @ 6:30pm on a Tuesday. It apparently closes @ 5pm M-F and noon on Saturdays. But we were told that they will open for $20 so we knocked on their door and paid the money since we didn’t know if we’d make it the 46 km to the next town, Ross, where there may or may not have been a gas station, but there was no guarentee it was open either. As it turns out, the Ross station was open…oh well! We made it to Hokitika though and fillled up on gas that was 19 cents cheaper per liter and learnt a valuable lesson about making sure we have plenty of gas while driving through rural NZ.

The next day we went and made our own knives in Barrytown. We drove to Steve and Robin’s place and they demonstrated how to, and helped us through the knifemaking process quite a bit. We started out with steel bars (5×25mm hot rolled bar stock according to Eero), forged them in the fire, and then hammered them down with sledgehammers to harden and shape the metal. We then made handles for them using some brass, and rimu wood, which is a type of spruce local to the area. Not only that but the wood planks we used were originally milled in 1886 and used as siding for the old women’s mental institution in the area. We spent the rest of the afternoon shaping and sharpening our knives. We now have beautifully handcrafted, sharp knives that are really big. We then sampled some of the homemade champagne made by our hosts.

After knifemaking we drove up the coast to check out the scenic pancake rocks. They were nice, but apparently better at high tide. Plus it was still raining. We continued on and camped on a nice beach at Contant Bay in Charleston, where we were a curious interest to another of New Zealand’s flightless birds, the Weka. They’re a little smaller than the Kiwi, a bit less reclusive, and less nocturnal (preffering dusk and dawn). Thebird was running around our van and squacking from underneath it.

to be continued…

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